Yeats wrote another story and a letter to his son displaying his confidence in it. ‘I have just completed what I think is a very pretty story, a tale of magic that will be said or sung I think many times by many people. You see how confident I am.’ A week later, he wrote again: ‘I have just written what I do not hesitate to call a lovely story which Spenser would not have been ashamed to have contrived. I never saw greater enthusiasm than Colum’s when I read it to him. I am sure it will sell. There are several other stories which I have written. There is money in these.’ Two weeks later the euphoria about his stories remained: ‘Yesterday, I was at Quinn’s and read to him two stories just finished, one from the land of phantasy, “The Wizard’s Daughter”, the other out of real life. He did not [know] which to prefer but was enthusiastic about both. Colum heard the wizard one and wanted then and there to carry it off to a magazine.’ The following day, John Butler Yeats decided to deliver the stories to a magazine himself. ‘Yesterday,’ he wrote to his son, ‘I left at Harper’s my two stories, and I am very hopeful.’
Despite his work on the stories, his interest in plays did not fade. On 5 November 1917 he wrote to his son: ‘It is my belief that if all of these years you had seen more of me you would have written quantities of plays.’ On 25 January he referred once more to his own play:
You will remember that I have for a long time been meditatively at work on a play. It is now finished and typed (it cost 6 dollars) … I am certain you will like it and perhaps be moved to re-write some lyrics I have written. They had to be written, but are of course quite amateurish. I think when you have read the play you will be inspired, yes inspired, to write real lyrics. I am certain there is money in the play, and that it will hold the boards, and perhaps return to them many times.
Two weeks later, the play had been sent. ‘I hope by this time,’ he wrote, ‘you have seen my play sent in a reg. Letter by John Quinn to Lilly [sic] and Lolly [Yeats].’ Twelve days later, on 21 February 1918, he wrote again on the matter: ‘I am waiting to hear what you think of my play. If I find you like it I will be moved to write another scene (about which I have thought a great deal).’ Still there was silence from the other side of the ocean. ‘Why don’t you tell me about my play?’ he wrote in June. ‘You need not be afraid to praise [it] … I feel quite sure that someday [it] will be acted and be a success.’
4
Four days later, from Ballinamantane House in County Galway, where he was staying while Ballylee was being restored, W. B. Yeats, now fifty-two, wrote to his father, who was seventy-eight. ‘My dear Father,’ his letter began,
I have never written to you about your play. You choose a very difficult subject and the most difficult of all forms, and as was to be foreseen, it is the least good of all your writings. I have been reading plays for the Abbey Theatre for years now, and so know the matter practically. A play looks easy, but is full of problems, which are almost a part of Mathematics – French dramatists display this structure and 17th century English dramatists disguise it, but it is always there. In some strange way, which I have never understood, a play does not even read well if it has not this mathematics. You are a most accomplished critic – and I believe your autobiography will be very good, and this is enough for one man. It takes a lifetime to master dramatic form.
In March 1918 John Quinn received a letter from W. B. Yeats in which the poet arranged a matter that had been previously discussed by them: in exchange for Quinn’s financial support for Yeats’s improvident father in New York, Yeats would send Quinn manuscripts. Yeats went on:
Do you know is he going on with his autobiography? If he would finish that I might be able to get a very good price for that
Despite his work on the stories, his interest in plays did not fade. On 5 November 1917 he wrote to his son: ‘It is my belief that if all of these years you had seen more of me you would have written quantities of plays.’ On 25 January he referred once more to his own play:
You will remember that I have for a long time been meditatively at work on a play. It is now finished and typed (it cost 6 dollars) … I am certain you will like it and perhaps be moved to re-write some lyrics I have written. They had to be written, but are of course quite amateurish. I think when you have read the play you will be inspired, yes inspired, to write real lyrics. I am certain there is money in the play, and that it will hold the boards, and perhaps return to them many times.
Two weeks later, the play had been sent. ‘I hope by this time,’ he wrote, ‘you have seen my play sent in a reg. Letter by John Quinn to Lilly [sic] and Lolly [Yeats].’ Twelve days later, on 21 February 1918, he wrote again on the matter: ‘I am waiting to hear what you think of my play. If I find you like it I will be moved to write another scene (about which I have thought a great deal).’ Still there was silence from the other side of the ocean. ‘Why don’t you tell me about my play?’ he wrote in June. ‘You need not be afraid to praise [it] … I feel quite sure that someday [it] will be acted and be a success.’
4
Four days later, from Ballinamantane House in County Galway, where he was staying while Ballylee was being restored, W. B. Yeats, now fifty-two, wrote to his father, who was seventy-eight. ‘My dear Father,’ his letter began,
I have never written to you about your play. You choose a very difficult subject and the most difficult of all forms, and as was to be foreseen, it is the least good of all your writings. I have been reading plays for the Abbey Theatre for years now, and so know the matter practically. A play looks easy, but is full of problems, which are almost a part of Mathematics – French dramatists display this structure and 17th century English dramatists disguise it, but it is always there. In some strange way, which I have never understood, a play does not even read well if it has not this mathematics. You are a most accomplished critic – and I believe your autobiography will be very good, and this is enough for one man. It takes a lifetime to master dramatic form.
In March 1918 John Quinn received a letter from W. B. Yeats in which the poet arranged a matter that had been previously discussed by them: in exchange for Quinn’s financial support for Yeats’s improvident father in New York, Yeats would send Quinn manuscripts. Yeats went on:
Do you know is he going on with his autobiography? If he would finish that I might be able to get a very good price for that
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