Page:John M. Synge - Masefield - Dublin 1915.djvu/33

 thinking of learning the penny whistle before I go again.”

I never heard him mention his early life nor what he endured in his struggles to find a form. I believe he never spoke about his writings, except to say that he wrote them slowly, many times over. His talk was always about vivid, picturesque, wild life. He took greater joy in what some frantic soul from Joyce’s country said when the policeman hit him than in anything of his own. He found no vivid life in England. He disliked England. I think he only knew London. Afterwards he stayed for a couple of weeks in Devonshire. London is a place where money can be made and spent. Devonshire is a place where elderly ladies invite retired naval officers to tea. England lies further to the north. He was never in any part of England where the country life is vigorous and picturesque. He believed England to be all suburb, like the “six counties overhung with smoke.” Soon after our first meeting I was present at his first success. His two early plays, Riders to the Sea and The Shadow of the Glen, were read aloud