Letter from Thomas MacGreevy to George Yeats. 4 June [1928].

[p.1 recto]

Ecole Normale
4th June

Dearest George,

A line to enclose the enclosed. If you can get to Paris before the 13th and stay a night one could see a ballet. I hope the news of all the family is good. Is W.B. distressed at the OCasey rudeness? I hope not. The ^London production of the play will do O'Casey no harm either from the point of view of his work or his manners and incidentally justify W.B. (tho' I don't suppose W.B. worries much about that aspect of the matter). My love to him. I wrote formally to Tinche at Cuala giving him Aodh Ruadh more for W.B. than for himself for he gave permission for the translation of Whiteheaded Boy so ungraciously that I was impelled to write him personally to say he needn't if he felt reluctant. I imagine, I hope not wrongly, that W.B. would really like to have it. Tinche has always protested against the Non Commissioned Officers, the only things that put a little salt in it. Without them it would be mere insipid Wilfred Childe Roland. The Dial has accepted a poem [p.1 verso] from me thank God (20 dollars) and one I sent to that highly religious quarterly The Dublin Review has not come back so I am hoping for a guinea from it. Its one you know (about yellow villages in a plain) altered and rechristened The Seventh Gift of the Holy Ghost. And I'm doing Wyndham Lewis's short stories for Eliot — who did I tell you? tells me he thinks he may be able to arrange the publication of a book for me in the coming season. I've written (but not typed) several new rhymes recently. You shall have them later. They're still I think a little more "cleverish" than I like but they'll come right.

It will be lovely to have a talk, hear your plans and all news, especially if you have a whole evening here. I suppose you are outrageously occupied but do send a card if you think you can stop saying what night and I'll get seats. You wouldn't be too tired if you crossed from London, arriving at 5.45 or even 7.15. The ballet doesn't begin till 9 or 9.15. So I'll be hoping to see you.

Love ever,

Tom

A marvellous performance of Darius Milhaud's setting of the Claudel translation of the Aeschylus, Choephores — Eumenides by the Ste. Cecile (Antwerp) choir last night. I do regret a bit that we couldn't have had him for W.B.'s play tho' Antheil will at least be a shock to Dublin.