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[ Aetat. 33-34 ] J O Y C E 391objected to Yeats that neither Yeats nor Joyce had given any statement ofloyalty to the Allies in the war. Yeats mollified him by replying: i certainlywish them victory, and as I have never known Joyce to agree withhis neighbours I [a line missing] in Austria has probably made his sympathyas frank as you could wish. I never asked him about it in any ofthe few notes I have sent him. He had never anything to do with Irishpolitics, extreme or otherwise, and I think disliked politics. He alwaysseemed to me to have only literary and philosophic sympathies. To suchmen the Irish atmosphere brings isolation, not anti-English feeling. Heis probably trying at this moment to become absorbed in some piece ofwork till the evil hour is passed. I again thank you for what you havedone for this man of genius.' 9Yeats wrote also to the secretary of the Fund saying,I think that Mr Joyce has a most beautiful gift. There is a poem on thelast page of his Chamber Music which will, I believe, live. It is a technicaland emotional masterpiece. I think that his book of short stories Dublinershas the promise of a great novelist and a great novelist of a new kind.There is not enough foreground, it is all atmosphere perhaps, but I lookupon that as a sign of an original study of life. I have read in a papercalled The Egoist certain chapters of a new novel, a disguised autobiography,which increases my conviction that he is the most remarkable newtalent in Ireland today.The secretary asked Joyce to send an account of his situation, and Joycereplied:Dear Sir... At the outbreak of war I was in Trieste where I have lived for thelast eleven years. My income there was derived from two sources: i) myposition in the Higher School of Commerce ii) private lessons. After theoutbreak of war I was confirmed in my position by the Austrian Ministryof Public Instruction, Vienna, from whom I held and hold it. The schoolhowever closed in spring, nearly all the professors having been called upas officers of the reserve. My second source of income in normal times,viz., private lessons, produced very little in the first months and nothingat all in the next months owing to the critical conditions of the city. Inthese circumstances I lived with great difficulty and was obliged to recurto the assistance of friends, as stated under.When, one month after the Italian declaration of war, the military authoritiesdecided on the partial evacuation of the city I asked for, andobtained at once, a safe conduct for myself, my wife and children to theSwiss frontier. I have been here one month now. I received from a relativeof my wife's a small sum of money, £15, of which some remains. In orderto leave Trieste I effected a loan on my furniture and this sum went fortrainfare (owing to the fact that the railways of Trentino and South Tyrolwere in our war zone we were obliged to come by a circuitous route) andclothing.