'William Butler Yeats might seem as solitary as an eagle; but he had a nest. Wherever there is Ireland there is the family; and it counts for a great deal…. The intensity and individualism of genius itself could never wash out of the world’s memories the general impression of Willie and Lily and Lollie and Jack: names cast backwards and forwards in a unique sort of comedy of Irish wit, gossip, satire, family quarrels, and family pride.’
G. K. Chesterton quoted in W. Murphy, Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats, 1978, p.207