1898] Yeats Experiments Magically 291 



good looking, of the same type of countenance as John Dillon's, very- 

 narrow between the eyes and short-sighted. We talked much about 

 the ' '98 ' demonstrationes of which he is organizer, and of the coming 

 doom of England, and we talked also of another mystical poet and 

 patriot, Russell, (A. E.), with whom Yeats was a fellow student at 

 Dublin. Russell, in order to subdue his will, became cashier in a 

 haberdasher's shop, where he acquired repute as an accountant, but 

 always spent his Sundays and holidays in the Wicklow Hills, writing 

 poetry and seeing visions. Russell has now been removed to a higher 

 sphere as political organizer. Both believe in ghosts and fairies and 

 in the transmigration of souls, and have magic powers of seeing the 

 future and of prophecy. 



' Yeats experimented magically on me. He first took out a note- 

 book and made what he called a pyramid in it which was a square of 

 figures, then he bade me think of and see a square of yellow as it 

 might be a door, and walk through it and tell him what I saw beyond. 

 All that I could see at all clearly was that I seemed to be standing on 

 a piece of green, rushy grass, in front of me a small pool from which 

 issued two streams of very blue water to right and to left of me. He 

 then bade me turn and go back through the door, and told me I should 

 see either a man or woman who would give me something. I failed 

 to see anything but darkness, but at last with some effort I made out 

 the indistinct figure of a child, which offered me with its left hand 

 some withered flowers. I could not see its face. Lastly he bade me 

 thank the person to whose intervention the vision was due, and read 

 from his notebook some vague sentences prefiguring this vision. The 

 performance was very imperfect, not to say null. 



"5th April. — Arthur Balfour made his statement in the House 

 to-day of the Government's China policy. George tells me the speech 

 was ' statesmanlike,' but I gather from him that it was no very pro- 

 nounced success. Indeed, how should it be? The British Govern- 

 ment has leased Wei-hai-wei, which seems to be a sort of second best 

 to Port Arthur, but of no very practical value for coercing Pekin as it 

 cannot easily be connected with it by land. I should have thought 

 it would have been wiser either to make an alliance with Japan and 

 war with Russia, or else to let the whole thing severely alone, but 

 George thinks Japan has already been squared by Russia. 



" 6th April. — ■ I had a bad return of pain which lasted all night until 

 twelve to-day when I took an infinitesimal dose of morphia, which at 

 once stopped it and raised me from the depths of misery to the state of 

 happiness of a schoolboy just loosed from school. 



" gth April. — There is an announcement in the papers of ' A great 

 British victory in the Soudan — Gordon avenged.' 



" nth April. — Saighton. I came here for the Easter holiday, arriv- 



