172 Lady Gregory on Synge's "Playboy" [1907 



orchard and garden are nice, and the windmill is an attraction with 

 its view of the church and village, a most enjoyable little property. 



" 22nd May. — The Dublin Convention has voted unanimously 

 against Birrell's new Irish Councils Bill. I am doubly glad of it, both 

 because I do not believe in any halfway house to Home Rule, and 

 because the rejection will leave Redmond's hands freer to oppose the 

 Government on Indian and Egyptian affairs. 



"26th May (Sunday). — The political arrests in India continue. 

 Lajpat Rai has been deported to Burmah, exactly as they deport sus- 

 pected people to Siberia in Russia. Jemal-ed-Din always used to tell 

 me these arbitrary deportations were an Anglo-Indian practice, but 

 Anglo-Indians denied it. It is grand to see Morley at the work. 



" 2gth May. — Chapel Street. Lady Gregory came to luncheon, in 

 terrible trouble about her plays. She had gone to Italy to get away 

 from the worry, with Yeats and her son, and had engaged to bring 

 out ' The Playboy ' with other pieces at Oxford and in London but 

 the Censor interfered and she was telegraphed for to come back. 

 Birrell, however, to whom the case was referred, withdrew the Censor's 

 opposition. I am of opinion she would do better to withdraw the play, 

 but she has others to consult and Yeats is obstinate. 



" 1st June. — Newbuildings. Lady Gregory is in worse trouble 

 than ever. The Editor of the ' Freeman ' has written threatening her 

 with new displeasure if she persists with ' The Playboy ' in England, 

 and I fear her theatre will be altogether boycotted. I advise her to 

 submit to Irish opinion, but though she admits that it was a mistake to 

 produce the play, she says it is too late now to withdraw it. The 

 worst of it is that she is already boycotted personally on account of 

 it at Coole, the Local Council forbidding the school-children to go to 

 her house, or even to accept cakes or presents of any kind from her ; 

 it is the Sinn Fein that has done it. 



" She told me an interesting fact of past history connected with 

 Layard's life at Constantinople and his secret despatch against the 

 Sultan which Granville published. The Sultan's mind had been set 

 against Layard's by someone and, at an audience, though they had been 

 close friends, Abdul Hamid behaved in such a way as to show that he 

 feared Layard would attack him. This was the occasion of the secret 

 despatch being written. It cost Layard the peerage he aspired to, for 

 Lord Salisbury had promised it, but the Queen refused, saying that no 

 ambassador ought to write in such terms of the sovereign to whom he 

 was accredited. Lady Gregory knows this, as Sir William (her hus- 

 band) was intermediary in the affair of the peerage. 



" 4th June. — My ' Secret History ' is out, I received a first copy this 

 morning. I am sending copies of it to Bannerman, Grey, Churchill, 



