Evening star., 1953-12-20
What Yeats
And ireland
Hold Dear
The Autobiography Of
Williom Butler Yeats
(Macmillon;; So

(MGcmillGn; S..
Sean O'Casey tells in his
autobiography Of going to
meet Yeats for the first time.
The great poet was then a Sen
ator and because his life had
been threatened, he was being
guarded. One of the guards
who knew Sean, then a ragged
playwright having his first sue
cess. said: "Are yeh goin' to see
himself? I don't envy yeh,
Sean. for ] would like to be
alone with him long. His oul'
minds full o. the notions of
ouP kings and queens"
The description tallies well
enough with the one Yeats gives
of himself in this new edi-
ton of beautiful autobiography
ical writings. The wonder is
that Yeats not only fed his
genius through his evocation
of Ireland's past but also
helped stir the fires of Irish
national pride that eliminated
in the rising for Ireland's free
dom. y,
Belief in Ghosts
Yeats was born to believe in
ghosts. He grew up in Sligo
with a grandfather who looked,
and sometimes acted, like King
Lear, and a mother who ex-
changed with a f1sherman's
wife "stories that Homer might
have told" His early belief in
spirits and lifelong preoccu-
patton with magic and necro-
NANCY that led to a formula
ton of an elaborate system of
cabalistic beliefs.
Although he lived much of
his youth in London and fire.
quented a circle that included
Wilde. Dobson, johnson and
Symons. his material and his
method were Irish. In Lon
don he saw nothing good, and
one day, walking homesick
through Fleet street he heard
a fountain in a window that
sounded like lake water. From
that moment came "Innis-
free" In London, too, he con-
ceived the idea of reviving Ire
lands legendary past and 80
deepen the political passion of
the nation that all, artist and
poet, craftsman and day la
bourer would accept a COM
mon design" And so they did.
Source of inspiration
In Dublin, he lived with the
sanity Fenian leader, John
O'Leary, and through him and
like-minded men, and an end
less delving into Ireland's past
came the inspiration for his
greatest work. The alien &C.
tlvity of political agitation
brought other, less artistic, tri-
umphs. II had felt years be-
fore that I had made a great
achievement when the man
who trained my uncle's horses
invited me to share his
Christmas dinner which was
roasted in front of his har-
ness-room fires; and now I
took an almost equal pride in
an evening spent with some
small organiser into whose
spittoon I secretly poured my
third glass of whisky"
Throughout those heady
years he cherished his hope
less passion for Maud Come,
the fabulously beautiful and
spirited heroine of the move
ment. At their first meeting
she seemed to him like "the
classical impersonation of the
spring, the Vrgilian commen-
dation she walks like a god
dess made for her alone" He
gives a charming picture of
Lady Gregory, with whom he
was to found the Abbey Thea
ter. comforting him at Coole
for his unlucky love, taking
him around to peasants cot
tages to hear folk-tales that
would clay very light upon the
mind"
Yeats concludes his memoirs
with description of a trip
to Sweden to receive the Nobel
Prize. The book is extremely
rich and various, studded with
epigrams and poetic flashes
and vivid, surprisingly shrewd
studies of the literary and po-
litical personalities of his day.
M. Meg.