rnal world from itself" (Freud 15). The ego encounters alienation and conflict even as it seeks satisfaction, accommodating itself to what is other, whether the world of general society or the father figure, subconsciously identified with society: "[M]an's activity develops in two directions, according as it seeks to realize . . . the one or the other of these aims" (Freud 25). Rational action means "becoming a member of the human community, and with the help of a technique guided by science, going over to the attack against nature and subjecting her to the human will" (27).
William Henry Ireland's superego may not have developed predictably for the reason that his father was neither lenient nor strict but more or less absent. As a youngster William was sent to France for schooling for several years, then apprenticed, at Samuel Ireland's discretion, as a law clerk in London (Grebanier 56-7). During his apprenticeship, teenage Ireland lived at home, but the elder Ireland does not appear to have been engaged by the adolescent boy's life. Ireland's major passion was amassing a variety of artistic and historic collectibles--from books and artifacts owned by famous people to paintings by Hogarth and Van Dyck. He had a passion for the theatre (and its demimonde) and a friendship with the manager of London's Drury Lane Theatre (Grebanier 55). He was, to put it another way, a man of the world. During the period that young Ireland was producing his forgeries, the principal preoccupation of the elder Ireland was pursuing the wish to receive royal recognition of his discoveries (Mair 115). The overarching point is that home and hearth were of secondary importance to Samuel. Indeed, although young Ireland bore that name, there is a view that he, like the elder siblings in the household, was actually the illegitimate issue of Ireland's housekeeper and mistress Mrs. Freeman, the discarded mistress of another man (Grebanier 53).
The father figu...