Desire, and found herself moved by the performance. She wanted to meet the "tall and black haired" poet and asked Johnson to invite Yeats to tea on 10 May 1894, adding in her handwriting to the invitation, "I shall be so glad to see you". In his Memoirs Yeats referred to her as "Diana Vernon", writing, "In this book I cannot giver her real name—Diana Vernon sounds pleasantly in my ears and will suit as well as any other". They quickly established a strong friendship, with Olivia listening sympathetically to his obsessive love for Maud. When Yeats later described their friendship, he wrote, "I told her of my love sorrow, indeed it was my obsession, never leaving by day or night". Writing in The Last Courtly Lover, Gloria Kline suggests Olivia and Yeats began a friendship based on the discussion of literature and his willingness to review her work. John Unterecker, writing in "Faces and False Faces", sees friendship as the most important aspect in the relationship, explaining, "she found in Yeats, as he in her, a person who could discuss literature and ideas ... she was one of the few persons with whom he could be completely relaxed". Comparing the difference between Maud and Olivia he writes, "Maud Gonne offered Yeats subject matter for poetry, the 'interesting' life he had hoped for, and Olivia Shakespear offered him repose". According to Kline, Yeats compared Olivia to Diana and Maud to Helen; he was attracted to dark coloured women, describing Olivia's skin as "a little darker than a Greek's would have been and her hair was very dark". Literary scholar Humphrey Carpenter writes that Yeats' impression of Olivia was one of a woman with "a profound culture, a knowledge of French, English, and Italian and seemed always at leisure. Her nature was gentle and contemplative, and she was content, it seems, to have no more of life than leisure and the talk of her friends". Nevertheless, she was working on her third novel, Beauty's Hour. It is likely that Yeats read the manuscript, suggested revisions, and he may have contributed to the characterisations. Kline believes the two began a friendship based on the discussion of literature; Yeats biographer Foster adds they were drawn together by a mutual interest in the occult. For Yeats, then aged 30, an important aspect of their friendship was the opportunity it presented for a sexual relationship