“The Wayfarer” was published in Cosmopolis, and afterwards included in The Winged Destiny.
On the 10th of June the author went for a night to Burford Bridge, in order to have some talks with George Meredith. While there he began to write “The Glory of the King,” and two days later he finished it on reaching home.
In the summer of 1897 he visited Ireland for the first time. In Dublin he met Mr. George Russell—whose beautiful verse was first published over the initials A. E.—Mr. Standish O’Grady and other writers with whom he had been in correspondence; and he greatly enjoyed a visit to Mr. Edward Martin at Tillyra Castle in Galway.
Among several enthusiastic letters I received the following:
... I find it almost impossible to attempt to tell you the varied and beautiful delights of this lovely place. ... The country is strange and fascinating—at once so austere, so remote, so unusual, and so characteristic....
Lord Morris, and Martin and I go off today “to show me the beauties of the wild coast of Clare.” It is glorious autumnal weather, with unclouded sky, and I am looking forward to the trip immensely. We leave at 11, and drive to Ardrahan, and there get a train southward into County Clare, and at Ennis catch a little loopline to the coast. Then for two hours we drive to the famous Cliffs of Moher, gigantic precipices facing the Atlantic—and then for two hours move round the wild headlands of Blackhead—and so, in the afternoon, to the beautiful Clare ‘spa’ of Lisdoonvarna, where we dine late and sleep. Next day we return by some famous Round Tower of antiquity, whose name I have forgotten. Another day soon we are to go into Galway, and to the Aran Isles.
On Thursday Yeats arrives, also Dr. Douglas Hyde, and possibly Standish O’Grady—and Lady Gregory, one of the moving spirits in this projected new Celtic Drama. She is my host’s nearest neighbour, and has a lovely place (Coole Park) about five miles southwest from here, near Gort. I drove there, with Sir N. G. yesterday, in a car, through a strange fascinating austere country.
The people here are distinct from any I have seen—and the women in particular are very striking with their great dark eyes, and lovely complexions and their picturesque ‘snoods.’
The accent is not very marked, and the voices are low and pleasant, and the people courteous to a high degree.
In the evening we had music—and so ended delightfully my first delightful day in the west....