moral seriousness". He instead argued that the work was not obscene but rather a classic work of literature. On December 6, 1933 Judge John M. Woolsey issued his decision. He ruled that Ulysses was not pornographic—that nowhere in it was the "leer of the sensualist". Acknowledging the "astonishing success" of Joyce's use of the stream of consciousness technique, the judge stated that the novel was serious and that its author was sincere and honest in showing how the minds of his characters operate and what they were thinking. Some of their thoughts, the judge said, were expressed in "old Saxon words" familiar to readers, and: [i]n respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of [Joyce's] characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring. To have failed to honestly tell fully what his characters thought would have been "artistically inexcusable", said the judge. Having disposed of the question of whether the book was written with pornographic intent, Woolsey turned to the issue of whether the work nevertheless was objectively obscene within the meaning of the law. That meaning, as set forth in a string of cases cited in the opinion, was whether the work "tend[ed] to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts". The judge found that the book when read in its entirety did not do so: [W]hilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac. Consequently, Ulysses was not obscene, and could be admitted into the United States. Within minutes of hearing of the decision, Bennett Cerf of Random House instructed typesetters to start work on the book. One hundred copies were published in January 1934 to obtain U.S. copyright. This was the first legal publication of the work in any English-speaking nation. On the same day the judge released his decision the news was cabled to Joyce in Paris. Richard Ellmann, Joyce's biographer, wrote that Woolsey's eloquent and emphatic decision allowed the author to achieve his ambition of obtaining a "famous verdict". Joyce stated triumphantly that "one half of the English speaking world surrenders; the other half will follow", a gentler version of his prior sardonic prediction that while England would allow the work within a few years after the U.S. stopped censoring it, Ireland