Early Memories of Yeats

Abstract

In his Reveries over Childhood and Youth Yeats gives his age as fifteen when for a short period he attended classes at the High School; but he was surely somewhat older, between seventeen and eighteen; he certainly seemed to us quite a young man, with a beard beginning on his sallow face. His father, who had views of his own on education, was content that in this wayhis son should pick up a little extra schooling, and, he used, when I came to know him later, to point to his own family as proving the wisdom of his method. It happened that during one term my place was beside Yeats in the Fourth Form. I had previously come into contact with him while spending a summer holiday in Howth, where, through my elder brother who had made his acquaintance, he directed us to a small quarry-pool above the demesne in which we could catch roach. Perhaps it was this that made me think of him for some time as a naturalist, and in fact his early interest was in natural science; and one of my recollections is of watching with curiosity an interview between him and our formidable Headmaster, whom he had approached with a proposal to start a school Field Club. I also remember him quoting his father’s opinion of people who did not acknowledge Evolution. Boys accept everything, and the presence amongst us of this tall young man excited little comment, especially as he was not in the least stand-offish, and would even talk with boys whom the rest of us were disposed to leave to themselves.

Dublin Magazine, XXVIII, no. 3 (July–Sep 1953) 2–6.