Letter from George Yeats to Thomas MacGreevy. 26 March 1926.
[p.1 recto]
82 Merrion Square
Dublin
March 2[??]26 1926
My dear Tom.
You never yet did anything as good or better than "Aodh Ruadh O Domhnaill"Published in May in The Irish Statesman, this became one of MacGreevy's most well-known poems.note I've read it again and again and there isnt a word to spare or a misplaced word and I take my hat off to you. Willy has been away yesterday and today so he hasnt seen it but I'll be very surprised if he doesnt get it at least as musch as I've got it. I'll show it to him tomorrow and write to you again! I felt quite grateful to you for it and I'll forgive
you for the two things I hate you for - the second one is "your'e such an oddityy".
Willy has been in the thick of - I wont use an epithet- Education Bills.WB Yeats was appointed to a government committee investigating Irish schools in 1925.note We were at Waterford last weekend to see the Sisters of Mercy's schoolsThe visit the previous week to St Otteran's School, Waterford, based on Montessori principles, was the inspiration for WB
Yeats's poem 'Among School Children.'note.... We lunched with Mother De Sales on Sunday ..... terrible O terrible.. pale green w-ashed walls and sacred pictures of the late eighteenth century, a dreadful plaster - very whitened plaster - Christ in the
centre of a mantelpiece draped in red push with tassels flanked on either side by two oriental and purely mundane figures, one of each sex, very markedly soo and these in their turn flanked by two of the worst vases I have ever seen.... pale biscuit coloured "mat" ground fluted
tops so narrow as to be usleeless for any purpose, wide bulgey stomachs covered with lilies and roses intertwined, spreading at the base into claws....................
The small central table decked in dark blue felt cloth embroiderd in brown and grey..... Then we were conducted into another room for lunch.... The Reverend Mother did not eat with us Perhaps one does not eat in the presence of a man? Alone I have several times lunched with all the
nuns and so on and enjoyed it progdigiously. [p.1 verso] But O Tom - the lunch.... soup, half sherry... chicken with brandy sauce.. already my head reeled, but though I refused port the brazen
William drank two large glasses after refusing whiskey and brandy that were urged upon him.. an adorable pudding with brandy sauce.
Then we went down to the schools, very empty and freezing of a Sunday afternoon... spent near two hours over curriculums,
Montessori apparatus, P.N.E.U. ( otherwise know and Parents National Educational Union.... it invaded Ireland abo-ut the time we chucked you over! ) Willy asking blushing nuns how often the floors were washed.... asides to me from Sister Mary Ellen "O DEAR! I wouldnt mind saying ANYTHING to you... but a man.. O/D E A R..." "Do the children come clean?" Or do the Sisters
have to wash them? More blushes Then at last back to the Convent where the Reverend Mother awaited us with hot milk. I started off boldly and joyfully being half frozen.. stopped... realised... twas hot brandy
with a dash of milk. But I had to drink more than half for the Reverend Mother with a most baffling and unequalled courtesy kept handing me the glass. I was in dread I wouldnt be able to walk straight
down the drive, remembering the black and white- framed faces that watched our arrival from all the windows. On Monday I refused to go again.. I couldnt face it twice.
They make one feel ashamed, ashamed of life and drinking and smoking and caring for nothing not even husband and children
or relations ( who really does? ) or anything but a line written in a book and a particular person that is but a part of one's own supreme egotism. As I
typed that I thought it was rather Catholically phrased.. one instead of I... Its curious how the pious avoid the "I". "We", like royalty but
with so great a difference and distinction. Arrogance and humility.
At this point I came out to Sorrento.George Yeats had been staying for a few days at Sorrento Cottage, Lennox Robinson's home in Dalkey, County Dublin while Robinson is away.note Willy likes the poem very much and said "Very fine, very fine, it has real distinction. If he can [p.2 recto]go on doing things as good he may become a fine poet. There's not a word too few or too many or a wrong word."
This I think is the moment to "close"
Yours
George Yeats