Letter from Thomas MacGreevy to George Yeats. 19 October 1926.
[p.1 recto]
at 15 Cheyne Gdns.,
London, S.W. 3
19th October, 1926
Dearest George,
I hope you had a good crossing and found Michael (especially) and Anne flourishing. This is principally to say thanks to you both for the wonderful time you gave me.Yeats recently met MacGreevy while in London.note Truly I am grateful. And to gather up the ends of things that were to be said the principal one of which is related to the fact that I wished you could have been here much longer. Its this that I want W.B. to be James McNeill's successor in London.James McNeill was High Commissioner for the Irish Free State. He was made Governor General of the Irish Free State in January
1928.note Perhaps (like my idea that the Laverys should go to Dublin) that isn't at all new. It would be very good though. You'd mind London less for five years than for a fortnight and W.B. would give 'em the devil of a time here. The worst of it is he'd make London the capital of Ireland — far more than Hazel will be able to make Dublin the capital of England. But it would do Ireland good in the world, that is the most important thing about it. Of course if I were still here I wouldn' be able to come to
your official functions — assuming you asked me — but you wouldn't mind that. I mean you wouldn't exclude me from the informal ones. Is
it by the way the ??indirect result of your visit or of my letter to the [p.1 verso]Statesman I wonder that I received an invitation from the MacNeills to-day to meet Cosgrave at Claridge's the week after next. I can't go of course, but I shall "very much regret" or something fairly friendly. Now
don't say no quick about the High Commissionership. It would be a splendid chance of for Ireland to do itself credit. And we'd all have a very intriguing and interesting time. How should it be done I wonder. I'll tell
Lennox. Could he say it to Mrs. O'Higgins? Or better still to Hazel. There's one official thing you'd have to let me to though. When the Queen came I'd have to be let in somewhere to see you coping. Oh, George!
The other thing I wanted to say is to plead for Frank Fay as maitre d'ècole at the Abbey. I honestly don't believe he'd spoil people. He'd have made a good actor of me if I let him. And he'd have made a better actress of my sister had she stayed in Dublin than possibly anybody since O'Neill. Jean Nolan is as hideous a singer as Fay is an actor and after two years with her Delia still sings as simply and with much more accomplishment than before. Stephenson was never the makings of an all round actor. He is the same breed of artist as Frank O'Connor — has an inborn distaste for using forks. Knives and spoons are the instruments.
Delia by the waybetween ourselves has had rather an awful time. She & a young doctor (just starting) fell in love in Belfast. He is an amiable creature but Belfastish and his people very black Protestants. (He is descended directly from John Knox or something). They were furious, refused to meet her on religious grounds purely — they have no particular pretensions socially, and after two months in which he shed more tears than she did — and she has as much superfluous emotion as would torture
anyone — he said he couldn't go on. So thats that. I met him here and didn't[p.1 recto] dislike him, but he told her I made him feel wretchedly ignorant. I did my best to meet the Belfast mentality but unsuccessfully apparently. She shouldn't have introduced us till after they were married. I hope W.B. gets home all right.
Don't forget Florence.
Love & a thousand thanks & everything again.
Tom.