William Butler Yeats Quotes
While they danced they came over them the weariness with the world, the melancholy, the pity one for the other, which is the exultation of love.
Yeats, W. B. "The Rose of Shadow." The Secret Rose, Lawrence & Bullen, 1897, p. 219.
Usually, a prominent politician sending love notes to a mistress does not make for a notable quotation. However, in this bizarre instance, his passion was so great that he went to Argentina without telling his staff of the Lieutenant Governor where he was going. He disappeared for almost a week and the state was left without a chief executive. When he returned amidst the scandal, he refused to resign. That in itself was noteworthy when he had earlier called for the resignation of President William Clinton for sexual indiscretions which did not even affect the government as his indiscretions did. See {628239}.
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others.
