Yeats's obsession with occultism embarrassed and worried some of those close to him and may at one point have contributed to a slight estrangement, from his champion Lady Gregory, one of the worst repercussions of which was that a constraint developed over his long stays at her Coole Park home in Co Galway.
ROBERT Gregory (her son) was technically master of the estate and house since his majority in 1902 his father's will was clear on the point, and his mother had often represented herself as keeping it together for him until he came of age. But she continued in charge as before. In part, this suited her son and his wife, who liked to spend a good deal of time abroad and the house had now become an inextricable part of his mother's life as a summer salonniere, an identity which she was understandably reluctant to jeopardise. Nor had Robert shown any marked taste for estate management. But the fact that she continued to throw, Coole open to WBY for months on end raised problems. The young Gregorys had not wanted him there during the latter stages of Margaret's pregnancies and before his visit in the autumn of 1913 Gregory had to ask him, rather awkwardly, it he would mind providing his own wine, "and perhaps a special decanter". Resentment from Robert and his wife had long been building up, and Margaret Gregory had given her side of things to a surprised Lady Dunsany three years before.
"Apparently Coole was left to Mr Robert Gregory but Lady Gregory continued to live there, and run it and Mrs G accepted the position when she married and now I think regrets it but is too fond of Lady G to protest. But Lady G did say when she married that Yeats would cease to live there most of the year and he has not ceased and until now has even had the Master of the House's room. That at last, she has struck at, but of course their living a good deal in Paris to paint at first must have made it impossible for her now to after the position. I know there is no reason why a great mind should mean a great soul but she related one or two petty meannesses of his which I should have thought beneath him... Mrs G says that he does not mind what Lady G's opinion of him is as he knows she will forgive him anything in the end, and that he knows the young Gregorys, the real owners, hate his presence and has no shame about staying on."