November 24, 1933

On his second visit to Vassar, the Irish poet and novelist James Stephens lectured on the writing of poetry, read some of his own poems, and fled.

“He was a little man with a high, narrow head and long, thin hands. We felt that he looked very much as one of the philosophers in The Crock of Gold must have looked. At the end of his speech James Stephens made a hasty exit from the stage without waiting for the applause to die down. After him rushed Miss [Professor of English Rose] Peebles, who had introduced him. It seems that the poet is very shy, and on his former visit to Vassar it looked, at the end of his speech, as though he were going to be mobbed by an army of autograph seekers, so he rushed out through the wings and left Students’ unnoticed. There was to be a reception for him in Main immediately after the lecture, and as it was assumed that he had gone there, the assemblage followed after. But no James Stephens did they find. After an interval a search was organized. Posses set out in all directions. At last the poet was found wandering bewildered in the Circle looking for an exit! Hence Miss Peebles’ determination that he should not escape unaccompanied.”

The Vassar Quarterly

Stephens read from his work at Vassar in 1925.