W. B. Yeats at School

Abstract

I have just been glancing at the recently published volume entitled ‘Plays for an Irish Theatre,’ by W. B. Yeats. I use the word ‘glancing’ advisedly, for I must confess to being a member of that vulgar herd who can neither read nor understand the writings of my gifted fellow-countryman. As I closed the book quite a host of boyish memories crossed my mind of the days when I was a classmate of the Irish poet, as if it were but yesterday, although it is over five-and-twenty years ago since Yeats entered the High School, Dublin. As he took his seat, as was customary for new pupils to do, near the head-master’s desk, while prayers were being said, we found ourselves wondering at the strange appearance of the ‘new boy,’ and speculating as to what class he would be sent into. It so happened that he came into mine—the Upper Fourth—and for nearly four years I was the class-fellow of one who perhaps, of all the brilliant boys the school has turned out, was the most brilliant, or at all events has achieved most fame. In appearance he was thin and gaunt-looking, with long, dark locks and a vacant expression, and at once we unanimously put him down as being of the ‘clever’ type. At all events, we felt that in the newcomer we had obtained no acquisition to either our cricket or our football ranks, and valued him accordingly. He took his seat demurely at the end of the class, and in the shyness of his disposition seemed to shrink within himself.

T. P.’s Weekly (London) XIX, no. 500, 7 June 1912, 709 (reminiscences by a classmate).