[148] See _A Study of Modern Drama_ by Barrett H. Clark, New York, 1925, and _Modern Drama in Europe_ by Storm Jameson, New York, 1920. [149] By permission of the Atlantic Monthly Company. [150] _Review of Reviews_, 31: 613. [151] _Poet Lore_, Boston, 1908. [152] _Drama_, 25, 62-76. [153] By permission of John Garrett Underhill. [154] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1922. [155] _Plays_; fourth series, xix, edited by John Garrett Underhill. By permission of Mr. Underhill and Charles Scribner’s Sons. [156] _Ibid._ [157] _Ibid._, _Magic of an Hour_, p. 125. CHAPTER XVI W. B. YEATS AND HIS PART IN THE CELTIC REVIVAL The prize of 1923 has been awarded: Yeats, William Butler, born 1865: “for his consistently emotional poetry, which in the strictest artistic form expresses a people’s spirit.”[158] In the book, _Ideals in Ireland_, edited by Lady Gregory (London and New York, 1901), the editor speaks of the various contributors to this revival of letters including George Moore, Æ (George Russell), Douglas Hyde and W. B. Yeats as “candle-stick makers.” Unlike the “butcher and the baker,” who have their daily newspaper and appointed tasks that are appreciated, this type of worker, who makes and holds the candle, is not so well served. He is the _idealist_ who finds himself, too often, ignored or maligned; he searches out the “dark places of the earth”; he is the seer, seeking for truth, aspiration, idealism. This analogy holds good for many of the winners of the Nobel prizes--Björnson, Mistral, Tagore, Maeterlinck, Selma Lagerlöf, Heidenstam, Rolland. By universal consent of readers the name of W. B. Yeats would be added to this list, the winner of 1923. With delicate imagery Lady Gregory has expressed the subtle gift of this Irish poet-dramatist, his ability to catch “the will o’ the wisp fire, miscalled evanescent,” which is the mark of universal idealism. In his paper, contributed to this book, _Ideals in Ireland_, Mr. Yeats writes a brief “History of the Literary Movement” in his country and asks whether this revival of folklore and poetry of the soil, which is called the Celtic revival, will become a part of the intellectual and social development of Ireland. These words were written in 1899; the quarter century since then has answered the question in the affirmative and has accorded to Mr. Yeats a large share in this appreciation of simple beauty, love, and chivalry. The names of Donn Byrne and Padraic Colum, James Stephens and Winifred Letts, Lord Dunsany and St. John Ervine, suggest some of the poets and playwrights, “the candle-holders,” who have followed the inspiring leadership of Lady Gregory, John Synge, Dr. Douglas Hyde, and W. B. Yeats, weaving their romances and poems about old ballads and folklore of the “sage-cycles” of Irish literary history. In this Gaelic literature are songs of battles and of love, legends of saints and heroes, that have