sketch from 19 August 1920
One sketch from 19 August 1920 brings together a tower with water,
apple trees and flowering trees as well as birds and a unicorn
(labelled, on the right-hand side), said to be carrying a mask from a tree with its horn and “Rushing”.
The two sets of trees are labelled apple trees and flowering trees, which may represent
the same contrast of flower and fruit that Dulac used in his woodcut of the Great Wheel.
But elsewhere in the Automatic Script, the tree is the symbol of the primary and the mask of the antithetical, so that the unicorn's carrying away may represent a temporary triumph
of the antithetical or rescue for the antithetical Yeatses, as they build the tower of their
antithetical system.... more
