An Interview with Mr. W. B. Yeats

Abstract

Many artists to-day try to look like business men, and succeed in thinking like them. But Mr. Yeats resembles, in appearance and in manner, the popular idea of a poet; dreamy, abstracted, bringing himself only with an effort into touch with the humdrum details of life. To give an example: I had written asking for an interview, and getting no answer I called on him at 18, Upper Woburn Buildings.¹ He opened the door himself, and I reminded him of my letter. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘I remember dimly, dimly.’ I felt vulgar and mundane, but as soon as Mr. Yeats realised why I had come, he welcomed me very courteously, and took the greatest pains to make every remark clear to the meanest intelligence. (I gathered from a chance remark that he had given many interviews to American reporters.)

Hearth and Home (London) 28 Nov 1912 p. 229.