Two hundred copies of this book have been printed.
DISCOVERIES; A VOLUME OF ESSAYS
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.
DUN EMER PRESS
DUNDRUM
MCMVII
CONTENTS
| Prophet, Priest and King | Page 1 |
| Personality and the Intellectual Essences | 5 |
| The Musician and the Orator | 9 |
| A Banjo Player | 10 |
| The Looking-glass | 11 |
| The Tree of Life | 12 |
| The Praise of Old Wives’ Tales | 15 |
| The Play of Modern Manners | 16 |
| Has the Drama of Contemporary Life a Root of its Own | 18 |
| Why the Blind Man in Ancient Times was made a Poet | 20 |
| Concerning Saints and Artists | 24 |
| The Subject Matter of Drama | 27 |
| The Two Kinds of Asceticism | 30 |
| In the Serpent’s Mouth | 32 |
| The Black and the White Arrows | 33 |
| His Mistress’s Eyebrows | 33 |
| The Tresses of the Hair | 35 |
| A Tower on the Apennine | 36 |
| The Thinking of the Body | 37 |
| Religious Belief necessary to symbolic Art | 39 |
| The Holy Places | 41 |
DISCOVERIES
PROPHET, PRIEST AND KING
The little theatrical company I write my plays for had come to a west ofIreland town and was to give a performance in an old ball-room, forthere was no other room big enough. I went there from a neighbouringcountry house and arriving a little before the players, tried to open awindow. My hands were black with dirt in a moment and presently a paneof glass and a part of the window frame came out in my hands. Everythingin this room was half in ruins, the rotten boards cracked under my feet,and our new proscenium and the new boards