returned. He was unclear, it seems, which one W. B. Yeats had liked:
You don’t give me any clue as to which story of mine you read. There were two. I am very sorry that I sent them, but I shall now be much obliged to you if you will send them back to me as soon as possible. I want them. Of one of the stories, ‘The Ghost Wife’, I have no other copy.
The one-sided argument between them over the stories continued. The following year he announced to his son: ‘I have my four stories in the hands of a literary agent, one a modern story, very crisp.’
In 1909 John Butler Yeats began to correspond with his son about a play he was discussing with many people in New York, but not actually writing. One of those to whom he spoke was a producer called Percy MacKaye. On 24 March he wrote: ‘I enclose a little paragraph from “The Sun” to show you that Percy MacKaye, who is so enthusiastic about my play, is a person of some position.’ Three weeks later, he wrote that the same Percy MacKaye had told him that ‘he felt sure if I submitted its scenario he could get a commission to write it. He spoke of the matter to me not once but a dozen times … He was most enthusiastic, imploring me to finish it, saying he would himself show it to every manager in New York.’
Four years later, John Butler Yeats, full of hope, was still writing to his son about the play, but it remained in the realm of the imagination. ‘My heart is set on a play,’ he wrote in February 1913,
a psychological comedy. There are several thrills in it, where people will weep happy tears, and it will be all as a clever girl puts it ‘well woven’. And as you may remember, Synge paid me one of his few compliments. He said I could write dialogue. The play has Unity and will go with a rush. Percy MacKaye told me he felt sure he could get me a commission to write it, if I would provide him with a written sketch of it.
It is likely that John Butler Yeats, in mentioning praise from Synge, was conscious of Synge’s attitude towards the plays of W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, his fellow directors at the Abbey Theatre. Synge was, to say the least, grudging in his praise.
In 1916, now seventy-seven, J. B. Yeats continued to remind his son about the play he had still not written. On 6 January he wrote: ‘You know I have a play in my head and mean someday to write it … And you know Synge praised my dialogue. And I bet if it is written it will be a success. Just you wait and see.’ Nine days later he returned to the subject. ‘I am thinking more and more about my play. I think it will surprise you, but at present I am busy on my own portrait.’ The self-portrait was still not finished at the time of his death six years later.
Instead of finishing the play, W. B. Yeats’s father wrote some poems which he sent to his son at the end of January 1916 with a letter of self-recommendation. ‘I send you some impromptu verses … I think they contain the rudiments of art and are spirited and have a beginning, a middle and an end and that’s saying a good deal.’ When his son had not replied, he wrote again:
I send you a great many letters. I begin to think I am a born writer. Did you get my ‘poem’? I thought it had spirit and a sort of flowing inspiration. Flowing in its small way at full tide. When I was in College I once wrote some verses and showed them to a clever friend, the present Sir John Edge of the India council, and he pronounced them to be superior to anything by E. Dowden, who was then writing poetry for the College magazine. Perhaps had I followed up my ‘success’, you would not be the first poet of my name. Ahem.
Two days later, John Butler Yeats wrote again: ‘I think I am entitled to call myself “an inheritor of unfulfilled renown”. I told [Padraic] Colum and his wife the whole plot of my play. I never saw people more delighted or more eager that it should be written. Percy MacKayeif he begged me once begged me twenty times
You don’t give me any clue as to which story of mine you read. There were two. I am very sorry that I sent them, but I shall now be much obliged to you if you will send them back to me as soon as possible. I want them. Of one of the stories, ‘The Ghost Wife’, I have no other copy.
The one-sided argument between them over the stories continued. The following year he announced to his son: ‘I have my four stories in the hands of a literary agent, one a modern story, very crisp.’
In 1909 John Butler Yeats began to correspond with his son about a play he was discussing with many people in New York, but not actually writing. One of those to whom he spoke was a producer called Percy MacKaye. On 24 March he wrote: ‘I enclose a little paragraph from “The Sun” to show you that Percy MacKaye, who is so enthusiastic about my play, is a person of some position.’ Three weeks later, he wrote that the same Percy MacKaye had told him that ‘he felt sure if I submitted its scenario he could get a commission to write it. He spoke of the matter to me not once but a dozen times … He was most enthusiastic, imploring me to finish it, saying he would himself show it to every manager in New York.’
Four years later, John Butler Yeats, full of hope, was still writing to his son about the play, but it remained in the realm of the imagination. ‘My heart is set on a play,’ he wrote in February 1913,
a psychological comedy. There are several thrills in it, where people will weep happy tears, and it will be all as a clever girl puts it ‘well woven’. And as you may remember, Synge paid me one of his few compliments. He said I could write dialogue. The play has Unity and will go with a rush. Percy MacKaye told me he felt sure he could get me a commission to write it, if I would provide him with a written sketch of it.
It is likely that John Butler Yeats, in mentioning praise from Synge, was conscious of Synge’s attitude towards the plays of W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, his fellow directors at the Abbey Theatre. Synge was, to say the least, grudging in his praise.
In 1916, now seventy-seven, J. B. Yeats continued to remind his son about the play he had still not written. On 6 January he wrote: ‘You know I have a play in my head and mean someday to write it … And you know Synge praised my dialogue. And I bet if it is written it will be a success. Just you wait and see.’ Nine days later he returned to the subject. ‘I am thinking more and more about my play. I think it will surprise you, but at present I am busy on my own portrait.’ The self-portrait was still not finished at the time of his death six years later.
Instead of finishing the play, W. B. Yeats’s father wrote some poems which he sent to his son at the end of January 1916 with a letter of self-recommendation. ‘I send you some impromptu verses … I think they contain the rudiments of art and are spirited and have a beginning, a middle and an end and that’s saying a good deal.’ When his son had not replied, he wrote again:
I send you a great many letters. I begin to think I am a born writer. Did you get my ‘poem’? I thought it had spirit and a sort of flowing inspiration. Flowing in its small way at full tide. When I was in College I once wrote some verses and showed them to a clever friend, the present Sir John Edge of the India council, and he pronounced them to be superior to anything by E. Dowden, who was then writing poetry for the College magazine. Perhaps had I followed up my ‘success’, you would not be the first poet of my name. Ahem.
Two days later, John Butler Yeats wrote again: ‘I think I am entitled to call myself “an inheritor of unfulfilled renown”. I told [Padraic] Colum and his wife the whole plot of my play. I never saw people more delighted or more eager that it should be written. Percy MacKayeif he begged me once begged me twenty times
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