The most important undertaking after the long illness was the monograph

on Shelley written for _Great Writers’ Series_ (Walter Scott) and

published in the autumn of 1887. It was a work of love, for Shelley

had been the inspiring genius of his youth, the chief influence in his

verse till he knew Rossetti. He was in sympathy with much of Shelley’s

thought: with his hatred of rigid conventionality, of the tyranny of

social laws; with his antagonism to existing marriage and divorce laws,

with his belief in the sanctity of passion when called forth by high

and true emotion. He exclaimed that

“It is my main endeavour in this short life of Shelley to avoid all

misstatement and exaggeration; to give as real a narrative of his life

from the most reliable sources as lies within my power; to recount

without detailed criticism and as simply and concisely as practicable,

the record of his poetic achievements. To this end I shall chiefly rely

on anecdote and explanatory detail, or poems and passages noteworthy

for their autobiographical or idiosyncratic value, and on indisputable

facts.”

He proposed merely to give a condensation of all really important

material; and based his monograph mainly on Professor Dowden’s

memorable work (then recently published). Many statements written by

William Sharp about Shelley may be quoted as autobiographic of himself.

For instance: “From early childhood he was a mentally restless child.

Trifles unnoticed by most children seem to have made keen and permanent

impression on him—the sound of wind, the leafy whisper of trees,

running water. The imaginative faculties came so early into play, that

the unconscious desire to create resulted in the invention of weird

tales sometimes based on remote fact in the experience of more or less

weird hallucinations.”

Or again: “The fire of his mind for ever consuming his excitable body,

his swift and ardent emotions, his over keen susceptibilities all

combined to increase the frailty of his physical health.” Or this in

particular: “He did not outgrow his tendency to invest every new and

sympathetic correspondent (and I would add, friend) with lives of ideal

splendour.”

And in explanation of each idealization appearing to him “as the

type of that ideal Beauty which had haunted his imagination from

early boyhood,” he adds: “No fellow mortal could have satisfied the

desire of his heart. Perhaps this almost fantastic yearning for the

unattainable—this desire of the moth for the star—is the heritage of

many of us. It is a longing that shall be insatiable even in death.”

With Shelley he might have said of himself: “I think one is always in

love with something or other; the error—and I confess it is not easy

for spirits cased in flesh and blood to avoid it—consists in seeking

in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal.”

From the many letters the biographer received after the publication of

his book I select three:

BRASENOSE COLLEGE, Nov. 23d.

MY DEAR SHARP,

I am reading your short life of Shelley with great pleasure and profit.

Many thanks for your kindness in sending it. It seems to me that with a

full, nay! an enthusiastic, appreciation of Shelley and his work, you

unite a shrewdness and good sense rare in those who have treated this

subject. And then your book is pleasant and effective, in contrast to a

French book on Shelley of which I read reluctantly a good deal lately.

Your book leaves a very definite image on the brain.

With sincere kind regards,

Very truly yours,

WALTER PATER.

CIMIEZ, PRÈS NICE.

22d Dec., 1887.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I wonder how it is with you now, whether you are better, which I

sincerely hope, and already in the Isle of Wight? but I suppose you

will only go after Christmas. To-day it is so cold here that I wonder

what it must be like with you; there is snow on the mountains behind

the house and the sea looks iron-gray and ungenial.

I never told you I think how much I liked your “Shelley,” which I think

gives a very succinct and fair statement of the poet’s life and works.

It is just what is wanted by the public at large, and I thought your

remarks on Shelley’s relations with Harriet exceedingly sympathetic and

to the point; as well as what you say touching his married life with

Mary; the passage on page 98 concerning this disenchantment with all

mortal passion struck me as most happily felt and expressed. I have

only one fault to find with you, and that you will think a very selfish

one (so you must excuse it), to wit that when speaking of _The Revolt

of Islam_ you did not mention in a line or so that I was the first

writer who pointed out, first in the “Westminster Review” and afterward

in my Memoir of the poet, that in Cythna Shelley had introduced a new

type of Woman into poetry. I am rather proud of it, and as it was

mentioned by several of Shelley’s subsequent biographers I would have

been pleased to have seen it in a volume likely to be so popular as

yours.

But enough of this small matter.

I wish you and your dear wife health and happiness.

Ever yours,

MATHILDE BLIND.

BOX HILL (DORKING),

Feb. 13, 1888.

DEAR MR. SHARP,

I have read your book on Shelley, and prefer it, matched with the

bulky. Putting out of view Matthew Arnold’s very lofty lift of

superterrestrial nose over the Godwin nest, one inclines to agree with

him about our mortal business of Shelley. We shall be coming next to

medical testimony, with expositions. You have said just enough, and

in the right tones. Yesterday a detachment of the Sunday tramps under

Leslie Stephen squeezed at the table in the small dining-room you know,

after a splendid walk over chalk and sand. When you are in the mood to

make one of us, give me note of warning, and add to the pleasure by

persuading your wife to come with you.

And tell her that this invitation would be more courtly were I

addressing her directly.

I am,

Very truly yours,

GEORGE MEREDITH.

CHAPTER VIII

ROMANTIC BALLADS

_The Children of To-morrow_

The three years spent at Wescam were happy years, full of work and

interest. Slowly but steadily as health was re-established, the command

over work increased, and all work was planned with the hope that before

very long William should be able to devote himself to the form of

imaginative work that he knew was germinating in his mind. Meanwhile

he had much in hand. Critical work for many of the weeklies, a volume

of poems in preparation, and a monograph on Heine, were the immediate

preoccupations.

_Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy_ was published in the spring

(Walter Scott). The poems had been written at different times during

the previous five or six years. “The Son of Allan” had met with the

approval of Rossetti, whose influence was commented upon by certain of

the critics. The book was well received both in England and America.

_The Boston Literary World_ considered that in such poems as “The Isle

of Lost Dreams,” “Twin Souls,” and “The Death Child” “a conjuring

imagination rises to extraordinary beauty of conception.” These three

poems are undoubtedly forerunners of the work of the “Fiona Macleod”

period. In the Preface the writer stated his conviction that “a

Romantic Revival is imminent in our poetic literature, a true awakening

of genuinely romantic sentiment. The most recent phase thereof,”

however, “that mainly due to Rossetti, has not fulfilled the hopes of

those who saw in it the prelude to a new great poetic period. It has

been too literary, inherently, but more particularly in expression....

Spontaneity it has lacked supremely.... It would seem as if it had

already become mythical that the supreme merit of a poem is not

perfection of art, but the quality of the imagination which is the

source of such real or approximate perfection.... In a sense, there is

neither Youth nor Age in Romance, it is the quintessence of the most

vivid emotions of life.” And further on he voices the very personal

belief “Happy is he who, in this day of spiritual paralysis, can still

shut his eyes for a while and dream.”

Concerning the idea of fatality that underlies the opening ballad “The

Weird of Michel Scott”—“meant as a lyrical tragedy, a tragedy of a soul

that finds the face of disastrous fate set against it whithersoever

it turn in the closing moments of mortal life,” he wrote to a friend,

“What has always impressed me deeply—how deeply I can scarcely say—is

the blind despotism of fate. It is manifested in Æschylus, in Isaiah

and in the old Hebrew Prophets, in all literature, in all history and

in life. This blind, terrible, indifferent Fate, this tyrant Chance,

stays or spares, mutilates or rewards, annihilates or passes by without

heed, without thought, with absolute blankness of purpose, aim, or

passion....

“I am tortured by the passionate desire to create beauty, to sing

something of ‘the impossible songs’ I have heard, to utter something

of the rhythm of life that has most touched me. The next volume of

romantic poems will be daringly of the moment, vital with the life and

passion of to-day (I speak hopefully, not with arrogant assurance, of

course), yet not a whit less romantic than ‘The Weird of Michel Scott’

or ‘The Death Child.’”

Many encouraging and appreciative letters reached him from friends

known and unknown.

In Mr. William Allingham’s opinion “Michel Scott clothing his own Soul

with Hell-fire is tremendous!”

Professor Edward Dowden was not wholly in accord with the poet’s views,

as expressed in the Introduction:

RATHMINES, DUBLIN,

July 10, 1888.

MY DEAR SHARP,

It gave me great pleasure to get your new volume from yourself. I think

that a special gift of yours, and one not often possessed, appears

in this volume of romance and phantasy. I don’t find it possible to

particularise one poem as showing its presence more than another, for

the unity of the volume comes from its presence. And I rejoice at

anything which tends to make this last quarter of the century other

than what I feared it would be—a period of collecting and arranging

facts, with perhaps such generalisations as specialists can make. (Not

that this is not valuable work, but if it is the sole employment of a

generation what an ill time for the imagination and the emotions!) At

the same time I don’t think I should make any _demand_, if I could, for

Romance. I should not put forth any manifesto in its favour, for this

reason—that the leaders of a movement of phantasy and romance will have

such a sorry following. The leaders of a school which overvalued form

and technique may have been smaller men than the leaders of a romantic

school, yet still their followers were learning something; but while

the chiefs of the romantic and phantastic movement will be men of

genius, what a lamentable crowd the disciples will be, who will try to

be phantastic _prepense_. We shall have the horrors of the spasmodic

school revived without that element of a high, vague, spiritual

intention which gave some nobility—or pseudo-nobility—to the disciples

of the spasmodists. We shall have every kind of extravagance and folly

posing as poetry.

The way to control or check this is for the men who have a gift for

romance to use that gift—which you have done—and to prove that phantasy

is not incoherence but has its own laws. And they ought to discourage

any and every one from attempting romance who has not a genius for

romance.

Sincerely yours,

E. DOWDEN.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the author of the ballads was at work preparing two volumes

for the _Canterbury Series_—a volume of selected Odes, and one of

American Sonnets, to which he contributed prefaces—and writing critical

articles for the _Academy_, _Athenæum_, _Literary World_, etc. Various

important books were published that spring, and among those which came

into his hands to write about were _Underwoods_ by R. L. Stevenson, _In

Hospital_ by W. Henley; and from these writers respectively he received

letters of comment. I am unable to remember what was the occasion of

the first of the R. L. Stevenson notes, what nature of request it was

that annoyed the older writer. Neither of his letters is dated, but

from the context each obviously belongs to 1888.

DEAR MR. SHARP,

Yes, I was annoyed with you, but let us bury that; you have shown so

much good nature under my refusal that I have blotted out the record.

And to show I have repented of my wrath: is your article written? If

not, you might like to see early sheets of my volume of verse, not very

good, but still—and the Scotch ones would amuse you I believe. And you

might like also to see the plays I have written with Mr. Henley: let me

know, and you shall have them as soon as I can manage.

Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

The notice I had seen already, and was pleased with.

* * * * *

After the appearance of the review of _Underwoods_, R. L. S. wrote

again:

DEAR MR. SHARP,

What is the townsman’s blunder?—though I deny I am a townsman, for I

have lived, on the whole, as much or more in the country: well, perhaps

not so much. Is it that the thrush does not sing at night? That is

possible. I only know most potently the blackbird (his cousin) does:

many and many a late evening in the garden of that poem have I listened

to one that was our faithful visitor; and the sweetest song I ever

heard was past nine at night in the early spring, from a tree near the

N. E. gate of Warriston cemetery. That I called what I believe to have

been a merle by the softer name of mavis (and they are all turdi, I

believe) is the head and front of my offence against literal severity,

and I am curious to hear if it has really brought me into some serious

error.

Your article is very true and very kindly put: I have never called my

verses poetry: they are verse, the verse of a speaker not a singer;

but that is a fair business like another. I am of your mind too in

preferring much the Scotch verses, and in thinking “_Requiem_” the

nearest thing to poetry that I have ever “clerkit.”

Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

R. L. S. SARANAC, NEW YORK.

Mr. Henley wrote:

MERTON PLACE, CHISWICK, W.,

5: 7: 88.

MY DEAR SHARP,

I am glad to have your letter. Of course I disagreed with your view of

_In Hospital_; but I didn’t think it all worth writing about. I felt

you’d mistaken my aim; but I felt that your mistake (as I conceived it

to be) was honestly made, and that if the work itself had failed to

produce a right effect upon you, it was useless to attempt to correct

the impressions by means outside art.

Art (as I think) is treatment _et præteria nil_. What I tried to do in

_In Hospital_ was to treat a certain subject—which seems to me to have

a genuine human interest and importance—with discretion, good feeling,

and a certain dignity. If I failed, I failed as an artist. My treatment

(or my art) was not good enough for my material. _Voilà._ I thought

(I will frankly confess it) that I had got the run of the thing—that

my results were touched with the distinction of art. You didn’t think

so, and I saw that, as far as you were concerned, I had failed of my

effort. I was sorry to have so failed, and then the matter ended. To

be perfectly frank, I objected to but one expression—“occasionally

crude”—in all the article. I confess I don’t see the propriety

of the phrase at all. My method is, I know, the exact reverse of

your own; but I beg you to believe that my efforts—of simplicity,

directness, bluntness, brutality even—are carefully calculated, and

that “crude”—which means raw, if it means anything at all—is a word

that I’d rather not have applied to me. The _Saturday_ Reviewer

made use of it, and I had it out with him, and he owned that it was

unfortunately used—that it didn’t mean “raw,” but something un-Miltonic

(as it were), something novel and personal and which hadn’t had time

to get conventionalised. It’s stupid and superfluous to write like

this; especially as I had meant to say nothing about it. But yours

of last night is so kind and pleasant that I think it best to write

what’s on my mind, or rather what _was_ on it when I read your article.

For the rest, it is good to hear that you’re re-reading, and are kind

of dissatisfied with your own first views. I shall look with great

interest for the new statement, and value it—whatever its conclusions—a

good deal. I have worked hard at the little book, and am disposed (as

you see) to take it more seriously than it deserves; and whatever is

said about it comes home to me.

Always yours sincerely,

W. E. H.

_P. S._—I am glad you quoted “The King of Babylon.” It’s my own

favourite of all. I call it “a romance without adjectives” and the

phrase (which represents an ideal) says everything. I wish I could do

more of the same reach and tune.

* * * * *

At Wescam we enjoyed once more the pleasant ways of friendship that

had grown about us, and especially our Sunday informal evening

gatherings to which came all those with whom we were in sympathy.

Among the most frequent were Mrs. Mona Caird, the eager champion of

women long before the movement passed into the militant hands of the

suffragettes; Walter Pater, during his Oxford vacation; Dr. and Mrs.

Garnett; John M. Robertson, who was living the “simple life” of a

socialist in rooms close by; Richard Whiteing, then leader-writing

for _The Daily News_, and author of the beautiful idyll _The Island_.

Mathilde Blind—poetess novelist, who in youth had sat an eager disciple

at the feet of Mazzini, came frequently, Ernest Rhys was writing poems

and editing _The Camelot Classics_ from the heights of Hampstead, and

his wife, then Miss Grace Little, lived in the neighbourhood with her

sisters, the eldest of whom, Lizzie Little, was a writer of charming

verse. W. B. Yeats came in the intervals of wandering over Ireland

in search of Folk tales; John Davidson had recently come to London,

and was bitter over the hard struggle he was enduring; William Watson

was a rare visitor. Another frequent visitor was Arthur Tomson the

landscape painter, who came to us with an introduction from Mr. Andrew

Lang. A warm friendship grew up between Arthur and ourselves, which was

deepened by his second marriage with Miss Agnes Hastings, a girl-friend

of ours, and lasted till his death in 1905. Mr. and Mrs. John M. Swan

came occasionally, Mr. and Mrs. William Strang, we saw frequently, and

Theodore Roussell was an ever welcome guest. Sir George Douglas came

now and again from Kelso; Charles Mavor, editor of _The Art Review_,

ran down occasionally from Glasgow. Other frequenters of our Sunday

evenings were Richard Le Gallienne, whose _Book bills of Narcissus_ was

then recently published; Miss Alice Corkran, Mr. and Mrs. Todhunter,

Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Coleridge, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rinder, Mr. and Mrs.

Joseph Pennell. The Russian Nihilist Stepniak and his wife were a great

interest to us. I remember on one occasion they told us that Stepniak

intended to make a secret visit to Russia—as he had done before—that he

was starting the next morning, and though every care would be taken in

matter of disguise, the risks were so great that he and his wife always

said farewell to one another as though they never would meet again.

Mrs. Caird’s town house was close to us; and she, keenly interested—as

my husband and I also were—in the subject of the legal position of

women, had that spring written two articles on the Marriage question

which were accepted by and published in _The Westminster Review_ in

July. Twelve years ago the possibilities of a general discussion on

such subjects were very different to what exist now. The sensibilities

of both men and women—especially of those who had no adequate

knowledge of the legal inequalities of the Marriage laws nor of the

abuses which were and are in some cases still the direct outcome of

them—were disturbed and shocked by the plain statements put forward,

by the passionate plea for justice, for freedom from tyrannous legal

oppression, exercised consciously and unconsciously. Mrs. Caird’s

articles met with acute hostility of a kind difficult to understand

now, and much misunderstanding and unmerited abuse was meted out to

her. Nevertheless these brave articles, published in book form under

the title of _The Morality of Marriage_, and the novels written by the

same pen, have been potent in altering the attitude of the public mind

in its approach to and examination of such questions, in making private

discussion possible.

In the autumn of 1888 the monograph on Heine was published in the

_Great Writers Series_ (Walter Scott); and the author always regarded

it as the best piece of work of the kind he ever did. It seemed fitting

that the writer of a life of Shelley should write one of Heine, for

there is a kinship between the two poets. To their biographer Heine was

the strangest and most fascinating of all the poets not only of one

country and one century, but of all time and of all nations; he saw

in the wayward brilliant poet “one of those flowers which bloom more

rarely than the aloe—human flowers which unfold their petals but once,

it may be, in the whole slow growth of humanity.... At his best Heine

is a creature of controlled impulse; at his worst he is a creature of

impulse uncontrolled. Through extremes he gained the golden mean of

art: here is his _apologia_.”

The book is an endeavour to handle the subject in an impartial spirit,

to tell the story vividly, to give a definite impression of the

strange personality, and in the concluding pages to summarise Heine’s

genius. But, “do what we will we cannot affiliate, we cannot classify

Heine. When we would apprehend it his genius is as volatile as his

wit.... Of one thing only can we be sure: that he is of our time, of

our century. He is so absolutely and essentially modern that he is

often antique....

“As for his song-motive, I should say it was primarily his

_Lebenslust_, his delight in life: that love so intensely human that it

almost necessarily involved the ignoring of the divine. Rainbow-hued

as is his genius, he himself was a creature of earth. It was enough

to live.... He would cling to life, even though it were by a rotten

beam, he declared once in his extremity. And the poet of life he

unquestionably is. There is a pulse in everything he writes: his is no

galvanised existence. No parlour passions lead him into the quicksands

of oblivion....”

The author was gratified by appreciative letters from Dr. Richard

Garnett and Mr. George Meredith:

3 ST. EDMUND’S TERRACE,

Nov 11, 1888.

MY DEAR SHARP,

I have now finished your Heine, and can congratulate you upon an

excellent piece of biographical work. You are throughout perfectly

clear and highly interesting, and, what is more difficult with your

subject, accurate and impartial. Or, if there is any partiality it is

such as it is becoming in one poet to enlist aid for another. With all

one’s worship of Heine’s genius, it must be allowed that he requires a

great deal of toleration. The best excuse to be made for him is that

his faults were largely faults of race—and just now I feel amiably

toward the Jews, for if you have seen the Athenæum you will have

observed that I have fallen into the hands of the Philistines. Almost

the only point in which I differ from you is as regards your too slight

mention of Platen, who seems to me not only a master of form but a true

though limited poet—a sort of German Matthew Arnold. Your kind notice

of my translation from the Romanzen did not escape me. Something,

perhaps, should have been said of James Thomson, the best English

translator.

Believe me, my dear Sharp,

Most sincerely yours,

R. GARNETT.

BOX HILL, Dec. 10, 1887.

DEAR MR. SHARP,

Your Heine gave me pleasure. I think it competently done; and coming

as a corrective to Stigund’s work, it brings the refreshment of the

antidote. When I have the pleasure of seeing you we will converse

upon Heine. Too much of his—almost all of the Love poems drew both

tenderness and tragic emotion from a form of sensualism, much of his

wit too was wilful—a trick of the mind. Always beware of the devilish

in wit: it has the obverse of an intellectual meaning, and it shows at

the best interpretation, a smallness of range. Macmillan says that if

they can bring out my book “Reading of Earth” on the 18th I may expect

it. Otherwise you will not receive a copy until after Christmas.

Faithfully yours,

GEORGE MEREDITH.

Mr. Meredith wrote again after the publication of his poems:

BOX HILL, Feb. 15, 1888.

DEAR MR. SHARP,

It is not common for me to be treated in a review with so much respect.

But your competency to speak on the art of verse gives the juster

critical tone.

Of course you have poor J. Thomson’s book. I have had pain in reading

it. Nature needs her resources, considering what is wasted of her

finest. That is to say, on this field—and for the moment I have eyes

on the narrow rather than the wider. It is our heart does us this

mischief. Philosophy can as little subject it as the Laws of men can

hunt Nature out of women—artificial though we force them to be in their

faces. But if I did not set Philosophy on high for worship, I should

be one of the weakest.

Let me know when you are back. If in this opening of the year we have

the South West, our country, even our cottage, may be agreeable to you.

All here will be glad to welcome you and your wife for some days.

Yours very cordially,

GEORGE MEREDITH.

It was the late spring before we could visit Mr. Meredith. The day

of our going was doubly memorable to me, because as we went along

the leafy road from Burford Bridge station we met Mr. and Mrs. Grant

Allen—my first meeting with them—whose home was at that time in

Dorking. Memorable, too, was the courteous genial greeting from our

host and his charming daughter; and the many delightful incidents of

that first week end visit. William and Mr. Meredith had long talks in

the garden chalet on the edge of the wood. And in the evenings the

novelist read aloud to us. On that occasion I think it was he read

some chapters from “One of our Conquerors” on which he was working;

another time it was from “The Amazing Marriage” and from “Lord Ormont

and his Aminta.” The reader’s enjoyment seemed as great as that of his

audience, and it interested me to hear how closely his own methods

of conversation resembled, in wittiness and brilliance, those of the

characters in his novels. Sometimes he turned a merciless play of wit

on his listener; but my husband, who was as deeply attached to the man

as he admired the writer, enjoyed these verbal duels in which he was

usually worsted. The incident of the visit that charmed me most arose

from my stating that I had never heard the nightingale. So on the

Sunday afternoon we were taken to a stretch of woodland, “my woods of

Westermain” the poet smilingly declared, and there, standing among the

tree-boles in the late afternoon sun-glow I listened for the bird-notes

as he described them to me until he was satisfied I heard aright.

The Xmas of 1888, and the following New Year’s day we passed at

Tunbridge Wells, with Mathilde Blind, in rooms overlooking the common.

Many delightful hours were spent together in the evenings listening to

one or other of the two poets reading aloud their verse, or parts of

the novels they had in process. Mathilde was writing her _Tarantella_;

my husband had recently finished a boys’ serial story for _Young

Folk’s Paper_, with a highly sensational plot entitled “The Secret of

Seven Fountains,” and was at work on a Romance of a very different

order in which he then was deeply interested, though in later life

he considered it immature in thought and expression. The boys’ story

was one of adventure, of life seen from a purely objective point of

view. _The Children of To-morrow_ was the author’s first endeavour to

give expression in prose to the more subjective side of his nature,

to thoughts, feelings, aspirations he had hitherto suppressed; it is

the direct forerunner of the series of romantic tales he afterward

wrote as Fiona Macleod; it was also the expression of his attitude

of revolt against the limitations of the accepted social system. The

writing of the Monograph on Shelley had rekindled many ideas and

beliefs he held in common with the earlier poet—ideas concerning love

and marriage, viewed not from the standpoint of the accepted practical

standard of morality, nor of the possible realisation by the average

humanity of a more complex code of social morality, but viewed from the

standpoint held by a minority of dreamers and thinkers who look beyond

the present strictly guarded, fettered conditions of married life,

to a time, when man and woman, equally, shall know that to stultify

or slay the spiritual inner life of another human being, through the

radical misunderstanding between alien temperaments inevitably tied to

one another, is one of the greatest crimes against humanity. That the

author knew how visionary for the immediate future were these ideas,

which we at that time so eagerly discussed with a little group of

intimate sympathetic friends, is shown by the prefatory lines in the

book:

“Forlorn the way, yet with strange gleams of gladness;

Sad beyond words the voices far behind.

Yet we, perplext with our diviner madness,

Must heed them not—the goal is still to find!

What though beset by pain and fear and sorrow,

We must not fail, we Children of To-morrow.”

_The Children of To-morrow_ called forth all manner of divergent

opinions. It was called depressing by one critic, and out of touch with

realities. Another considered the chief interest of the book to consist

“in what may be called its aims. It is clearly an attempt toward

greater truth in art and life.” All agreed as to the power displayed

in the descriptions of nature. The critic in _Public Opinion_ showed

discernment as to the author’s intentions when he wrote “To our mind

the delightful irresponsibility of this book, the calm determination

which it displays that now, at least, the author means to please

himself, to give vent to many a pent up feeling or opinion constitutes

one of its greatest charms. This waywardness, the waywardness of a

true artist, is shown on almost every page.... Mr. Sharp states his

case with wonderful power and lucidity; he draws no conclusions—as an

artist they do not concern him—he leaves the decision to the individual

temperament.”

Mathilde Blind wrote to the author:

1 ST. EDMUND’S TERRACE, N. W., 1889.

DEAR CHILD OF THE FUTURE,

You have indeed written a strange, weird, romantic tale with the sound

of the sea running through it like an accompaniment. Adama Acosta is

a specially well-imagined and truthful character of a high kind; and

the intermittent wanderings of his brain have something akin to the

wailing notes of the instrument of which he is such a master. But it

is in your conception of love—the subtle, delicate, ideal attraction

of two beings inevitably drawn to each other by the finest elements

of their being—that the charm of the story consists to my mind; on

the other hand, you have succeeded in drawing a very realistic and

vivid picture of the hard and handsome Lydia, with her purely negative

individuality, and in showing the deadly effect which one person

may exercise over another in married life—without positive outward

wrongdoing which might lead to the divorce court. I agree with you in

thinking that the end is the finest part of the Romance, especially

the last scene where Dane and Sanpriel are in the wood under the old

oak tree, where the voice of the rising storm with its ominous note of

destiny is magnificently described. Such a passing away in the mid-most

fire of passion on the wings of the elements has always seemed to me

the climax of human happiness. But I fear the book is likely to rouse

a good deal of opposition in many quarters for the daring disregard of

the binding sanctity of the marriage relation. If I may speak quite

openly and as a friend who would wish you to do yourself full justice

and produce the best work that is in you, I wish you had given yourself

more time to work out some of the situations which seem, to me at

least, to lack a certain degree of precision and consistency. Thus, for

example, Dane after discovering that Ford has been trying to murder

him, and is making secret love to his wife, rushes off to the painter’s

studio evidently bent on some sort of quarrel or revenge, yet nothing

comes of it, and afterwards we find the would-be murderer on outwardly

friendly terms with the sculptor on board the house boat. I must tell

you by the way how powerful I think the scene of the dying horse in

Ratho Sands and the murder of Lydia. I should also have liked to have

heard a little more of the real aims and objects of “The Children of

the Future” and would like to know whether such an association really

exists among any section of the modern Jews; we must talk of that this

evening or some other time when we meet. I hope to look in to-night

with Sarrazin and Bunand who are coming to a little repast here first.

Madox Brown has been reading your book with the greatest interest.

Yours ever,

MATHILDE BLIND.

CHAPTER IX

FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA

In the Spring of 1889 the Chair of Literature at University College,

London, became vacant on the death of Professor Henry Morley; and

many of William Sharp’s friends urged him to stand for election. He

was of two minds on the subject. His inclinations were against work

of the kind, for, temperamentally, he had difficulty in regulating

his life in accordance with strict routine. Born, as he would say,

with the wandering wave in his blood, the fixed and the inevitable

were antipathetic to him. He was, however, awake to the material

importance of such a post, to the advantages of a steady income. Had

he had himself only to consider he would not have given the proposal

a thought; but he believed it to be his duty to attempt to secure the

post for his wife’s sake, though she was not of that opinion. Among the

many friends who advocated his election were Robert Browning, George

Meredith, Walter Pater, Theodore Watts Dunton, Alfred Austin, Dr.

Richard Garnett, Prof. Minto, Hall Caine, Sir George Douglas, Aubrey

De Vere, Mrs. Augusta Webster. When, however, the date of election

drew near, he consulted his doctor and withdrew his candidature. The

question, to him, had all along been one of security of means versus

freedom of action; and having done his duty in the matter, his relief

was great that the decision left him in possession of his freedom.

For some time William Sharp had contemplated a visit to the United

States, where he was well known as poet and critic, and had many

friendly correspondents. So he considered the moment to be opportune.

He decided to go; although he was forbidden to lecture in America, and

very opportunely our friend Mrs. Caird asked me to accompany her to

Austria—to the Sun-cure at Veldes in the Carpathian Alps. She and I

were the first to leave, and eventually, my husband after his return

from America joined me at Cologne and accompanied me home.

Meanwhile he made his preparations for a visit to Canada and New York,

and just before starting paid a flying visit to Mr. George Meredith who

had written to him:

BOX HILL, July 15, 1889.

DEAR MR. SHARP,

This would have been headed to your wife, but for the chances of her

flying, and the letter after her. Tell her we are grieved to lose

the pleasure her company would give, and trust to welcome her on her

return. When she looks on Tyrol, let her strain an eye to see my heart

on the topmost peak. We hope for your coming on Saturday.

Yours very truly,

GEORGE MEREDITH.

He looked forward to his American tour with keen delight. New

experiences were ever alluring; he had the power of throwing himself

heart and soul into every fresh enjoyment. Going by himself seemed to

promise chances of complete recovery of health; the unexplored and the

unknown beckoned to him with promise of excitement and adventure.

As he wrote to Mr. Stedman: “I am a student of much else besides

literature. Life in all its manifestations is of passionate interest

for me, and I cannot rest from incessant study and writing. Yet I feel

that I am but on the threshold of my literary life. I have a life-time

of ambitious schemes before me; I may perhaps live to fulfil a tenth

part of them.”

Mid-August found him in Canada. Fine as he considered the approach to

Nova Scotia, Newfoundland impressed him more. At Halifax he was the

guest of the Attorney General. He wrote to me “Mr. and Mrs. Longley

were most kind, and so were all the many leading people to whom I was

introduced. I was taken to the annual match of the Quoit Club, and was

asked to present the Cup to the winner at the close, with a few words

if I felt disposed. Partly from being so taken aback, partly from

pleased excitement, and partly from despair, I lost all nervousness

and made a short and (what I find was considered) humourous speech, so

slowly and coolly spoken that I greatly admired it myself!”

At Halifax, which he considered “worth a dozen of the Newfoundland

capital,” he was met by Professor Charles Roberts who had come “to

intercept me so as to go off with him for a few days in Northern

Scotia and across the Straits to Prince Edward Island. So, a few days

later Prof. Roberts and I, accompanied for the first 100 miles by

Mr. Longley, started for Pictou, which we reached after 5 hours most

interesting journey. The Attorney General has kindly asked me to go a

three days’ trip with him (some 10 days hence) through the famous Cape

Breton district, with the lovely Bras D’Or lakes: and later on he has

arranged for a three days’ moose-hunt among the forests of Southern

Acadia, where we shall camp out in tents, and be rowed by Indian

guides.”

New Glasgow delighted him; he visited Windsor and Halifax: “I went with

Charles Roberts and Bliss Carman through Evangeline’s country. En route

I travelled on the engine of the train and enjoyed the experience.

Grand Pré delighted me immensely—vast meadows, with lumbering wains

and the simple old Acadian life. The orchards were in their glory—and

the apples delicious! At one farm house we put up, how you would have

enjoyed our lunch of sweet milk hot cakes, great bowls of huckleberries

and cream, tea, apples, etc.! We then went through the forest belt and

came upon the great ocean inlet known as the “basin of Minas,” and,

leagues away the vast bulk of Blomidon shelving bough-like into the

Sea....”

To E. A. S.:

(ON THE ST. LAWRENCE),

12th Sept.

To-day has been a momentous birthday on the whole—and none the less

so because I have been alone and, what is to me an infinite relief,

quite unknown. I told no one about my Saguenay expedition till the

last moment—and so there is nothing definite about me in the papers

save that I “abruptly left St. John” (the capital of New Brunswick)

and that I am to arrive in Quebec to-morrow. I sent you a card from

Rivière du Loup, the northernmost township of the old Acadians, and

a delightful place. I reached it early from Temiscouata (the Lake of

Winding Water)—a journey of extreme interest and beauty, through a wild

and as yet unsettled country. The track has only been open this summer.

Before I reached its other end (the junction of the St. John river

with the Madawaska) I was heartily sick of New Brunswick, with its

oven-like heat, its vast monotonous forests with leagues upon leagues

of dead and dying trees, and its all present forest-fires. The latter

have caused widespread disaster.... Several times we were scorched by

the flames, but a few yards away—and had “to rush” several places.

But once in the province of Quebec, and everything changed. The fires

(save small desultory ones) disappeared: the pall of smoke lightened

and vanished: and the glorious September foliage made a happy contrast

to the wearisome hundreds of miles of decayed and decaying firs. It

was a most glorious sunset—one of the grandest I have ever seen—and

the colour of the vast Laurentian Mountain range, on the north side of

the St. Lawrence, superb. It was dark when we reached the mouth of the

Saguenay River—said to be the gloomiest and most awe-inspiring river

in the world—and began our sail of close upon a hundred miles (it can

be followed by canoes for a greater length than Great Britain). The

full moon came up, and the scene was grand and solemn beyond words.

Fancy fifty miles of sheer mountains, one after another without a

valley-break, but simply cleft ravines. The deep gloom as we slowly

sailed through the noiseless shadow brooding between Cape Eternity and

Cape Trinity was indescribable. We anchored for some hours in “Ha! Ha!

Bay,” the famous landing place of the old discoverers. In the early

morning we sailed out from Ha! Ha! Bay, and then for hours sailed

down such scenery as I have never seen before and never expect to see

again.... At Quebec I am first to be the guest of the well-known Dr.

Stewart, and then of Mons. Le Moine at his beautiful place out near the

Indian Village of Lorette and the Falls of Montmorenci—not far from the

famous Plain of Abraham, where Wolfe and Montcalm fought, and an Empire

lay in balance.

In New York, William was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Stedman at 44

East 26th Street, whence he wrote to me:

“ ... So much has happened since I wrote to you from Montreal that I

don’t see how I’m to tell you more than a fraction of it—particularly

as I am seldom alone even for five minutes. Last week I left Montreal

(after having shot the rapids, etc.) and travelled to Boston via

the White Mountains, through the States of Vermont, Connecticut and

Massachusetts. Boston is a beautiful place—an exceedingly fine city

with lovely environs. Prof. A. S. Hardy (’Passe Rose,’ etc.) was

most kind.... Cambridge and Harvard University, are also very fine.

I enjoyed seeing Longfellow’s house (Miss L. still occupies it) and

those of Emerson, Lowell, etc. I spent brief visits to Prof. Wright

of Harvard, to Winsor the historian, etc. On Sunday afternoon I drove

with A. S. H. to Belmont in Massachusetts, and spent afternoon with

Howells, the novelist. He was most interesting and genial—I had the

best of welcomes from the Stedmans. They are kindness personified. The

house is lovely, and full of beautiful things and multitudes of books.

I have already more invitations than I can accept: every one is most

hospitable. I have already met Mr. Gilder, the poet, and editor of the

‘Century’; Mr. Alden of ‘Harpers’; Mr. Bowen, of the ‘Independent’; R.

H. Stoddart, the ‘father’ of recent American letters; and heaven knows

how many others. I have been elected honorary member of the two most

exclusive clubs in N. Y., the ‘Century’ and ‘The Players,’ Next week

there is to be a special meeting at the Author’s Club, and I am to be

the guest of the evening....”

NEW YORK, 1:10:89.

“Can only send you a brief line by this mail. I enjoyed my visit to Mr.

Alden at Metuchen in New Jersey very much. Among the new friends I care

most for are a married couple called Janvier. They are true Bohemians

and most delightful. He is a writer and she an artist ... and both have

travelled much in Mexico. We dined together at a Cuban Café last night.

He gave me his vol. of stories called ‘Colour Studies’ and she a little

sketch of a Mexican haunted house—both addressed to ‘William Sharp.

Recuerdo di Amistad y carimo.’”

On leaving New York he wrote to his kind host:

Oct. 8, 1889.

MY DEAR STEDMAN,

This, along with some flowers, will reach you on the morning of your

birthday, while I am far out on the Atlantic. May the flowers carry

to your poet-soul a breath of that happy life which seems to inspire

them—and may your coming years be full of the beauty and fragrance of

which they are the familiar and exquisite symbols. You have won my

love as well as my deep regard and admiration. And so I leave you to

understand how earnestly and truly I wish you all good.

Once more let me tell you how deeply grateful I am to you and Mrs.

Stedman for all your generous kindness to me. We have all, somewhere,

sometime, our gardens, where—as Hafiz says—the roses have a subtler

fragrance, and the nightingales a rarer melody; and my memory of _my_

last “fortunate Eden” will remain with me always....

I shall always think of you, and Mrs. Stedman, and Arthur, as of near

and dear relatives. Yes, we _are_ of one family.

Farewell, meanwhile,

Ever your affectionate,

WILLIAM SHARP.

This note drew from the American poet the following reply:

MY DEAR SHARP,

‘Tis quite surprising—the severity wherewith you have been missed, in

this now very quiet household, since you looked down upon its members

from the Servia’s upper-deck, very much like Campanini in Lohengrin

when the Swan gets fairly under way! The quiet that settled down was

all the stiller, because you and we had to get through with so much

in your ten days _chez nous_. Lay one consolation to heart: you won’t

have to do _this_ again; when you return, ‘twill be to a city of which

you have deduced a general idea, from the turbid phantasmagoria of

your days and nights here. The conclusions on our side were that we

had formed a liking for you such as we have retained after the visits

of very few guests from the Old World or the New. Well as I knew your

books and record I had the vaguest notion of your _self_. ‘Tis rare

indeed that a clever writer or artist strengthens his hold upon those

who admire his work, by personal intimacy. What can I say more than to

say that we thoroughly enjoyed your visit; that we think immeasurably

more of you than before you came; that you are upon our list of friends

to whom we are attached for life—for good and ill. We know our own

class, in taste and breeding, when we find them—which is not invariably

among our different guests. Nor can one have your ready art of charm

and winning, without a good heart and comradeship under it all: even

though intent (and rightly) on nursing his career and making all the

points he has a right to make—Apropos of this—I may congratulate you on

the impression you made here on the men and women whom you chanced at

this season to meet; that which you left with _us_ passes the border of

respect, and into the warm and even lowland of affection.

That is all I now shall say about our acquaintanceship. Being an

Anglo-Saxon, ‘tis not once in half a decade that I bring myself to say

so much.

And now, my dear boy, what shall I say of the charming surprise with

which you and your florist so punctually greeted my birthday? At 56

(“oh, woeful when!”) one is less than ever used to the melting mood,

but you drew a tear to my eyes. The roses are still all over our house,

and the letter is your best autograph in my possession. We look forward

to seeing you again with us, of course—because, if for no other reason,

you and yours always have one home ready for you when in the States,

at least while a roof is over our heads, even though the Latin wolf be

howling at our door. Mrs. Stedman avows that I must give you her love,

and joins with me in all the words of this long letter.

Affectionately your friend,

EDMUND C. STEDMAN.

* * * * *

On our return to Hampstead we resumed our Sunday evening gatherings,

and among other frequenters came Mr. and Mrs. Henry Harland, with an

introduction from Mr. W. D. Howells. From Mr. George Meredith came a

charming welcome home.

BOX HILL (DORKING),

Nov. 22, 1889.

MY DEAR SHARP,

I am with all my heart glad of your return and the good news you give

of yourself and your wife. He who travels comes back thrice the man he

was, and if you do not bully my poor Stayathoma, it is in magnanimity.

The moccasins are acceptable for their uses and all that they tell me.

Name a time as early as you can to come and pour out your narrative.

There is little to attract, it’s true—a poor interior and fog daily

outside. We cast ourselves on the benevolence of friends. Give your

wife my best regards. I have questions for her about Tyrol and

Carinthia.

Hard at work with my “Conqueror,” who has me for the first of his

victims.

England has not done much in your absence; there will be all to hear,

nothing to relate, when you come.

Yours warmly,

GEORGE MEREDITH.

* * * * *

We went. As we walked across the fields to the cottage Mr. Meredith

came through his garden gate to meet us, raised high his hat and voiced

a welcome, “Hail daughter of the Sun!”

CHAPTER X

BROWNING

_The Joseph Severn Memoirs_

To William Sharp, as to many others, the closing days of 1899 brought

a deep personal sorrow in the death of Robert Browning. The younger

man had known him for several years, and had always received a warm

welcome from the Poet in his house in Warwick Crescent which, with

its outlook on the water of broad angle of the canal with its little

tree clad island, he declared laughingly, reminded him of Venice. And

kindly he was too, when, coming to the first of our “At Homes” in South

Hampstead, he assured me with a genial smile “I like to come, because I

know young people like to have me.”

“It is needless to dwell upon the grief everywhere felt and expressed

for the irreparable loss” (W. S. wrote in his monograph on Browning).

The magnificent closing lines of Shelley’s “Alastor” have occurred to

many a mourner, for gone indeed was “a surpassing Spirit.” The superb

pomp of the Venetian funeral, the solemn grandeur of the interment in

Westminster Abbey, do not seem worth recording: so insignificant are

all these accidents of death made by the supreme fact itself. Yet it is

fitting to know that Venice has never in modern times afforded a more

impressive sight than those of craped processional gondolas following

the high flower-strewn famous barge through the thronged water-ways and

out across the lagoon to the desolate Isle of the Dead: that London has

rarely seen aught more solemn than the fog-dusked Cathedral spaces,

echoing at first with the slow tramp of the pall-bearers, and then with

the sweet aerial music swaying upward the loved familiar words of the

“Lyric Voice” hushed so long before. Yet the poet was as much honoured

by those humble friends, Lambeth artificers and a few working-women,

who threw sprays of laurel before the hearse—by that desolate,

starving, woe-weary gentleman, shivering in his thread-bare clothes,

who seemed transfixed with a heart-wrung though silent emotion, ere

he hurriedly drew from his sleeve a large white chrysanthemum, and

throwing it beneath the coffin as it was lifted upward, disappeared in

the crowd, which closed again like the sea upon this lost wandering

wave.”

But it was nevertheless difficult to realise that the stimulating

presence had passed away and the cheerful voice was silent: “It seems

but a day or two that I heard from the lips of the dead poet a mockery

of death’s vanity—a brave assertion of the glory of life. ‘Death,

death! It is this harping on death I despise so much,’” he remarked

with emphases of gesture as well as of speech—the inclined head and

body, the right hand lightly placed upon the listener’s knee, the

abrupt change in the inflection of the voice, all so characteristic

of him—“this idle and often cowardly as well as ignorant harping! Why

should we not change like everything else? In fiction, in poetry,

in so much of both, French as well as English, and, I am told, in

American art and literature, the shadow of death—call it what you will,

despair, negation, indifference—is upon us. But what fools who talk

thus! Why, _amico mio_, you know as well as I that death is life, just

as our daily, our momentarily dying body is none the less alive and

ever recreating new forces of existence. Without death, which is our

crapelike churchyardy word for change, for growth, there could be no

prolongation of what we call life. Pshaw! it is foolish to argue upon

such a thing even. For myself, I deny death as an end of everything.

Never say of me that I am dead!”

On the 4th January, 1890, W. S. wrote to Mr. Thomas A. Janvier:

London.

Many thanks for the _Aztec Treasure House_, which opens delightfully

and should prove a thrilling tale. I don’t know how _you_ feel, but

for myself I shall never again publish serially till I have completed

the story aforehand. You will have seen that I have been asked and

have agreed to write the critical monograph on Browning for the _Great

Writer’s Series_. This involves a harassing postponement of other work,

and considerable financial loss, but still I am glad to do it.

The Harlands spent New Year’s Day with us, and the Champagne was not

finished without some of it being quaffed in memory of the dear and

valued friends oversea. You, both of you, must come over this spring.

Ever yours,

WILLIAM SHARP.

With each New Year a Diary was begun with the intention of its being

carefully continued throughout the months, an intention however that

inevitably was abandoned as the monotony of the fulfilment palled upon

the writer.

The Diary for 1890 begins with a careful record of work and events,

noted daily till mid February when it ceases, to be resumed more

fitfully in September and October. The year is prefaced with the motto:

“C’est à ce lendemain sevère que tout artiste sérieux doit

songer.”—_Sainte Beuve._

The following more important entries tell where and how the monograph

was written and what other work he had on hand:

“_Jan. 2nd._—Wrote the first 3 or 4 pages (tentative) of ‘Browning’: or

rather the retrospective survey. Had a present of a fine Proof Etching

from Ford Madox Brown of his Samson and Delilah (framed) as ‘A New

Year’s Card.’ Also from Theodore Roussel, three fine proof Etchings,

also autograph copies of books from H. Harland, Mrs. Louise C. Moulton,

and ‘Maxwell Gray.’ Also a copy of his _Balzac_ from Wedmore. In the

evening there dined with us Mrs. E. R. Pennell (Mr. P. unable to come).

H. Harland and Mrs. Harland: Mona and Caird. Roussel could not come

till later. Had a most delightful evening. ‘The psychic sense of

rhythm is the fundamental factor in each and every art.’”—W. S.

“_Jan. 2nd._—(1) Wrote Chapter of _The Ordeal of Basil Hope_. (2)

Article on Haggard’s new book for _Young Folk’s Paper_. ‘The truest

literary criticism is that which sees that nowhere, at no time, in any

conceivable circumstances is there any absolute lapse of intellectual

activity, so long as the nation animated thereby is not in its death

throes.’”—W. S.

“What exquisite music there is in the lines of Swinburne’s in ‘A

Swimmer’s Dream’ (in this month’s _New Review_).”

“_Jan. 3rd._—(1) Wrote chapter of _Ordeal of Basil Hope_. Finished it

by 12.30. Then went to R. Academy Press-View and spent two hours or so

in the Galleries. While walking back to Club from Charing Cross thought

out some opening sentences for _Browning_, leading to the wave-theory,

beginning—‘In human history, waves of intellectual activity concur with

other dynamic movements. It used to be a formula of criticism, etc.’

(wrote down a couple of Pages at Club). ‘Death is a variation, a note

of lower or higher insistence in the rhythmical sequence of Life.’”—W.

S.

“_Jan. 4th._—(1) Wrote article of 2,500 words upon Balzac (for _The

Scottish Leader_). (2) Short ‘London Correspondence’ for _G. H._ The

profoundest insight cannot reach deeper than its own possibilities

of depth. The physiognomy of the soul is never visible in its

entirety—barely ever even its profile. The utmost we can expect to

produce (perhaps even to perceive, in the most quintessential moment),

is a partially faithful, partially deceptive silhouette. Since no human

being has ever yet seen his or her own soul, absolutely impartially

and in all its rounded completeness of good and evil, of strength and

weakness, of what is temporal and perishable and what is germinal

and essential, how can we expect even the subtlest analyst to depict

other souls than his own. Even in a savage there must be dormant

possibilities, animal and spiritual traits of all kinds, which could

to a deeper than any human vision (as we can conceive it) so colour

and modify an abstract ‘replica’ as to make it altogether unlike the

picture we should draw.”—W. S.

“_Jan. 5th._—The first thing the artist should cultivate if not

strongly dowered in this respect by Nature, is Serenity. A true

Serenity—what Wilfred Meynell, writing of Browning, in the _Athenæum_

of Friday, calls ‘detachment’—is one of the surest inspirers and

preservatives of that clarified psychic emotion which, in compelled or

propelled expressional activity, is the cause of all really creative

work. This true serenity is, of course, as far removed from a false

isolation of spirit or a contemptuous indifference, as from constant

perturbation about trifles and vulgar anxiety for self.”—W. S.

“_Jan. 6th._—Felt very unwell this morning.... Heard from Dr. Garnett

of the death last night of Dr. Westland Marston. (1) Wrote a portion

of second series of ‘Fragments from the Lost Journal of Piero di

Cosimo’ (one of a series of Imaginary portraits I am slowly writing

for magazine publication in the first instance). (2) ‘London Letter’

Reminiscences of Dr. Marston, etc.”

“_Jan. 10th._—Wrote a chapter of _Basil Hope_. In evening we went to

Mona’s. A pretty large gathering. Roussel told me he wanted to paint my

portrait, and asked me to give him sittings. Some one was speaking of a

poem by Browning being superlatively fine because of its high optimism

and ethical message. The question is not one of weighty message, but of

artistic presentation. To praise a poem because of its optimism is like

commending a peach because it loves the sunshine, rather than because

of its distinguishing bloom and savour. To urge that a poem is great

because of its high message is almost as uncritical as it would be

obviously absurd to aver that a postman is illustrious because of some

epic or history he may carry in his bag. In a word, the first essential

concern of the artist must be with his vehicle. In the instance of a

poet, this vehicle is language emotioned to the white-heat of rhythm.”

“_Jan. 12th._—Wrote first portion of Elegiac Poem on ‘Browning’

commencing:

There is darkness everywhere;

Scarce is the city limned

In shadow on the lagoon.

No wind in the heavy air.

The stars themselves are dimmed,

And a mist veils the moon.

“After lunch took T. Mavor to Alfred East’s to see his Japanese

pictures. Then I took T. M. to John M. Swan’s Studio. Then we went to

spend half an hour with Stepniak and his wife at 13 Grove Gardens.”

“_Jan. 13th._—Late in settling down, and then disinclined to write

except in verse. Wrote the second and final part of the Elegaic

Browning Poem for _Belford’s Magazine_. It is not often that I indulge

in inversions: but the gain is sometimes noticeable. I think it is in

this stanza:

Alas, greatness is not, nor is

There aught that is under the sun,

Nor any mortal thing,

Neither the heights of bliss

Nor the depths of evil done,

Unshadowed by Death’s wing.”

He soon found that it was impossible to write the monograph in

London—with its ceaseless demands and distractions. Under the pressure

of much work he became so unwell that we realised he could not finish

the book under existing conditions, therefore arranged that he should

leave me in charge of work at home and he should go to Hastings and

devote himself mainly to his _Browning_. On the 18th he records, from

rooms overlooking the sea “Blew a gale at night. The noise of the sea

like a vast tide in a hollow echoing cavern: and a shrill screaming

wail in the wind. Began my _Life of Browning_. To bed at 12.”

Then follows a record of the work done day by day: on the 19th, twelve

printed pages: on the 20th ten pages: on the 21st four only because he

lunched with Coventry Patmore who was then residing at Hastings. On

the 22nd, thirteen pages; on the 23rd, eleven pages, and five letters.

_Jan. 26th_ has this note: “We can no more predict Browning’s place

in literature as it will be esteemed by posterity than we can specify

the fauna and flora of a planet whose fires have not yet sufficiently

cooled to enable vegetation to grow.”

His stay at Hastings was rendered pleasant by the neighbourliness of

Coventry Patmore with whom he had many long talks, and by occasional

visits to Miss Betham Edwards who had a house on the hill beyond the

old castle.

He returned to town at the beginning of February.

On the 4th he wrote “the first scene of a Play (to be called either

“The Lover’s Tragedy,” or “The Tower of Silence”) which was afterward

rewritten and published in _Vistas_ as “A Northern Night.”

The Diary continues:

“_8th February._ Began about 10.30. (1) Wrote the rest of Imaginary

Journal (Piero di Cosimo) i. e. about 2,000 words. In evening posted

it to Mavor for March issue of _The Art Review_. (2) Wrote long London

Letter for G. H. (2,000 words). (3) Began at 9.30 to do _Browning_.

Including quotations did 10 printed pages. Re-read the early books of

‘The Ring and the Book.’ To bed at 2.30. Tired somewhat after writing

to-day, in all, about 7,000 words (less Browning’s quotations).

“_Sunday 9th._ Breakfast at eleven—Worked at Browning matter till 5 (in

bed). In evening Mona, and Mathilde came in and Frank Rinder, Ernest

Rhys, etc. Wrote _Young Folk’s Paper_ article. Read up till about 3 A.M.

_10th._ Worked six hours on end at Browning material. Between tea and

dinner wrote Chap. 18 of _Ordeal of Basil Hope_; after dinner wrote

Chap. 19. At 10 went up to Mona’s to fetch Lill. Egmont Hake there, W.

Earl Hodgson and Miss Shedlock, Mathilde Blind.

_11th._ At British Museum all day, working at ‘Odes.’ (This selection

of Odes in the _Canterbury Poets_.)

In evening wrote six p. p. of _Browning_.

_12th._ (1) In first part of day wrote 6 pages of _Browning_. (2) Short

London Letter for G. H. From 5 to 8 I wrote Chap. 20 of _Basil Hope_.

(4) After dinner (between 9 and 12.30) wrote 8 more pages of _Browning_

(14 in all to-day).

_13th._ Wrote 12 pages of _Browning_ and Chap. XXI of _Basil Hope_.

“_February 14th._—In morning, late afternoon and evening (from 9-12)

wrote in all 18 printed pages of _Browning_, or, including quotation,

21.”

* * * * *

Here the Diary abruptly ends. I do not recollect on what date the

_Browning_ was finished, but it was published in the early autumn. And

I have no recollection as to what became of _The Ordeal of Basil Hope_,

whether or not it ever appeared serially, but I think not. It never was

issued in book form—and from the time we gave up the house in Goldhurst

Terrace he never gave it a thought. It was characteristic of him that

when a piece of work was finished or discarded, it passed wholly out of

his mind, for his energies were always centred on his work on hand and

on that projected.

He was a careful student of the progress of contemporary

literatures—especially French (including Belgian) Italian and

American—and during the spring and summer he wrote a long article on

American literature for _The National Review_, an article on D’Annunzio

for _The Fortnightly_. He also prepared a volume in English of selected

Essays of St. Beuve for which he wrote a careful critical Preface.

The three years at Hampstead had been happy and successful. William

had regained health; and had a command of work that made the ways of

life pleasant. We had about us a genial sympathetic group of friends,

and were in touch with many keen minds of the day. Temperamentally he

could work or play with equal jest and enjoyment; he threw himself

whole-heartedly into whatever he did. Observant, keenly intuitive,

he cared to come into contact with all kinds and types of men and

women; cared continually to test the different minds and temperaments

he came across, providing always that they had a vital touch about

them, and were not comatosely conventional. Curious about life, he

cared incessantly to experiment; restless and never satisfied (I do

not mean dissatisfied) he constantly desired new fields for this

experimentation. Therefore, happy though he had been at Wescam,

successful as that experiment had proved, he felt it had served its

turn and he longed for different circumstances, different environment,

new possibilities in which to attempt to give fuller expression of

himself. He realised that nothing more would happen under the then

existing conditions, satisfactory though they seemed externally; that

indeed the satisfactoriness was a chain that was winding round him and

fettering him to a form of life that was becoming rigid and monotonous,

and, therefore, paralysing to all those inner impulses. His visit to

America had re-awakened the desire to wander. So we gave up our house,

stored our furniture, and planned to go abroad for the first winter

and leave the future “in the lap of the Gods”; for was he not “of the

unnumbered clan that know a longing that is unquiet as the restless

wave ...” the “deep hunger for experience, even if it be bitter, the

longing for things known to be unattainable, the remembrance that

strives for rebirth.” That summer he wrote to Mr. Stedman:

“ ... You will ere this have received the copy of the little book of

_Great Odes: English and American_ which I sent to you. I think I told

you that your own beautiful ‘Ode to Pastoral Romance’ has appealed to

many people, and will, I hope and believe, send new readers to you,

among the new generation, as a poet. Well, we are breaking up our home,

and are going to leave London for a long time—probably for ever as

a fixed ‘residentz platz.’ Most of my acquaintances think I am very

foolish thus to withdraw from the ‘thick of the fight’ just when things

are going so well with me, and when I am making a good and rapidly

increasing income—for I am giving up nearly every appointment I hold,

and am going abroad, having burned my ships behind me, and determined

to begin literary life anew. But, truly enough, wisdom does not lie in

money making—not for the artist who cares for his work at any rate. I

am tired of so much pot-boiling, such increasing bartering of literary

merchandise: and wish to devote myself entirely—or as closely as the

fates will permit—to work in which my heart is. I am buoyant with the

belief that it is in me to do something both in prose and verse far

beyond any hitherto accomplishment of mine: but to stay here longer,

and let the net close more and more round me, would be fatal. Of course

I go away at a heavy loss. My income will at once drop to zero, and

even after six months or so will scarce have risen a few degrees above

that awkward limit—though ultimately things may readjust themselves.

Yet I would rather—I am ready—I should say _we_ are ready—to live in

the utmost economy if need be. We shall be none the less happy: for

my wife, with her usual loving unselfishness and belief in me, is as

eager as I am for the change, despite all the risks. Among the younger

writers few have the surely not very high courage necessary to give

up something of material welfare for the sake of art. As for us, we

are both at heart Bohemians—and are well content if we can have good

shelter, enough to eat, books, music, friends, sunshine and free

nature—all of which we can have with the scantiest of purses. Perhaps I

should be less light-hearted in the matter if I thought that our coming

Bohemian life might involve my wife in hard poverty when my hour comes,

but fortunately her future is assured. So henceforth, in a word, I am

going to take down the board

WILLIAM SHARP

Literary Manufacturer

(All kinds of jobs undertaken)

and substitute:

WILLIAM SHARP

Given up Business: Moved to Bohemia.

Publishers and Editors Need not Apply.

Friends can write to W. S. % “Drama” “Fiction” or “Poetry,”

Live-as-you-will Quarter, Bohemia.

This day week we leave our house for good. My wife and I then go into

Hampshire to breathe the hay and the roses for a week at a friend’s

place, 7 miles across the Downs north of Winchester: then back to

London to stay with our friend, Mrs. Mona Caird, till about the 20th

of July. About that date we go to Scotland, to my joy, till close on

the end of September. Thereafter we return to London for a week or so,

and then go abroad. We are bound first for the lower Rhineland, and

intend to stay at Heidelberg (being cheap, pretty, thoroughly German,

with good music and a good theatre) for about two months. Then, about

the beginning of December, we go to Rome, where we intend to settle:

climatic, financial, and other considerations will decide whether we

remain there longer than six months, but six ideal months at least we

hope for. _Mihi sex menses satis sunt vitæ septimum Orco spondeo._

* * * * *

That summer we went to Clynder on the Gareloch, Argyll, in order to be

near my husband’s old friend, Dr. Donald Macleod, who, as he records

in his diary “sang to me with joyous abandonment a Neapolitan song,

and asked me to send him a MS. from Italy for _Good Words_.” While we

were in the West we made acquaintance with the poet-editor of _The

Yorkshire Herald_, George Cotterell, who became a dear and valued

friend. I cannot recall if it were in the early summer of 1889 or 1890

that my husband was first approached on the subject of the _Joseph

Severn Memoirs_, but I remember the circumstance. We spent a week-end

in Surrey with some old friends of my mother, Sir Walter and Lady

Hughes, and one morning Mr. Walter Severn, the painter, walked over

to luncheon. He spoke about my husband’s _Life of Rossetti_, then of

the quantity of unpublished MSS. he and his family had written by and

relating to his father, Joseph Severn, “the friend of Keats.” Finally

he proposed that his listener should take over the MSS., put them in

form and write a Life of Severn, with, as the special point of literary

interest, his father’s devoted friendship with and care of the dying

poet. After considerable deliberation, W. S. agreed to undertake the

work, and arrangements were made with Messrs. Samson Low to publish it.

The preparing of this Memoir brought him into pleasant relationship

not only with Mr. Walter Severn, and with Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn,

but also with Ruskin, who he visited later at Coniston, where he was

delighted, among other things, with the fine collection of minerals and

stones that was one of Ruskin’s hobbies.

The preparation of _The Joseph Severn Memoirs_ necessarily entailed

correspondence with members and friends of that family, among others

with W. W. Story, the sculptor, who sent him the following information:

“I knew Mr. Severn at Rome and frequently met and saw him but I can

recall nothing which would be of value to you. He was, as you know, a

most pleasant man—and in the minds of all is associated with the memory

of Keats by whose side he lies in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome. When

the bodies were removed, as they were several years ago, and laid side

by side, there was a little funeral ceremony and I made an address on

the occasion in honour and commemoration of the two friends. I remember

we then had hoped that Lord Houghton would have been able to be present

as he had promised. But he was taken ill in the East, where he was then

journeying, and I had to express the fear lest the ceremony might be a

commemoration not only of two but of the three friends so intimately

associated together. However, Houghton did recover from the attack and

came afterward to Rome, sadly broken.”

Early in October my husband and I crossed to Antwerp and stopped at

Bonn. The Rhine disappointed William’s expectations. He wrote to a

friend: “The real charm of the Rhine, beyond the fascination that all

rivers and riverine scenery have for most people, is that of literary

and historical romance. The Rhine is in this respect the Nile of

Europe: though probably none but Germans feel thus strongly. For myself

I cannot but think it ought not to be a wholly German river, but from

every point of view be the Franco-German boundary.... Germany has much

to gain from a true communion with its more charming neighbour. The

world would jog on just the same if Germany were annihilated by France,

Russia and Italy: but the disappearance of brilliant, vivacious,

intellectual France would be almost as serious a loss to intellectual

Europe, as would be to the people at large the disappearance of the

Moon.”

From Rome he wrote to Mrs. Janvier:

Dec., 1890.

“ ... Well, we were glad to leave Germany. Broadly, it is a joyless

place for Bohemians. It is all beer, coarse jokes, coarse living,

and domestic tyranny on the man’s part, subjection on the woman’s—on

the one side: pedantic learning, scientific pedagogism, and mental

_ennui_; on the other: with, of course, a fine leavening _somewhere_

of the salt of life. However, it is only fair to say that we were not

there at the best season in which to see the blither side of Germans

and German life. I saw a good deal of the southern principalities and

kingdoms—the Rhine provinces, Baden, Würtemberg, and Bavaria. Of course

Heidelberg, where we stayed six wet weeks, is the most picturesque of

the residential places (towns like Frankfort-am-Main and Mannheim are

only for merchants and traders, though they have music “galore”), but

I would rather stay at Stuttgart than any I saw. It is wonderfully

animated and pleasing for a German town, and has a charming double

attraction both as a mediæval city and as a modern capital. There,

too, I have a friend: the American novelist, Blanche Willis Howard

(author of _Guenn_, _The Open Door_, etc.), who is now the wife of the

Court-Physician to the King of Würtemberg and rejoices in the title

“Frau Hof-Arzt von Teuffel.” Dr. von Teuffel himself is one of the few

Germans who seem to regard women as equals.

“But what a relief it was to be in Italy again, though not just at

first, for the weather at Verona was atrocious, and snow lay thick past

Mantua to Bologna. But once the summit of the Apennines was reached,

and the magnificent and unique prospect of Florentine Tuscany lay

below, flooded in sunshine and glowing colour (though it was in the

second week of December) we realised that at last we were in Italy....

When we came to Rome we had at first some difficulty in getting rooms

which at once suited our tastes and our pockets. But now we are settled

in an “apartment” of 3-1/2 rooms, within a yard or so of the summit of

the Quirinal Hill. The 1/2 is a small furnished corridor or ante-room:

the comfortable _salotto_, is at once our study, drawing-room, and

parlour.

“We have our coffee and our fruit in the morning: and when we are in

for lunch our old landlady gives us delightful colazioni of maccaroni

and tomatoes, or spinach and lentils, or eggs and something else, with

roasted chestnuts and light wine and bread. We have our dinner sent in

from a trattoria.

“In a sense, I have been indolent of late: but I have been thinking

much, and am now, directly or indirectly, occupied with several

ambitious undertakings. Fiction, other imaginative prose, and the drama

(poetic and prose), besides a lyrical drama, and poetry generally,

would fain claim my pen all day long. As for my lyrical drama—which is

the only poetic work not immediately modern in theme—which is called

‘Bacchus in India’; my idea is to deal in a new and I hope poetic way

with Dionysos as the Joy-Bringer, the God of Joyousness. In the first

part there is the union of all the links between Man and the World he

inhabits: Bacchus goes forth in joy, to give his serene message to

all the world. The second part, ‘The Return,’ is wild disaster, and

the bitterness of shame: though even there, and in the Epilogue, will

sound the clarion of a fresh Return to Joy. I transcribe and enclose

the opening scene for you—as it at present stands, unrevised. The ‘lost

God’ referred to in the latter part is really that deep corrosive

Melancholy whom so many poets and artists—from Dante and Durer to our

own time—have dimly descried as a terrible Power.

“At the moment I am most of all interested in my blank-verse tragedy.

It deals with a most terrible modern instance of the scriptural warming

as to the sins of the father being visited upon his children: an

instance where the father himself shares the doom and the agony. Then

I have also schemed out, and hope soon to get on with, a prose play,

dealing with the deep wrong done to women by certain existing laws.

Among other prose books (fiction) which I have “on the stocks” nothing

_possesses_ me more than a philosophical work which I shall probably

publish either anonymously or under a pseudonym, and, I hope, before

next winter. How splendid it is to be alive! O if one could only crush

into a few vivid years the scattered fruit of wasted seasons. There

is such a host of things to do: such a bitter sparsity of time, after

bread-and-butter making, to do them in—even to dream of them!”

* * * * *

These various schemes planned mentally were never realised. William

constantly projected and of the roughly drafted out possible work that

absorbed him during its conception, but was put aside when a more

dominating idea demanded full expression. “Bacchus in India” remained a

fragment. Neither the tragedy nor that prose play was finished, and the

philosophical work was never begun. A new impulse came, new work grew

out of the impressions of that Roman winter which swept out of his mind

all other cartooned work.

CHAPTER XI

ROME

_Sospiri di Roma_

Winter in Rome was one long delight to the emancipated writer. It

amply fulfilled even his optimistic anticipation. He revelled in the

sunshine and the beauty; he was in perfect health; his imagination was

quickened and worked with great activity. We had about us a little

group of friends, who, like ourselves, intended to live quietly and

simply. Among these were Mrs. Caird who had come abroad for her health;

Sir Charles Holroyd, who had a studio in the Via Margoutta, and Mr. and

Mrs. Elihu Vedder. Mrs. Wingate Rinder joined us for three weeks, and

with her my husband greatly enjoyed long walks over the Campagna and

expeditions to the little neighbouring hill towns. His Diary for the

beginning of 1891 was kept with creditable regularity, and contains

a record of some of these expeditions and of work done in Rome, in

particular of the dates on which the poems of _Sospiri di Roma_ were

written. From it I have selected entries.

“_Jan. 2nd._ ... Read through and revised ‘Bacchus in India.’ Added the

(I think good) adjective ‘sun-sparkled wood....”

Poetry is a glorious rebirth of prose. When a beautiful thought can

be uttered in worthy prose: best so. But when it moves through the

mind in music, and shapes itself to a lyric rhythm, then it should

find expression in poetry. The truest poets are those who can most

exquisitely capture, and concentrate in a few words, this haunting

rhythm.

_Jan. 3rd._ The morning broke well, though not so promisingly as

yesterday.... Caught the 9 A.M. train for Albano-Laziale. Marnio

is a fine and picturesque hill-city. After passing it we admired

the view of the Lake of Albano, with its abrupt variations of light

and profound shadow. Arrived at Albano we walked by the way of the

Viaduct to L’Ariccia, with lovely views of the Campagna to the right:

of Monte Cavo and Rocca di Papa to the left. Then on by a lovely road

to Genzano. Having gone through the lower part and out again into

the Campagna we turned southward, and in due time reached the high

ground, with its olive-orchards, looking down upon the Lake of Nemi.

It looked lovely in its grey-blue stillness, with all the sunlit but

yet sombre winterliness around. Nemi, itself, lay apparently silent and

lifeless, ‘a city of dream,’ on a height across the lake. One could

imagine that Nemi and Genzano had once been the same town, and had

been riven asunder by a volcano. The lake-filled crater now divides

these two little hill-set towns.... Walked through Albano to the N.W.

gate, past the ancient tomb, and along the beautiful ilex-bordered road

leading to Castel-Gandolfo. Saw two Capuchin friars with extraordinary

faces. They fitted the scene. Magnificent views of the Campagna,

tinted with a faint pink-grey mist: of Ostea, etc.: and of the strange

dreamful, partially sunlit Tyrrhene sea. Then through Castel Gandolfo,

with lovely views of Lake Albano. Broke our fast with some apples.

Down the steep front till we joined the road just above the little

station, where we caught the train 10 minutes later. The Aqua Felice

and Claudian Aqueducts seen to great advantage in returning across the

Campagna to Rome.

_Jan. 5th._ A fine morning, with a delicate hint of Spring in the

air.... Caught the train for Champino, near Frascati. The officials at

the station seemed amazed at our descending there. No one ever does

so, it seems! There was literally no regular way out of the station,

and when I asked how we were to get out the man did not know. Neither

he nor the clerk, nor the others who gathered round knew the road back

to Rome! At last some one from the train suggested that if we struck

across country we would come to the Via Appia. We had a pleasant walk

across a barren part of the Campagna intersected by railway cuttings,

and at last came to a place called Frattochie, whence a road led us to

the Via Appia Nuova. From this again we struck across a field and came

upon the Via Appia Antica, adown which we had a splendid and absolutely

solitary walk. We saw no one but a few shepherds at a distance, with

their large white dogs and sheep. Often stopped among the ruins, or

at the top of one of the grassy tombs to hear the wind among the

pines, along the grass, or in the crevices of the wall. A few drops

of rain fell as we neared the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and soon the

rain-storm, which we had watched approaching across the Campagna, came

on. The first three wayside _trattorie_ we came to were shut, but in

the fourth, a peasant’s resort, we got some bread, and white and poor

Marino. We shared some of the bread with a large dog, and gave some

wine to a malarious-looking poor devil of a labourer. Returned by the

Gate of San Sebastiano.

_Jan. 8th._ ... Bought _L’Evolution des Genres dans l’Histoire de

la Littérature_ by Ferdinand Brunetière; Roux’s book on Italian

Literature; Pierre Loti’s _Mariage de Loti_. After dinner copied out

‘Rebirth’ (Spring’s Advent) to send to _Belford’s_, and ‘The Sheik’ for

_N. Y. Independent_.

This forenoon the house nearly opposite fell in. We saw one man brought

out dead. Seven others were said to be buried in the ruins. The King

came later on and himself helped one of the wounded out and took him to

the hospital.

_Jan. 9th._ Wet and rain. The Campagna covered with snow. In the

forenoon I wrote four more of my ‘Ebb and Flow’ Series of Sea

Poems—‘Phosphorescence before Storm’—‘Tempest Music’—‘Dead Calm:

Noon’ and ‘Dead Calm: Midnight.’ The others were written some on the

French coast some on the English in 1887. ‘Tempest-Music’ and the

two ‘Dead Calm’ are as good if not better than any in the series. In

all the latter I care most for the ‘Swimmer at Sunrise’ and ‘The

Dead-Calm-Noon’: also for ‘Tempest Music.’

... After dinner read to Lill for a bit including the prose version

(outline) of my “Lilith.”

To-day the anniversary of the Death of Victor Emmanuel, 13 years ago.

The Italians idolise his memory, and call him “The Father of the

Country.” He is rapidly becoming a Presiding Deity. 10th rewrote and

greatly improved “Phosphorescence.” Its two opening lines, originally,

“As hill winds and sun and rains inweave a veil

Of lichen round vast boulders on the mountain side.”

were out of keeping in imagery with the rest: and in every way

“As some aerial spirit weaves a rainbow veil

Of Mist, his high immortal loveliness to hide.”

are better. Should have preferred “wild” to “high” in this line, but

the 4th terminal is “wild.” Perhaps not, after all.

_Jan. 16th._ Although it was so cold and wintry with signs of snow

in suspension caught the train for Tivoli. The scenery extremely

beautiful, and doubly fascinating and strange from the whirling snow

falling every here and there, in strangely intermittent and separate

fashion. The sheep and disconsolate shepherds on one high healthy part

made a fantastic foreground. At Tivoli, which was like a hill town in

Scotland in midwinter, with a storm raging, we walked past the first

cascades, then up a narrow hill-path partly snowed up, partly frozen,

to the open country beyond. Then back and into a trattoria where we had

lunch of wine, omelette, bread, fruit, and coffee.

_Jan. 17th._ Midwinter with a vengeance. Rome might be St. Petersburg.

Snow heavy and a hard frost. Even the Fountain of the Tritone hung all

over with long spears and pendicles of ice.—Later, I went out, to walk

to and fro on the Pincio Terrace in the whirling snow, which I enjoyed

beyond words. There was a lull, and then I saw the storm clouds sweep

up from the Maremma, across the Campagna and blot out Rome bit by bit.

Walking to and fro I composed the lyric, beginning:

“There is a land of dream:

I have trodden its golden ways:

I have seen its amber light

From the heart of its sun-swept days:

I have seen its moonshine white

On its silent waters gleam—

Ah, the strange, sweet, lonely delight

Of the Valleys of Dream!”

Returning by the Pincian Gate, about 5.45 there was a strange sight.

Perfectly still in the sombre Via di Mura, with high walls to the

right, but the upper pines and cypresses swaying in a sudden rush of

wind: to the left a drifting snow-storm: to the right wintry moonshine:

vivid sweeping pulsations of lightning from the Campagna, and long low

muttering growls of thunder. (The red light from a window in the wall.)

_Jan. 19th._ After dinner read a good deal of Beddoes to Lill.... How

like Poe the first stanza of ‘The Old Ghost’: every now and again there

is a gleam of rare moon-white beauty, as in the lovely 3rd stanza

of ‘The Ballad of Human Life’—the first quatrain of the 2nd stanza

of ‘Dial Thoughts,’ and that beautiful line in the fantastic and

ultra-Shelleyian ‘Romance of the Lily,’

‘As Evening feeds the waves with brooks of quiet life.’

_Jan. 22nd._ In the evening read through Elihu Vedder’s _Primitive

Folk_. There is a definite law in the evolution of sexual _morale_, I

am sure, if one could only get at it. The matter is worth going into,

both for Fundamental and Contemporary and Problematical Ethics.

_Jan. 27th._ Elizabeth and I went to the opening lecture of the

Archæological Society, at the Hotel Marini. Lord Dufferin in the Chair.

Mr. Porter, U. S. Minister, delivered an address, mainly on Cicero....

Lord Dufferin afterwards told us incidentally that a friend of his

had gone into a book shop in the Corso and asked for _Max O’Rell: En

Amérique_. The bookseller said he neither had the book nor had he

heard of it: now the visitor persisted and the bookseller in despair

exclaimed, ‘_Dio mio_, Signor, I never even heard of _Marc Aurèle_

having been in America!’

_Jan. 30th._ After lunch we went for a drive in the Campagna....

Delighting in the warm balmy air, the superb views, the space and

freedom, the soft turfy soil under foot, the excited congregation of

larks twittering as they wheeled about, soon to pair, and one early

songster already trilling his song along the flowing wind high overhead.

Between 9 P.M. and 12 P.M. my ears were full of music. Wrote the

Sospiri, ‘The Fountain of the Aqua Paola’; ‘Ruins’; ‘High Noon at

Midsummer on the Campagna’; ‘Sussurri’; ‘Breath of the Grass’; ‘Red

Poppies’; and the lyric Spring.

_Jan. 31st._ Wrote to-day. ‘The Mandolin’ (_Sospiri di Roma_) (115

lines). In afternoon wrote ‘All’ Ora della Stella’ (Vesper Bells),

partly from memory of what I have heard, several times, and partly

modified by a poem I chanced to see to-day, Fogazzaro’s ‘A Sera.’

_February 2nd._ Second day of the Carnival. Wrote all forenoon and part

of afternoon. Took up and revised ‘The Fountain of the Aqua Paola’ and

added so largely to it as to make it a new poem. It ended with ‘Eternal

Calm.’ Also wrote ‘The Fallen Goddess’—about 250 lines in length. In

the evening wrote ‘Bats’ Wings’ (26 ll) and ‘Thistledown’ (Spring on

the Campagna) (71 ll).

Such bursts of uncontrollable poetic impulse as came to me to-day, and

the last three days, only come rarely in each year. It was in such a

burst last year (1889?) that I wrote ‘The Weird of Michael Scott’ (each

part at a single sitting).

_Feb. 4th._ Wrote the Sospiro ‘To my Dream.’

_Feb. 5th._ Between 10 P.M. and 1.30 A.M. wrote the poem which I think

I will call ‘Fior di Memoria’ (about 175 lines).

_Feb. 7th._ We went to Ettore Roesler Franz’s studio. His water-colour

drawings of (mediæval) Rome as it was from the middle of the century

to within the last 7 or 10 years very charming and deeply interesting

and valuable—and at the same time infinitely sad. Those of the Prati di

Castello and the Tiber Bank and Stream especially so: instead of this

lost beauty we have hideous jerry buildings, bad bridges, monotonous

and colourless banks, and dull municipal mediocrity and common-place

everywhere.

There might be a Weeping Wall in Rome as well as in Jerusalem. Truly

enough there will soon be absolute truth in Bacon’s noble saying ‘The

souls of the living are the beauty of the world’—for the world will be

reduced to the sway of the plumber and builder, and artificial gardener

and Bumbledom.

In evening wrote “Primo Sospiro di Primavera.”

_8th._ In forenoon wrote “The White Peacock” (56 lines)—a study in

Whites for Théodore Roussel. Also “The Swimmer of Nemi” (Red and White)

42 lines. In evening revised the “Swimmer of Nemi” and partly rewrote

or recast. It is much improved in definite effect; and gains by the

deletion of 9 or 10 lines, pretty in themselves but not in perfect

harmony. Wrote the poem commemorating the strange evening of 17th

Jan.... called it “A Winter Evening” (35 lines). _Later._ Wrote the

poem called “Scirocco” (June), 67 lines. To bed about 12.30.

_10th._ Gave first sitting to Charles Holroyd for his Etching of me.

_11th._ Gave Charles Holroyd a second sitting. Between 9 and 2 A.M.

wrote

“The Naked Rider” (70 lines)

“The Wind at Fidenae” (38 lines)

“The Wild Mare” (32 lines)

“A Dream at Ardea” (In Maremma) 215 lines.

_12th._ Wrote “La Velia” (38 lines).

_15th._ Agnes and Lill, Charles Holroyd and the P—s and I went to

Tusculum by morning train. Very warm as soon as we got to Frascati.

Lovely Tramontana day. Took a donkey to carry the wine and provisions:

or Lill, if necessary. After a long walk, lunched in the Theatre at

Tusculum. Wreathed the donkey with ivy and some early blooms, and then

I rode on it on to the stage, à la Bacchus, flasks of Frascati under

either arm.

Most glorious sunset. The view from the height above Tusculum simply

superb, and worth coming to see from any part of the world.

_17th._ Yesterday was one of the most glorious days possible in Rome.

Cloudless sky: fresh sweet breeze: deliciously warm. Went with A.

to Porto d’Anzio again, and walked along the coast northward. Sea

unspeakably glorious: blue, sunlit, with great green foam-crested waves

breaking on the sands, and surging in among the hollow tufa rocks and

old Roman remains. Lay for a long time at the extreme end of the Arco

Muto. One of the red letter days in one’s life.

Stayed up all night (till Breakfast) writing: then revising. Between

8 P.M. and 4 A.M. wrote poem after poem with unbroken eagerness. The

impulse was an irresistible one, as I was tired and not, at first,

strongly inclined to write, though no sooner had I written the Italian

“Dedicatory Lines” than it all came upon me. In all, besides these, I

wrote “Al Far della Notte” (31 lines): “Clouds, from the Agro Romano”

(31): “The Olives of Tivoli” (30): “At Veii” (86): “The Bather” (68):

“De Profundis” (26): and “Ultimo Sospiro” (37).

_18th._ Beautiful day. Felt none the worse for being up all night.

Wrote article on Ibsen’s ‘Rosmersholm’ for Y. F. P. Wrote “Spuma dal

Mare” (41 lines).

[Illustration: WILLIAM SHARP

After a pastel drawing by Charles Ross, 1891]

In “Spuma dal Mare” I have attempted to give something of the

many-coloured aspects of the sea. It is absurd to keep on always

speaking of it as blue, or green, or even grey. The following portion

is as true as practicable, whatever other merits they may have:

Here the low breakers are rolling thro’ shallows,

Yellow and muddied, the line of topaz

Ere cut from the boulder:

Save when the sunlight swims through them slantwise,

When inward they roll,

Long billows of amber,

Crown’d with pale yellow

And gray-green spume.

Here wan gray their slopes

Where the broken lights reach them,

Dull gray of pearl, and dappled and darkling,

As when, ‘mid the high

Northward drift of the clouds,

Sirocco bloweth

With soft fanning breath.

_20th._ In morning wrote out Dedicatory and other Preliminary Pages,

etc., etc., for my “Sospiri di Roma” and after lunch took the complete

MS. to Prof. Garlanda of the Societa Laziale, who will take them out to

the Establishment at Tivoli to-day. Holroyd came with final proof of

his etching of me.

_24th._ Wrote “The Shepherd in Rome” (66 lines).

_25th._ Wrote “Sorgendo La Luna” (47 ll.).

_27th._ Wrote poem “In July: on the Campagna” (26 ll.). Wrote poem

“August Afternoon in Rome” (59 ll.).

Charles M. Ross (Norwegian painter), and Julian Corbett (author of

“The Life of Drake”) called on me today. Mr. Ross wants to paint me in

pastel and has asked me to go to-morrow for that purpose.”

* * * * *

In mid-March I went to Florence in advance of my husband; and he

and Mr. Corbett spent a few days together at the Albergo Sybilla

Tivoli—where their sitting-room faced the Temple of Vesta—so that he

could superintend there the printing of his “Sospiri.” The two authors

worked in the morning, and took walks in the afternoon. The Diary

records one expedition:

_March 23._ After lunch J. C. and I caught the train for Palombaria

Marcellina meaning to ascend to Palombara: but we mistook the highest

and most isolated mountain town, in the Sabines and after two hours

of an exceedingly wild and rugged and sometimes almost impossible

mule-path, etc., we reached the wonderfully picturesque and interesting

San Polo dei Cavalieri. Bought a reed pipe from a shepherd who was

playing a Ranz des Vaches among the slopes just below San Polo. The

mediæval castle in the middle of the narrow crooked picturesque streets

very fine. Had some wine from a comely woman who lived in the lower

part of the castle. Then we made our way into the Sabines by Vicovaro,

and Castel Madama, and home late to Tivoli, very tired.

Certain tales told to him by the Italian woman, and the picturesque

town and its surroundings formed the basis of the story “The Rape of

the Sabines” which appeared later in _The Pagan Review_. At the end

of March he left Rome, to his great regret; he joined me at Pisa and

thence we journeyed to Provence and stayed awhile at Arles, whence he

wrote to Mrs. Janvier:

30: 3: 91.

GENTO CATARINO,

You see I address you à la Provençale already! We left Italy last week,

and came to Provence. Marseilles, I admit, seemed to me an unattractive

place after Rome—and indeed all of Provence we have seen as yet is

somewhat chill and barren after Italy. No doubt the charm will grow.

For one thing, Spring is very late here this year....

Arles we like much. It is a quaint and pleasant little town: and once

I can get my mind free of those haunting hill-towns of the Sabines

and Albans I love so much—(is there any hill range in the world to

equal that swing of the Apennines stretching beyond Rome eastward,

southward, and southwestward?)—I shall get to love it too, no doubt.

But oh, Italy, Italy! Not Rome: though Rome has an infinite charm, even

now when the jerry-builder is fast ruining it: but “greater Rome,” the

Agro Romano! When I think of happy days at the Lake of Nemi, high up in

the Albans, of Albano, and L’Ariccia, and Castel Gandolfo—of Tivoli,

and the lonely Montecelli, and S. Polo dei Cavalieri, and Castel

Madama, and Anticoli Corrado, etc., among the Sabines—of the ever new,

mysterious, fascinating Campagna, from the Maremma on the North to the

Pontine Marshes, my heart is full of longing. I love North Italy too,

all Umbria and Tuscany: and to know Venice well is to have a secret of

perpetual joy: and yet, the Agro Romano! How I wish you could have been

there this winter and spring! You will find something of my passion for

it, and of that still deeper longing and passion for the Beautiful,

in my “Sospiri di Roma,” which ought to reach you before the end of

April, or at any rate early in May. This very day it is being finally

printed off to the sound of the Cascades of the Anio at Tivoli, in

the Sabines—one of which turns the machinery of the Socièta Laziale’s

printing-works. I do hope the book will appeal to you, as there is so

much of myself in it. No doubt it will be too frankly impressionistic

to suit some people, and its unconventionality in form as well as in

matter will be a cause of offence here and there. You shall have one of

the earliest copies.

Yesterday was a fortunate day for arrival. It was a great festa, and

all the women were out in their refined and picturesque costumes.

The Amphitheatre was filled, tier upon tier, and full of colour

(particularly owing to some three or four hundred Zouaves, grouped in

threes or fours every here and there) for the occasion of “a grand

Bull-Fight.” It was a brilliant and amusing scene, though (fortunately)

the “fight” was of the most tame and harmless kind: much less dangerous

even for the most unwary of the not very daring Arlesians than a walk

across the remoter parts of the Campagna....

* * * * *

Letters from Mr. Meredith and Miss Blind, in acknowledgment of the

privately published volume of poems, greatly pleased their author:

BOX HILL, April 15, 1891.

DEAR SHARP,

I have sent a card to the Grosvenor Club. I have much to say for the

Sospiri, with some criticism. Impressionistic work where the heart is

hot surpasses all but highest verse. _When_, mind. It can be of that

heat only at intervals. In the ‘Wild Mare’ you have hit the mark. It is

an unrivalled piece.

But you have at times (I read it so) insisted on your impressions. That

is, you have put on your cap, sharpened your pencil, and gone afield as

the Impressionistic poet. Come and hear more. I will give you a Crown

and a bit of the whip—the smallest bit.

Give my warm regards to your wife.

Yours ever,

GEORGE MEREDITH.

May 18, 1891.

DEAR WILL,

I got the copy you sent me of _Sospiri di Roma_.... Your nature feeling

is always so intense and genuine that I would have liked my own mood to

be more completely in harmony with yours before writing to you about

what is evidently so spontaneous an outcome of your true self. I should

have wished to identify myself with this joy in the beauty of the world

which bubbles up fountainlike from every one of these sparkling Roman

transcripts, why called “Sospiri” I hardly know. One envies you the

ebullient delight which must have flooded your veins before you could

write many of these verses, notably “Fior di Primavera,” “Red Poppies,”

and “The White Peacock”: the effect of colour and movement produced in

these last two seems to be particularly happy, as also the descriptions

of the sea of roses in the first which vividly recalled to me the

prodigal wealth of blossom on the Riviera. I thoroughly agree with

what George Meredith says of the sketch of “The Wild Mare,” the lines

of which seem as quiveringly alive as the high strung nerves of these

splendid creatures.

“August Afternoon in Rome” is also an admirable bit of impressionism

and, if I remember, just that effect—

Far in the middle-flood, adrift, unoar’d,

A narrow boat, swift-moving, black,

Follows the flowing wave like a living thing.

By and by if I should get to some “place of nestling green for poets

made” I hope to get more deeply into the spirit of your book.

Come to see me as soon as ever you and Lill can manage it, either

separately or together.

Always yours,

MATHILDE BLIND.

Concerning certain criticisms on _Sospiri di Roma_ he wrote to Mrs.

Janvier:

1st May, 1891.

... Whether coming with praise or with blame and cast me to the

perdition of the unrighteous, the critics all seem unable to take the

true standpoint—namely, that of the poet. What has he attempted, and

how far has he succeeded or failed? That is what should concern them.

It is no good to any one or to me to say that I am a Pagan—that I am

“an artist beyond doubt, but one without heed to the cravings of the

human heart: a worshipper of the Beautiful, but without religion,

without an ethical message, with nothing but a vain cry for the return,

or it may be the advent, of an impossible ideal.” Equally absurd to

complain that in these “impressions” I give no direct “blood and

bones” for the mind to gnaw at and worry over. Cannot they see that

all I attempt to do is to fashion anew something of the lovely vision

I have seen, and that I would as soon commit forgery (as I told some

one recently) as add an unnecessary line, or “play” to this or that

taste, this or that critical opinion. The chief paper here in Scotland

shakes its head over “the nude sensuousness of ‘The Swimmer of Nemi,’

‘The Naked Rider,’ ‘The Bather,’ ‘Fior di Memoria,’ ‘The Wild Mare’

(whose ‘fiery and almost savage realism!’ it depreciates—tho’ this is

the poem which Meredith says is ‘bound to live’) and evidently thinks

artists and poets who see beautiful things and try to fashion them

anew beautifully, should be stamped out, or at any rate left severely

alone....

In work, creative work above all, is the sovereign remedy for all that

ill which no physician can cure: and there is a joy in it which is

unique and invaluable.

* * * * *

For a time, however, creative work had to be put aside. The preparation

of _The Life and Letters of Joseph Severn_ was a hard grind that lasted

till mid-August. At Whitby, on the 13th, according to his diary he

“wrote 25 pp. digest of Severn’s novel and worked at other things.

Later I wrote the concluding pages, finishing the book at 2 A.M. I can

hardly believe that this long delayed task is now accomplished. But _at

last_ “Severn” is done!”

The final revision occupied him till the 28th August, and in order

to finish it before we went abroad on the 27th he wrote “all morning

till 1 P.M.; again from 9 P.M. all night unbrokenly till 7 A.M. Then

read a little to rest my brain and wrote four letters. Had a bath and

breakfast and felt all right.”

The 24th has the interesting entry: “Met old Charles Severn at the

Italian Restaurant near Portland Road Station and had a long talk with

him. He confirmed his previous statement (end of September last year)

about Keats having written “The Ode to the Nightingale” under “The

Spaniards on Hampstead Heath.”

September found us in Stuttgart in order that my husband should

collaborate with the American novelist Blanche Willis Howard. The first

days were spent in wandering about the lovely hillsides around the

town, which he described to Mrs. Janvier:

JOHANNES STRASSE 33,

3: 9: 91.

... I know that you would revel in this glowing golden heat, and in

the beautiful vinelands of the South. Southern Germany in the vintage

season is something to remember with joy all one’s life. Yesterday it

seemed as if the world above were one vast sea of deep blue wherever

a great glowing wave of light straight from the heart of the sun was

flowing joyously. I revel in this summer gorgeousness, and drink in the

hot breath of the earth as though it were the breath of life. Words are

useless to depict the splendour of colour everywhere—the glimmer of

the golden-green of the vines, the immeasurable sunfilled flowers, the

masses of ripening fruit of all kinds, the hues on the hill-slopes and

in the valleys, on the houses and the quaint little vineyard-cots with

their slanting red roofs. In the early afternoon I went up through the

orchards and vineyards on the shoulder of the Hasenberg. It was a glory

of colour. Nor have I ever seen such a lovely purple bloom among the

green branches—like the sky of faerieland—as in the dark-plum orchards.

There was one heavily laden tree which was superb in its massy richness

of fruit: it was like a lovely vision of those thunder-clouds which

come and go in July dawns. The bloom on the fruit was as though the

west wind had been unable to go further and had let its velvety breath

and wings fade away in a soft visible death or sleep. The only sounds

were from the myriad bees and wasps and butterflies: some peasants

singing in the valley as they trimmed the vines: and the just audible

sussurrus of the wind among the highest pines on the Hasenberg. There

was the fragrance of a myriad odours from fruit and flower and blossom

and plant and tree and fructifying soil—with below all that strange

smell as of the very body of the living breathing world. The festival

of colour was everywhere. As I passed a cottar’s sloping bit of ground

within his vineyards, I saw some cabbages high up among some trailing

beans, which were of the purest and most delicate blue, lying there

like azure wafts from the morning sky. Altogether I felt electrified

in mind and body. The sunflood intoxicated me. But the beauty of the

world is always bracing—all beauty is. I seemed to inhale it—to drink

it in—to absorb it at every pore—to become _it_—to become the heart

and soul within it. And then in the midst of it all came my old savage

longing for a vagrant life: for freedom from the bondage we have

involved ourselves in. I suppose I was a gipsy once—and before that “a

wild man o’ the woods.”

A terrific thunderstorm has broken since I wrote the above. I have

rarely if ever seen such continuous lightning. As it cleared, I saw a

remarkably beautiful sight. In front of my window rose a low rainbow,

and suddenly from the right there was slung a bright steel-blue bolt,

seemingly hurled with intent right through the arch. The next moment

the rainbow collapsed in a ruin of fading splendours....

I have had a very varied, and, to use a much abused word, a very

romantic life in its external as well as in its internal aspects. Life

is so unutterably precious that I cannot but rejoice daily that I am

alive: and yet I have no fear of, or even regret at the thought of

death.... There are many things far worse than death. When it comes, it

comes. But meanwhile we are alive. The Death of the power to live is

the only death to be dreaded....

* * * * *

His Diary also testifies to his exultant mood:

_Wednesday, 2:9:1891._—Another glorious day. This flood of sunshine is

like new life: it _is_ new life. I rejoice in the heat and splendour of

it. It seems to get into the heart and brain, and it intoxicates with

a strange kind of rapture.... How intensely one lives sometimes, even

when there is little apparently to call forth quintessential emotion.

This afternoon was a holiday of the soul. And yet how absolutely on

such a day one realises the savage in one. I suppose I was a gipsy

once: a ‘wild man’ before: a wilder beast of prey before that. We all

hark back strangely at times. To-day I seemed to remember much.... What

a year this has been for me: the richest and most wonderful I have

known. Were I as superstitious as Polycrates I should surely sacrifice

some precious thing lest the vengeful gods should say “Thou hast lived

too fully: Come!...”

* * * * *

The following extracts from William’s Diary indicate the method of the

collaboration used by the two authors:

_Sunday 6th. Sept. 1891._—Blanche Willis Howard, or rather, the Frau

Hof-Arzt Von Teuffel, arrived last night. She sent round word that

she could conveniently receive me in the afternoon, but as it was not

to have our first talk-over about our long projected joint novel,

Elizabeth came with me so as to make Frau Von T.’s acquaintanceship....

She is a charming woman, and I like her better than ever. As I am here

to write a novel in collaboration with her, and not to fall in love, I

must be on guard against my too susceptible self....

_Monday 7th._—At 3 o’clock I went to Frau Von Teuffel’s, and stayed

till 5.45. We had a long talk, and skirmished admirably—sometimes

“fluking” but ever and again taking our man: in other words, we gained

what we were after, to some extent—indirectly as well as directly. She

agrees to my proposal that we call the book _A Fellowe and His Wife_.

The two chief personages are to be Germans of rank, from the Rügen

seaboard. I am to be the “faire wife,” and have decided to live at

Rome, and to be a sculptor in ivory, and to have rooms in the Palazzo

Malaspina. Have not yet decided about my name. My favourite German name

is Hedwig, but Frau Von T. objected that English and American readers

would pronounce it ‘Hed-wig.’ She suggested Edla: but that doesn’t

‘fetch’ me. I think Freyda (or perhaps Olga) would suit.

_Tuesday, 8th._—This morning I began our novel _A Fellowe and His

Wife_. I wrote some nine pages of MS. being the whole of the first

letter written by Freia (or Ilse) from Rome.

_Thursday, 10th._—In the evening I went round to Môrike Strasse. We had

a long talk about the book and its evolution, and ultimately decided to

attempt the still more difficult task of telling the whole story in the

letters of Odo and Ilse only. Of course this is much more difficult:

but if we can do it, so much the more credit to our artistic skill

and imaginative insight.... (It was also decided that Frau v. Teuffel

should write Odo’s letters, and her collaborator, Ilse’s. In addition

to the novel W. S. dramatised the story in a five-act play.)

_1st October, 1891._—Wrote to-day the long first scene of Act III.

of _A Fellowe_. In afternoon E. and I went out in the town. I bought

Maurice Maeterlinck’s _La Princesse Maleine_ and _Les Aveugles_, and

in the late afternoon read right thro’ the latter and skimmed the

former. Some one has been writing about him recently and comparing him

to Webster. In method greatly, and in manner, and even in conceptive

imagination, he differs from Webster: but he is his Cousin-German.

It is certainly hopelessly uncritical to say as Octave Mirbeau did

last year in a French paper or magazine that Maeterlinck is another

Shakespeare. He is not even remotely Shakespearian. He is a writer

of singular genius; and I shall send for everything he has written.

Reading these things of his excited me to a high degree. It was the

electric touch I needed to produce my _Dramatic Interludes_ over which

I have been brooding. I believe that much of the imaginative writing of

the future will be in dramatic prose of a special kind....

_Friday, 2nd._—I went to bed last night haunted by my story “The

Summons.” To-day at 10.30 or nearer 11 I began to write it, and wrote

without a break till 5.30, by which time “A Northern Night,” as I now

call it, was entirely finished, ‘asides’ and all. Both there and when I

issue the _Dramatic Interludes_ (five in all) I shall send them forth

under my anagram, H. P. Siwäarmill. The volume will be a small one. The

longest pieces will be the “Northern Night,” and “The Experiment of

Melchior van Hoëk”: the others will be “The Confessor,” “The Birth of a

Soul” and “The Black Madonna.”

_Saturday 3rd._—... This late afternoon wrote the Dramatic Study, “The

Birth of a Soul.” Though not ‘picturesque’ it touches a deeper note

than “A Northern Night,” and so is really the more impressive.

_Tuesday, 6th._—... P. S. After writing this Entry for Tuesday, shortly

before 12, I began to write the opening particulars of Scene II. of Act

IV., and went on till I finished the whole scene, shortly before 2 A.M.

_Wednesday, 7th._ Finished before 1 A.M. my Play, _A Fellowe_, by

writing the longish Scene III. of Act IV. Went out with Lill in the

afternoon. The town all draped in black for the death of the King of

Saxony. Wrote to Frank Harris (from here, as H. P. Siwäarmill) with

“The Birth of a Soul.” ...

_Friday, 9th._—In late evening thought out (but only so far as leading

lines and general drift) the drama “The Gipsy-Christ.” (Being The

Passion of Manuel van Hoëk)....

CHAPTER XII

WALT WHITMAN

_The Pagan Review_

The brilliant summer was followed by a damp and foggy autumn. My

husband’s depression increased with the varying of the year. While I

was on a visit to my mother he wrote to me, after seeing me in the

morning:

GROSVENOR CLUB, Nov. 9th, 1891.

“ ... I have been here all day and have enjoyed the bodily rest, the

inner quietude, and, latterly, a certain mental uplifting. But at

first I was deep down in the blues. Anything like the appalling gloom

between two and three-thirty! I could scarcely read, or do anything

but watch it with a kind of fascinated horror. It is going down to the

grave indeed to be submerged in that hideous pall.... As soon as I

can make enough by fiction or the drama to depend thereon we’ll leave

this atmosphere of fog and this environment of deadening, crushing,

paralysing, death-in-life respectability. Circumstances make London

thus for us: for me at least—for of course we carry our true atmosphere

in ourselves—and places and towns are, in a general sense, mere

accidents....

I have read to-day Edmond Schérer’s _Essais_ on Eng. Literature: very

able though not brilliant—reread the best portions of Jules Breton’s

delightful autobiography, which I liked so much last year ... all

George Moore’s New Novel, _Vain Fortune_.

I had also a pleasant hour or so dipping into Ben Jonson, Beaumont

and Fletcher, and other old dramatists: refreshed my forgotten

acquaintanceship with that silly drama “Firmilian”: and, generally,

enjoyed an irresponsible ramble thro’ whatever came to hand. I am now

all right again and send you this little breath, this little ‘Sospiro

di Guglielmo,’ to give you, if perchance you need it, a tonic stimulus.

No, you don’t need it!”

* * * * *

His health was so seriously affected by the fogs that it became

imperative that he should get into purer air so he decided to fulfil

his intention of going to New York even though he had been forced

to relinquish all ideas of lecturing. There were various publishing

matters to attend to, and many friends to visit. In a letter to Mrs.

Janvier, announcing his projected visit, he tells her of the particular

work he had on hand:

“You will be the first to hear my new imaginative work. Although in a

new method, it is inherently more akin to “Romantic Ballads” than to

“Sospiri,” but it is intense dramatic prose. There is one in particular

I wish to read to you—three weeks from now.” And he adds, “Do you not

long for the warm days—for the beautiful living pulsing South? This

fierce cold and gloom is mentally benumbing.... Yes you are right:

there are few women and perhaps fewer men who have the passion of

Beauty—of the thrilling ecstasy of life.”

During his short stay in New York he was made the welcome guest of

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Stedman; and he delighted in this opportunity

of again meeting his good friends Mr. and Mrs. Richard Stoddart, Mr.

Alden, Mr. Howells, etc. But his chief interest was a memorable visit

to Walt Whitman, in whose fearless independent, mental outlook, and joy

in life, in whose vigorous individual verse, he had found incentive and

refreshment. Armed with an introduction from Mr. Stedman he pilgrimaged

to Camden, New Jersey, on January 23rd, and found the veteran poet in

bed propped up with pillows, very feeble, but bright-eyed and mentally

alert. William described the visit in a letter to me:

“During a memorable talk on the literature of the two countries past

and to come, the conversation turned upon a vivid episode. ‘That was

when you were young?’ I asked. The patriarchal old poet—who lay in

his narrow bed, with his white beard, white locks, and ashy-grey face

in vague relief, in the afternoon light, against the white pillows and

coverlet—looked at me before he answered, with that half audacious,

wholly winsome glance so characteristic of him, ‘Now, just you tell me

when you think that was!’

“Then, with sudden energy, and without waiting for a reply, he added,

‘Young? I’m as young now as I was then! What’s this grey tangle’ (and

as he spoke he gave his straggling beard an impatient toss),’and this

decrepit old body got to do with that, eh? I never felt younger, and

I’m glad of it—against what’s coming along. _That’s_ the best way to

shift camp, eh? That’s what I call Youth!’”

When the younger man bade him farewell Whitman gave him a message to

take back with him across the seas. “He said to me with halting breath:

‘William Sharp when you go back to England, tell those friends of whom

you have been speaking, and all others whom you may know and I do not

that words fail me to express my deep gratitude to them for sympathy

and aid truly enough beyond acknowledgment. Good-bye to you and to

them—the last greetings of a tired old poet.’”

The impression made on my husband, by the fearless serene attitude of

the great poet found expression in the few lines that flashed into his

mind, when on March 29th he read in a London evening paper of the death

of Walt Whitman:

IN MEMORIAM

He laughed at Life’s Sunset-Gates

With vanishing breath,

Glad soul, who went with the sun

To the Sunrise of death.

While William was in New York Mr. Stedman was asked by Mr. J. W. Young

to approach his guest with a request that he should “lecture” at

Harvard upon a subject of contemporary Literature. “Quite a number of

Harvard men are anxious to see and hear Mr. Sharp if he will consent to

come to Cambridge.”

It was with genuine regret that, owing to his doctor’s strict

prohibition, William felt himself obliged to refuse this flattering

request. He had also been asked by Mr. Palmer “the leading theatrical

Boss in the States to sell to him the rights of my play on ‘A Fellowe

and his Wife,’” a proposal which he declined.

On his return to England he wrote to Mr. Janvier:

“DEAR OLD MAN,

“I have read your stories (as I wrote the other day) with particular

pleasure, apart from personal associations. You have a delicate and

delightful touch that is quite your own, and all in all I for my part

fully endorse what Mr. Howells wrote about you recently in Harpers’ and

said as emphatically in private. So—amico caro—“go in and win!”

I am settling down in London for a time, and am more content to abide

awhile now that the writing mood is at last upon me again—and strong at

that!

I have not yet put my hand to any of the commissioned stories I must

soon turn to—but tell _la sposa_ that I have finished my “Dramatic

Vistas” (two or three of which I read to her), and even venture to

look with a certain half-content upon the last of the series—“The

Lute-Player”—which has been haunting me steadily since last October,

but which I could not express aright till the other day....”

The immediate outcome of his visit to America was the publication, by

Messrs. Chas. Webster & Co., of his _Romantic Ballads_ and _Sospiri di

Roma_ in one volume entitled _Flower O’ the Vine_. It was prefaced by

a flattering Introduction by Mr. Janvier, to whom the author wrote in

acknowledgment:

PARIS, 23d April, 1892.