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“He then took from his waistcoat pocket a little paper and glanced at the headings he had made for his speech. He was undecided about the lines from Robert Browning, for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers. Some quotation that they would recognize from Shakespeare or from the Melodies would be better.”
Gabriel must, as always, make a speech at his aunts’ annual dance. Well-educated and employed as a teacher, as well as their closest male relative, Gabriel seems the natural choice for the task. Here, the narrator explains how Gabriel feels concerned that his speech will make him appear ridiculous by seeming to show off his superior education. Gabriel worries about the opinions of others and even potential or unsaid criticism.
“I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country had no tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously as that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique as far as my experience goes (and I have visited not a few places abroad) among the modern nations. Some would say, perhaps, that with us it is rather a failing than anything to be boasted of. But granted even that, it is a princely failing, and one that I trust will long be cultivated among us.”
Gabriel makes a speech at his aunts’ party, a longstanding tradition which includes much food and drink as well as musical performances and dancing. Gabriel actually feels fairly ambivalent about Ireland. He prefers places that seem more in the center of world affairs. Ireland’s hospitality may be the only thing he admires about the country, and as he acknowledges that some regard it as a failing with its copious alcohol consumption, he defends Irish conviviality as worthy of honor.
