While Edward revised his play Yeats and I talked of The Shadowy Waters, and the Boers crossed one of our frontiers into Cape Colony or Natal—I have forgotten which; but I remember very well my attitude of mind towards the war, and how I used to walk every day from Tillyra to Ardrahan, a distance of at least two Irish miles, to fetch the newspaper, so anxious was I to read of a victory for our soldiers.

Before starting I would pay Edward a visit in his tower, and after a few words about the play, I would tell him that the way out of our South African difficulties was simple—the Government should arm the blacks; and this would make Edward growl out that the English Government was beastly enough to do it; and I remember how I used to go away, pleased that I had always the courage of my morality. Other men do what they know to be wrong, and repent, or think they repent; but as it would be impossible for me to do what I believe to be wrong, repentance is for me an idle word; and, thinking that to raise an army of seventy thousand blacks would be a fine trick to play upon the Boers, I often returned through the park full of contempt for my countrymen, my meditations interrupted occasionally by some natural sight—the beauty of the golden bracken through which the path twisted, a crimson beech at the end of it, or the purple beauty of a line of hills over against the rocky plain freckled with the thatched cabins of the peasantry. Nor do I remember more beautiful evenings than these were; and, as the days drew in, the humble hawthorns shaped themselves into lovely silhouettes, and a meaning seemed to gather round the low, mossy wall out of which they grew, until one day the pictorial idea which had hitherto stayed my steps melted away, and I became possessed by a sentimental craving for the country itself. After all, it was my country, and, strangely perturbed, I returned to the castle to ask Edward's opinion regarding the mysterious feeling that had glided suddenly into my heart as I stood looking at the Burran Mountains.

It is difficult for anybody to say why he loves his country, for what is a country but a geographical entity? And I am not sure that Edward was listening very attentively when I told him of a certain pity, at variance with my character, that had seemed to rise out of my heart.

It would be strange if Cathleen ni Houlihan were to get me after all. That is impossible ... only a passing feeling; and I sat looking at him, remembering that the feeling I dreaded had seemed to come out of the landscape and to have descended into my heart. But he was so little interested in what seemed to me transcendental that I refrained from further explanation, concluding that he was thinking of his play, which had gone to Coole yesterday. I was led to think this, for he was sitting at the window as if watching for Yeats. We were expecting our poet.

Here he is. I wonder what he thinks of your revisions?

And to save Edward from humiliation I asked Yeats as soon as he came into the room if he liked the new third act.

No, no; it's entirely impossible. We couldn't have such a play performed. And dropping his cloak from his shoulders, he threw his hair from his brow with a pale hand, and sank into a chair, and seemed to lose himself in a sudden meditation. It was like a scene from a play, with Yeats in the principal part; and, admiring him, I sat thinking of the gloom of Kean, of the fate of the Princes in the Tower, headsmen, and suchlike things, and thinking, too, that Yeats, notwithstanding his hierarchic airs, was not an actual literary infallibility. The revised third act might not be as bad as he seemed to think it. He might be mistaken ... or prejudiced. Yeats's literary integrity is without stain, that I knew. But he might be prejudiced against Edward without knowing it. The success of The Heather Field had stirred up in Edward, till then the most unassuming of men, a certain aggressiveness which, for some time past, I could see had been getting on Yeats's nerves. Nor am I quite sure that myself at that moment would not have liked to humble Edward a little ... only a little. But let us not be drawn from the main current of our resolution, which is entirely literary, by a desire to note every sub-current. Yeats looked very determined, and when I tried to induce him to give way he answered:

We are artists, and cannot be expected to accept a play because other plays as bad, and nearly as bad, have been performed.

Saints, I said, do not accept sins because sins are of common occurrence.

He did not answer, but sat looking into the fire gloomily.

He takes a very determined view of your play, Edward. It may not strike me in the same light. If you will give me the manuscript I'll just run upstairs with it. I can't read it in front of you both.

There was no reason why I should read the first two acts; Edward had not touched them. What he had engaged to rewrite was the last half of the third act, and a few minutes would enable me to see if he had made sufficient alterations for the play to be put forward—not as a work of art—that is as something that would be acted fifty years hence for the delight of numerous audiences, as proof of the talent that existed in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century—but as a play to which literary people could give their attention without feeling ashamed of themselves afterwards. There was no reason why we should ask for more than that; for the subject of the play was merely one of topical interest, and it is a mistake—I pointed this out to Yeats—to be very particular about the literary quality of such a play. All the same it would have to be put right, and this Edward could not do. It was more a matter for a cunning literary hand than for a fellow like Edward with a streak of original genius in him, and very little literary tact.

On these reflections I sat down to read, but the play was so crude, even in its revised form, that I fell to thinking that Yeats's thoughts must have wandered very often from the page. He should have remembered, however, whilst we discussed the play with Edward, that Edward was a human being after all, and not made it apparent that he looked upon the play as something the local schoolmaster might have written, and of all, should have kept looks out of his face which said as plainly as words could: Your soul is inferior, beneath my notice; take it away. He did not even seem to apprehend that Edward was torn between love of self and love of Ireland. Abstract thinking, I said, kills human sympathies, and Yeats is no longer able to appreciate anything but literary values. The man behind the play is ignored ... Yeats can no longer think with his body; it is only his mind that thinks. He is all intellect, if that isn't too cardinal a word. And seeing before me quite a new country of conjecture, one which I had never rambled in, I sat thinking of the cruelty of the monks of the Middle Ages, and the cruelty of the nuns and the monks of the present day. Their thoughts are abstracted from this world, from human life—that is why; and Yeats was a sort of monk of literature, an Inquisitor of Journalism who would burn a man for writing that education was progressing by leaps and bounds. Opinions make people cruel—literary as well as theological. Whereas the surgeon, whose thought is always of the flesh, is the kindliest of creatures. It is true that one sometimes hears of surgeons who, in the pursuit of science, willingly undertake operations which they know to be dangerous, and we know that the scientists in the laboratory are indifferent to the sufferings of the animals they vivisect. Even so, Nature thinks like the surgeon who risks an operation in order that he may discover the cause of the disease. The knowledge he gathers from the death of the patient is passed on, and it saves the life of another. But the artist cannot pass on any portion of his art to his pupil; his gift lives in himself and dies with him, and his art comes as much from his heart as from his intellect. The intellect outlives the heart, and the heart of Yeats seemed to me to have died ten years ago; the last of it probably went into the composition of The Countess Cathleen.

Yesterevening, when we wandered about the lake, talking of The Shadowy Waters, trying to free it from the occult sciences that had grown about it, Fomorians beaked and unbeaked, and magic harps and Druid spells, I did not perceive that the difficulties into which the story had wandered could be attributed to a lack of human sympathy. But Yeats's treatment of Edward proved it to me. The life of the artist is always at difficult equipoise; he may fail from lack of human sympathies, or he may yield altogether to them and become a mere philanthropist; and we may well wonder what the choice of the artist would have been if he had to choose between the destruction of Messina and Reggio or of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Were he to choose the ancient ruins in preference to the modern towns, he might give very good reasons for doing so, saying that to prolong the lives of a hundred thousand people for a few years would not be, in his opinion, worth a bronze like the Narcissus. A very specious argument might be maintained in favour of the preservation of the bronze, even at the price of a hundred thousand lives. Perhaps he might let the bronze go, but if all Greek art were added he would hesitate, and when he had let one hundred thousand men and women go to their doom he would probably retire into the mountains to escape from sight of every graven thing. To write a play our human and artistic sympathies must be very evenly balanced, and I remembered that among my suggestions for the reconstruction of The Shadowy Waters, the one that Yeats refused most resolutely was that the woman should refuse to accompany the metaphysical pirate to the ultimate North, but return somewhat diffidently, ashamed of herself, to the sailors who were drinking yellow ale.

Yeats has reflected himself in the pirate, I said. All he cares for is a piece of literature. The man behind it matters nothing to him. But am I not just as wicked as he? Worse, indeed, for Edward is my oldest friend and I do not defend him. Whereupon the manuscript fell from my hand, and I sat for a long time thinking; and then, getting up, I wandered out of my room and hung over the banisters, looking down into the central hall, asking myself what Yeats and Edward were saying to each other, and thinking that their talk must be strained and difficult, thinking too that my duty was to go down to them and bring their bitter interview to an end.

And I resolved to say that I could see no reason why the play should not be acted. But half-way down the stairs my conscience forbade so flagrant a lie. Yeats would not believe me. And what good would it do to allow Edward to bring over actors and actresses for the performance of such a play? It's kinder to tell him the truth. In the middle of the hall I stopped again. But if I tell him the truth the Irish Literary Theatre will come to an end.

Well, Edward, I've read your play ... but the alterations you've made aren't very considerable, and I can't help thinking that the play requires something more done to it.

You've read my play very quickly. Are you sure you've read it?

I've read all the passages that you've altered.

I had only glanced through them, but I could not tell him that a glance was sufficient.

If there were time, you might alter it yourself. You see, the time is short—only two months; and I watched Edward. For a long time he said nothing, but sat like a man striving with himself, and I pitied him, knowing how much of his life was in his play.

I give you the play, he said, starting to his feet. Do with it as you like; turn it inside out, upside down. I'll make you a present of it!

But, Edward, if you don't wish me to alter your play—

Ireland has always been divided, and I've preached unity. Now I'm going to practise it. I give you the play.

But what do you mean by giving us the play? Yeats said.

Do with it what you like. I'm not going to break up the Irish Literary Theatre. Do with my play what you like, and he rushed away.

I'm afraid, Yeats, his feelings are very much hurt.

And my heart went out to the poor man sitting alone in his tower, brooding over his failure. I expected Yeats to say something sympathetic, but all he said was: We couldn't produce such a play as that. It was perhaps the wisest thing he could say under the circumstances. For what use is there in sentimentalising over the lamb whose throat is going to be cut in the slaughter-house?

The sooner the alterations are made the better.

And I asked Yeats to come over tomorrow.

You see, you'll have to help me with this adaptation, for I know nothing of Ireland.

It is a pleasure to be with him, especially when one meets him for the purpose of literary discussion; he is a real man of letters, with an intelligence as keen as a knife, and a knife was required to cut the knots into which Edward had tied his play, for very few could be loosened. The only fault I found with Yeats in this collaboration was the weariness into which he sank suddenly, saying that after a couple of hours he felt a little faint, and would require half an hour's rest.

We returned to the play after lunch, and continued until nearly seven o'clock, too long a day for Yeats, who was not so strong then as he is now, and Lady Gregory wrote to me, saying that I must be careful not to overwork him, and that it would be well not to let him go more than two hours without food—a glass of milk, or, better still, a cup of beef-tea in the afternoon, and half an hour after lunch he was to have a glass of sherry and a biscuit. These refreshments were brought up by Gantley, Edward's octogenarian butler, and every time I heard his foot upon the stairs I offered up a little prayer that Edward was away in his tower, for, of course, I realised that the tray would bring home to him in a very real and cruel way the fact that his play was being changed and rewritten under his very roof, and that he was providing sherry and biscuits in order to enable Yeats to strike out, or, worse still, to rewrite his favourite passages. It was very pathetic; and while pitying and admiring Edward for his altruism, I could not help thinking of two children threading a bluebottle. True that the bluebottle's plight is worse than Edward's, for the insect does not know why it is being experimented upon, but Edward knew he was sacrificing himself for his country, and the idea of sacrifice begets a great exaltation of mind, is in fact, a sort of anaesthetic; and sustained by this belief we, Yeats and I, worked on through the day, Yeats tarrying as late as seven o'clock in order to finish a scene, Edward asking him to stay to dinner, a kindness that proved our undoing, for we lacked tact, discussing before Edward the alterations we were going to make. He sat immersed in deep gloom, saying he did not like our adaptation of the first act, and when we told him the alterations we were going to make in the second, he said:



Yeats looked at him sternly, as a schoolmaster looks at a small boy, and next morning Edward told me that he was going to Dublin, adding that I had better come with him. On my mentioning that I expected Yeats that afternoon, he said that he would write, telling him of his decision, and a note came from Lady Gregory in the course of the afternoon, saying that she was leaving Coole. Would it be convenient to Edward to allow Yeats to stay at Tillyra for a few days by himself? He would like to continue the composition of The Shadowy Waters in Galway.

Lady Gregory's request seemed to me an extraordinary one to make in the present circumstances, and it seemed still more extraordinary that Edward should have granted it, and without a moment's hesitation, as if Yeats's literary arrogance had already dropped out of his memory. Such self-effacement as this was clearly a matter for psychological inquiry, and I turned Edward over in my mind many times before I discovered that his self-effacement should be attributed to patriotism rather than to natural amiability. He believed Yeats to be Ireland's poet, and to refuse to shelter him might rob Ireland of a masterpiece, a responsibility which he did not care to face.

Extraordinary! I said to myself, and as in a vision I saw Ireland as a god demanding human sacrifices, and everybody, or nearly everybody, crying: Take me, Ireland, take me; I am unworthy, but accept me as a burnt-offering. Ever since I have been in the country I have heard people speaking of working for Ireland. But how can one work for Ireland without working for oneself? What do they mean? They do not know themselves, but go on vainly sacrificing all personal achievement, humiliating themselves before Ireland as if the country were a god. A race inveterately religious I suppose it must be! And these sacrifices continue generation after generation. Something in the land itself inspires them. And I began to tremble lest the terrible Cathleen ni Houlihan might overtake me. She had come out of that arid plain, out of the mist, to tempt me, to soothe me into forgetfulness that it is the plain duty of every Irishman to disassociate himself from all memories of Ireland—Ireland being a fatal disease, fatal to Englishmen and doubly fatal to Irishmen. Ireland is in my family. My grand-uncle lay in prison condemned to death for treason; my father wasted his life in the desert of national politics. It is said that the custom of every fell disease is to skip a generation, and up to the present it had seemed that I conformed to the rule. But did I? If I did not, some great calamity awaited me, and I remembered that the middle-aged may not change their point of view. To do so is decadence.