“I am sorry you have been obliged to return to Galway. His Excellency, who arrived this morning, regrets that he has missed the opportunity of seeing you and desires me to say that if you wished an interview with him on Thursday, he would be glad to receive you at the Viceregal Lodge.
“He will give the subject which has been discussed between us his earliest attention.”
I received by the same post a long and very kind letter from the Lord Lieutenant, written with his own hand. I am sorry that it was marked “Private,” and so I cannot give it here. I may, however, quote the words that brought us back to Dublin. “It would seem that some further personal conference might be very desirable and therefore I hope that it may be possible for you to revisit Dublin on the earliest available day. I shall, of course, be most happy to have an opportunity for a talk with Mr. Yeats.”
So my next letter home says: “Friday, 20th. We arrived at the Broadstone yesterday at 2.15, and were met by the Official’s secretary, who asked us to go to the Viceregal Lodge. Arrived there, another secretary came and asked me to go and see the Lord Lieutenant alone, saying Mr. Yeats could go in later.”
Alas! I must be discreet and that conversation with the King’s representative must not be given to the world, at least by me. I can only mention external things: Mr. Yeats, until he joined the conference, being kept by the secretary, whether from poetical or political reasons, to the non-committal subject of Spring flowers; my grieved but necessary contumacy; our joint and immovable contumacy; the courtesy shown to us and, I think, also by us; the kindly offers of a cup of tea; the consuming desire for that tea after the dust of the railway journey all across Ireland; our heroic refusal, lest its acceptance should in any way, even if it did not weaken our resolve, compromise our principles.... His Excellency’s gracious nature has kept no malice and he has since then publicly taken occasion to show friendship for our Theatre. I felt it was a business forced upon him, who had used his high office above all for reconcilement, as it was upon me, who had lived under a peaceful star for some half a hundred years. I think it was a relief to both of us when at last he asked us to go on to the Castle and see again “a very experienced Official.”
I may now quote again from my letters: “We found the Official rather in a temper. He had been trying to hear Lord Aberdeen’s account of the interview through the telephone and could not. We gave our account, he rather threatening in tone, repeating a good deal of what he had said before. He said we should be as much attacked as they, whatever happened, and that men connected with two newspapers had told him they were only waiting for an opportunity of attacking not only the Lord Lieutenant but the Abbey, if the play is allowed; so we should also catch it. I said, ‘Après vous.’ He said Mr. Yeats had stated in the Patent Enquiry, the Abbey was for the production of romantic work. I quoted Parnell, ‘Who shall set bounds to the march of a Nation?’ We told him our Secretary had reported, ‘Very heavy booking, first class people, a great many from the Castle.’
“He said he would see the Lord Lieutenant on his way home. We went to Dame Street Post Office and wired to Mr. Shaw: ‘Have seen Viceroy. Deleted immoral relations, refused other cuts. He is writing to King, who supports Censor.”
Then, as holder of the Patent, I took counsel’s opinion on certain legal points, of which the most vital was this:
“Should counsel be of opinion that the Crown will serve notice requiring the play to be discontinued, then counsel will please say what penalty he thinks querist would expose herself to by disregarding the notice of the Crown and continuing the representation?”
The answer to this question was: