REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
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REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD
AND YOUTH
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK MCMXVI
Copyright, 1916,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1916.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To those few people mainly personal friends who have read all that I havewritten.
W. B. Y.
Preface
Sometimes when I remember a relative that I have been fond of, or astrange incident of the past, I wander here and there till I have somebodyto talk to. Presently I notice that my listener is bored; but now that Ihave written it out, I may even begin to forget it all. In any case,because one can always close a book, my friend need not be bored.
I have changed nothing to my knowledge, and yet it must be that I havechanged many things without my knowledge, for I am writing after so manyyears, and have consulted neither friend nor letter nor old newspaper anddescribe what comes oftenest into my memory.
I say this fearing that some surviving friend of my youth may remembersomething in a different shape and be offended with my book.
Christmas Day, 1914.
REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
y first memories are fragmentary and isolated and contemporaneous, asthough one remembered vaguely some early day of the Seven Days. It seemsas if time had not yet been created, for all are connected with emotionand place and without sequence.
I remember sitting upon somebody’s knee, looking out of a window at a wallcovered with cracked and falling plaster, but what wall I do not remember,and being told that some relation once lived there. I am looking out ofanother window in London. It is at Fitzroy Road. Some boys are playing inthe road and among them a boy in uniform, a telegraph boy perhaps. When Iask who the boy is, a servant tells me that he is going to blow the townup, and I go to sleep in terror.
After that come memories of Sligo, where I live with my grandparents. I amsitting on the ground looking at a mastless toy boat, with the paintrubbed and scratched, and I say to myself in great melancholy, “it isfurther away than it used to be,” and while I am saying it I am looking ata long scratch in the stern, for it is especially the scratch which is[Pg 2]further away. Then one day at dinner my great-uncle William Middletonsays, “we should not make light of the troubles of children. They areworse than ours, because we can see the end of our trouble and they cannever see any end,” and I feel grateful for I know that I am very unhappyand have often said to myself, “when you grow up, never talk as grown-uppeople do