“Now that you have seen the book, do you think that there would be any chance of Mr. N—— taking it up? I am afraid he is my only chance, but I don’t know whether there is any possibility of getting him to bring out a book of the kind at his own expense, as after all there is very little folk-lore in it.”
I took the book to London and had it retyped, for Synge, as I myself do, typed his own manuscripts, and the present one was very faint and rubbed. Both Mr. Yeats and I took it to publishers, but they would not accept it. Synge writes in March, 1903:
“My play came back from the Fortnightly as not suitable for their purpose. I don’t think that Mr. J—— intends to bring out the Aran book. I saw him on my way home, but he seemed hopelessly undecided, saying one minute he liked it very much, and that it might be a great success, and that he wanted to be in touch with the Irish movement, and then going off in the other direction, and fearing that it might fall perfectly flat! Finally he asked me to let him consider it a little longer!”
I was no more successful. I wrote to Mr. Yeats, who was in America: “I went to Mr. B. about the music for your book ... I think I told you he had never opened the Synge MS., and said he would rather have nothing to do with it. Masefield has it now.”
Then I had a note: “Dear Lady Gregory, I saw Mr. N. yesterday and spoke to him about Synge’s new play [Riders to the Sea], which struck me as being in some ways better even than the other. He has promised to read it if it is sent to him, though he does not much care for plays. Will you post it to, the Editor, Monthly Review.... Yours very truly, Arthur Symons.”
Nothing came of that and in December Synge writes:
“I am delighted to find that there is a prospect of getting the book out at last, and equally grateful for the trouble you have taken with it. I am writing to Masefield to-day to thank him and ask him by all means to get Matthews to do as he proposes. Do you think if he brings out the book in the spring, I should add the Tinkers? I was getting on well with the blind people (in Well of the Saints), till about a month ago when I suddenly got ill with influenza and a nasty attack on my lung. I am getting better now, but I cannot work yet satisfactorily, so I hardly know when the play is likely to be finished. There is no use trying to hurry on with a thing of that sort when one is not in the mood.”
Yet, after all, the Aran book was not published till 1907, when Synge’s name had already gone up. The Shadow of the Glen and Riders to the Sea were published by Mr. Elkin Matthews in 1905. Riders to the Sea had already been published in Samhain, the little annual of our Theatre, edited by Mr. Yeats. And in America a friend of ours and of the Theatre had printed some of the plays in a little edition of fifty copies, thus saving his copyright. It was of Synge and of others as well as myself I thought when, in dedicating a book to John Quinn during my first winter in America, I wrote, “best friend, best helper, these half score years on this side of the sea.”
When Synge had joined us in the management of the Theatre, he took his share of the work, and though we were all amateurs then, we got on somehow or other. He writes about a secretary we had sent for him to report on: “He seems very willing and I think he may do very well if he does not take fright at us. He still thinks it was a terrible thing for Yeats to suggest that Irish people should sell their souls and for you to put His Sacred Majesty James II. into a barrel. He should be very useful in working up an audience; an important part of our work that we have rather neglected. By the way, the annual meeting of our company must be held, I suppose, before the year is up. It would be well to have it before we pay off Ryan, as otherwise we shall all be sitting about, looking with curiosity and awe at the balance sheet.”
He went on bravely with his work, but always fighting against ill health. He writes: “Feb. 15, ’06. Many thanks for the MS. of Le Médecin. I think he is entirely admirable and is certain to go well. This is just a line to acknowledge the MS., as I suppose I shall see you in a day or two.