He was led by the spirit - maybe
Poet W.B. Yeats had a complicated history with women. Let's start with Maud Gonne. A New York Times* article from 2008 describes Maud Gonne as a "beautiful, brainy feminist Irish revolutionary" and the muse for much of Yeats' romantic poetry over several decades. As mentioned in the previous post, Yeats' fixation with Gonne led him to propose to her four times -- and he was turned down four times. Still the relationship persevered in what they would call a mystical or spiritual marriage. Both were fascinated by the occult and the mystical. In 1908, for instance, Gonne was in Paris and sent Yeats a letter describing a vision she experienced: "I had such a wonderful experience last night that I must know at once if it affected you & how? At a quarter of 11 last night I put on this body & and thought strongly of you & desired to go to you." Because she was an actress, Yeats wrote a play for her that he intended for her to star in, but she ref