... Many thanks for your letter, my dear fellow, and for the

“Introduction,” which I have just read. I thank you most heartily for

what you say there, which seems to me, moreover, if I may say so,

at once generous, fittingly reserved, and likely to win attention.

You yourself occupy such a high place in Letters oversea that such a

recommendation of my verse cannot but result to my weal. I have been

so deep in work and engagements, that I have been unable to attend

to any correspondence of late—and have, I fear, behaved somewhat

churlishly to friends across the water, and particularly to my dear

friends at 27th Avenue. But now the _pressure_ of work is over for the

moment: my London engagements or their ghosts are vainly calling to me

d’Outre-Manche: I am keeping down my too cosmopolitan acquaintanceship

in Paris to the narrowest limit: and on and after the second of May am

going to reform and remain reformed. If you don’t object to a little

“roughing,” you would enjoy being with me and _mes camarades_ this

coming week. We like extremes, so after a week or so of the somewhat

feverish Bohemianism of literary and artistic Paris, we shall be happy

at our ‘gipsy’ encampment in the Forest of Fontainebleau (at a remote

and rarely-visited but lovely and romantic spot between the Gorge de

Franchard and the Gorge d’Apremont). Spring is now here in all her

beauty: and there is a divine shimmer of green everywhere. Paris itself

is _en fête_ with her vividly emerald limes and sycamores, and the

white and red spires of the chestnuts must make the soul of the west

wind that is now blowing rejoice with gladness. The Seine itself is

of a paler green than usual, and is suggestive of those apple-hued

canals and conduits of Flanders and by the ‘dead cities’ of north-east

Holland. I forget if you know Paris—but there is one of its many

fountains that has an endless charm for me: that across the Seine,

between the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Bld. St. Germain—the

Fontaine St. Michel—I stood watching the foaming surge and splash of

it for some time yesterday, and the pearl-grey and purple-hued doves

that flew this way and that through the sunlit spray. It brought, as

it always does, many memories of beloved Rome and Italy back to me.

I turned—and saw Paul Verlaine beside me: and I was in Paris again,

the Paris of Paris, the Aspasia of the cities of the World, the only

city whom one loves and worships (and is betrayed by) as a woman.

Then I went round to Leon Vanier’s, where there were many of _les

Jeunes_—Jean Moréas, Maurice Barrès, Cazals, Renard, Eugène Holland,

and others (including your namesake, Janvier). To-night I _ought_ to go

to the weekly gathering of a large number of _les Jeunes_ at the Café

du Soleil d’Or, that favourite meeting place now of _les décadents_,

_les symbolistes_, and les everything else. But I can’t withstand

this flooding sunshine, and sweet wind, and spraying of waters, and

toss-toss and shimmer-shimmer of blossoms and leaves; so I’ll probably

be off. _This_ won’t be off if I don’t shut up in a double sense.

My love to ‘Kathia’ and to you, dear fellow Pagans.

Ever yours rejoicingly,

WILLIAM SHARP.

Tell K. that when I have ‘reformed’ I’ll write to her. Don’t let her

be impertinent, and say that this promise will be fulfilled _ad Græcas

Kalendas_!

P. S. Here are my proposed ‘coming-movements.’

(1) Lill joins me in Paris about 10 days hence, and remains to see the

two Salons, etc.

(2) From the middle of May till the middle (14th) of July we shall be

in London.

(3) Then Lill goes with friends to Germany, to Bayreuth (for Wagnerian

joys) and I go afoot and aboat among the lochs and isles and hills of

the western Scottish Highlands.

(4) We meet again in Stirling or Edinburgh, early in August—and then,

having purchased or hired a serviceable if not a prancing steed, we go

off for three weeks vagabondage. The steed is for Lill and our small

baggage and a little tent. We’ll sometimes sleep out: sometimes at

inns, or in the fern in Highlander’s cottages. Thereafter I shall again

go off by myself to the extreme west “where joy and melancholy are one,

and where youth and age are twins” as the Gaelic poet says.

(5) The rest of September visiting in Scotland.

(6) Part of October in London then (O Glad Tidings)

(7) Off for 6 months to the South: first to the Greek side of Sicily:

then to Rome (about Xmas) for the Spring. Finally: a Poor-house in

London.

The reply came swiftly:

NEW YORK, 6: 5: 92.

MY DEAR SHARP,

Your letter of April 3rd is like a stirring fresh wind. The vigour of

it is delightful, and a little surprising, considering what you had

been about. I will not cast stones at you—and, if you ran on schedule

time, you have been reformed for four days. Your announcement that you

intend to stay reformed is fine in its way. What a noble imagination

you have! I am glad that you tolerate my ‘introduction.’ As Kate wrote

you, I was very wretched—unluckily for you—when it was written. I wish

that it were better in itself and more worthy of you. But the milk

is spilled. The book will look very well, I think.... Your programme

for the ensuing year fills me with longing. Even the London poorhouse

at the end of it don’t alarm me. Colonel Newcome was brought up in a

poorhouse—or a place of that nature; and, even without such a precedent

I should be willing to go to a poor-house for a while after such a

glorious year. Joy and good luck attend you, my dear fellow, as you go

upon your gay way!...

Always yours,

T. A. J.

_A Fellowe and his Wife_ had in the early spring been published in

America and England, and also in the Tauchnitz Collection, and had

a flattering reception in both countries. It had been preceded in

February by the _Life and Letters of Joseph Severn_ published by

Messrs. Sampson Low & Co.

Among various articles written during the early summer for the

_Academy_ were one on Philip Marston, and one on Maeterlinck; and in

the July number of the _Forum_ was an appreciation of Thomas Hardy—to

whom he had made a flying visit in March.

In acknowledgment he received the following note from the novelist:

MAX GATE, DORCHESTER,

July, 1892.

MY DEAR SHARP,

It did give me a great deal of pleasure to read the article in the

_Forum_, and what particularly struck me was your power of grasping

the characteristics of this district and people in a few hours visit,

during which, so far as I could see, you were not observing anything. I

wish the execution of the novels better justified the generous view you

take.

Yours sincerely,

THOMAS HARDY.

Our delightful plans for the autumn were not carried out; for, during

a visit to the art critic, J. Stanley Little, at Rudgwick, Sussex, my

husband saw a little cottage which attracted him and we decided to take

it as a _pied-à-terre_. Pending negotiations we stayed with Mr. and

Mrs. Caird at Northbrook, Micheldever, where W. S. began to plan out

the scheme of a new quarterly Review that was “to be the expression of

a keen pagan delight in nature.” I quote from his Diary:

“_June 2nd, 1892._ In early forenoon, after some pleasant dawdling,

began to write the Italian story, “The Rape of the Sabines,” which I

shall print in the first instance in my projected _White Review_ as

by James Marazion. After tea wrote about a page or so more of story.

Then went a walk up to One-Tree-Hill. Saw several hares. The Cuckoo

was calling till after 9 o’clock. Noticed that the large white moths

fluttered a long time in one spot above the corn. Wild pigeons go to

roost sooner than rooks, apparently. Got back about 9.30, and then

finished “The Rape of the Sabines” (about 4,500 words).

“_Friday 3rd._ After breakfast went for a brisk walk of over four

miles. Then worked, slowly, till lunch, at opening of “The Pagans”

(afterwards to be called “Good-Bye, my Fancy”). Then walked to the

station by the fields and back by the road (another 4 miles). Then

worked about an hour more on “The Pagans.” Have done to-day, in all,

from 1,200 to 1,500 words of it. While walking in the afternoon thought

out “The Oread” and also the part of it which I shall use in the _White

Review_ by Charles Verlayne.

_Saty 4th._ Did rest of “The Pagans.” In afternoon did first part of

“The Oread.”

_Sunday 5th._ Finished “Oread.”

_Tuesday 7th._ Went down to Rudgwick, Sussex, by appointment, and

agreed to take the cottage on a 3-years’ lease.”

Regretfully the wanderings in the Highlands had to be postponed

although the projector of the Review went for a time to Loch Goil

with a friend and I to Bayreuth. In August we settled in the little

eight-roomed cottage, near Rudgwick, with a little porch, an orchard

and garden, and small lawn with a chestnut tree in its midst. We

remained at Phenice Croft two years and took much pleasure in the

little green enclosure that was our own. The views from it were not

extensive. A stretch of fields and trees lay in front of the house,

and from the side lawn we could see an old mill whose red brick roof

had been weathered to picturesque shades of green. Phenice Croft stood

at the edge of a little hamlet called Buck’s Green, and across the

road from our garden gate stood the one shop flanked by a magnificent

poplar tree, that made a landmark however far we might wander. It was

a perpetual delight to us. William Sharp settled down at once to the

production of his quarterly to be called, finally, _The Pagan Review_,

edited by himself as W. H. Brooks. As he had no contributors, for he

realised he would have to attract them, he himself wrote the whole of

the Contents under various pseudonyms. It was published on August

15th, 1892; the cover bore the motto “Sic transit gloria Grundi” and

this list of contents:

_The Black Madonna_ By W. S. Fanshawe

[This dramatic Interlude was afterwards included in _Vistas_.]

_The Coming of Love_ By George Gascoign

[Republished posthumously in _Songs Old and New_.]

_The Pagans_: a Romance By William Dreeme

[Never finished.]

_An Untold Story_ By Lionel Wingrave

[Sonnets afterwards printed in _Songs Old and New_.]

_The Rape of the Sabines_ By James Marazion

_The Oread_ By Charles Verlayne

_Dionysos in India_ By William Windover

_Contemporary Record._

_Editorial._

The Editorial announced a promised article on “The New Paganism” from

the pen of H. P. Siwäarmill, but it was never written.

As the _Foreword_ gives an idea, not only of the Editor’s project, but

also of his mental attitude at that moment—a sheer revelling in the

beauty of objective life and nature, while he rode for a brief time on

the crest of the wave of health and exuberant spirits that had come to

him in Italy after his long illness and convalescence—I reprint it in

its entirety.

Editorial prefaces to new magazines generally lay great stress on the

effort of the directorate, and all concerned, to make the forthcoming

periodical popular.

We have no such expectation: not even, it may be added, any such

intention. We aim at thorough-going unpopularity: and there is every

reason to believe that, with the blessëd who expect little, we shall not

be disappointed.

* * *

In the first place, _The Pagan Review_ is frankly pagan: pagan in

sentiment, pagan in convictions, pagan in outlook. This being so, it is

a magazine only for those who, with Mr. George Meredith, can exclaim in

all sincerity—

“O sir, the truth, the truth! is’t in the skies,

Or in the grass, or in this heart of ours—

But O, the truth, the truth!...”—

and at the same time, and with the same author, are not unready to admit

that truth to life, external and internal, very often

“... is not meat

For little people or for fools.”

To quote from Mr. Meredith once more:

“... these things are life:

And life, they say, is worthy of the Muse.”

But we are well aware that this is just what “they” _don’t_ say. “They,”

“the general public,” care very little about the “Muse” at all; and

the one thing they never advocate or wish is that the “Muse” should be

so indiscreet as to really withdraw from life the approved veils of

Convention.

Nevertheless, we believe that there is a by no means numerically

insignificant public to whom _The Pagan Review_ may appeal; though

our paramount difficulty will be to reach those who, owing to various

circumstances, are out of the way of hearing aught concerning the most

recent developments in the world of letters.

* * *

_The Pagan Review_ conveys, or is meant to convey, a good deal by its

title. The new paganism is a potent leaven in the yeast of the “younger

generation,” without as yet having gained due recognition, or even any

sufficiently apt and modern name, any scientific designation. The “new

paganism,” the “modern epicureanism,” and kindred appellations, are more

or less misleading. Yet, with most of us, there is a fairly definite

idea of what we signify thereby. The religion of our forefathers has not

only ceased for us personally, but is no longer in any vital and general

sense a sovereign power in the realm. It is still fruitful of vast good,

but it is none the less a power that was, rather than a power that is.

The ideals of our forefathers are not our ideals, except where the

accidents of time and change can work no havoc. A new epoch is about to

be inaugurated, is, indeed, in many respects, already begun; a new epoch

in civil law, in international comity, in what, vast and complex though

the issues be, may be called Human Economy. The long half-acknowledged,

half-denied duel between Man and Woman is to cease, neither through

the victory of hereditary overlordship nor the triumph of the far more

deft and subtle if less potent weapons of the weaker, but through a

frank recognition of copartnery. This new comradeship will be not less

romantic, less inspiring, less worthy of the chivalrous extremes of

life and death, than the old system of overlord and bondager, while it

will open perspectives of a new-rejoicing humanity, the most fleeting

glimpses of which now make the hearts of true men and women beat with

gladness. Far from wishing to disintegrate, degrade, abolish marriage,

the “new paganism” would fain see that sexual union become the flower of

human life. But, first, the rubbish must be cleared away; the anomalies

must be replaced by just inter-relations; the sacredness of the

individual must be recognised; and women no longer have to look upon

men as usurpers, men no longer to regard women as spiritual foreigners.

* * *

These remarks, however, must not be taken too literally as indicative of

the literary aspects of _The Pagan Review_. Opinions are one thing, the

expression of them another, and the transformation or reincarnation of

them through indirect presentment another still.

This magazine is to be a purely literary, not a philosophical,

partisan, or propagandist periodical. We are concerned here with the

new presentment of things rather than with the phenomena of change

and growth themselves. Our vocation, in a word, is to give artistic

expression to the artistic “inwardness” of the new paganism; and we

voluntarily turn aside here from such avocations as chronicling every

ebb and flow of thought, speculating upon every fresh surprising

derelict upon the ocean of man’s mind, or expounding well or ill the

new ethic. If those who sneer at the rallying cry, “Art for Art’s

sake,” laugh at our efforts, we are well content; for even the lungs

of donkeys are strengthened by much braying. If, on the other hand,

those who, by vain pretensions and paradoxical clamour, degrade Art by

making her merely the more or less seductive panoply of mental poverty

and spiritual barrenness, care to do a grievous wrong by openly and

blatantly siding with us, we are still content; for we recognise that

spiritual byways and mental sewers relieve the Commonwealth of much that

is unseemly and might breed contagion. _The Pagan Review_, in a word,

is to be a mouthpiece—we are genuinely modest enough to disavow the

definite article—of the younger generation, of the new pagan sentiment,

rather, of the younger generation. In its pages there will be found

a free exposition of the myriad aspects of life, in each instance as

adequately as possible reflective of the mind and literary temperament

of the writer. The pass-phrase of the new paganism is ours: _Sic transit

gloria Grundi_. The supreme interest of Man is—Woman: and the most

profound and fascinating problem to Woman is, Man. This being so, and

quite unquestionably so with all the male and female pagans of our

acquaintance, it is natural that literature dominated by the various

forces of the sexual emotion should prevail. Yet, though paramount in

attraction, it is, after all, but one among the many motive forces of

life; so we will hope not to fall into the error of some of our French

confrères and be persistently and even supernaturally awake to one

functional activity and blind to the general life and interest of the

commonwealth of soul and body. It is _Life_ that we preach, if perforce

we must be taken as preachers at all; Life to the full, in all its

manifestations, in its heights and depths, precious to the uttermost

moment, not to be bartered even when maimed and weary. For here, at any

rate, we are alive; and then, alas, after all,—

“how few Junes

Will heat our pulses quicker...”

* * *

“Much cry for little wool,” some will exclaim. It may be so. Whenever

did a first number of a new magazine fulfil all its editor’s dreams or

even intentions? “Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose. ‘Tis

nater, after all, and what pleases God,” as Mrs. Durbeyfield says in

“Tess of the Durbervilles.”

* * *

Have you read that charming _roman à quatre_, the _Croix de Berny_?

If so, you will recollect the following words of Edgar de Meilhan

(_alias_ Théophile Gautier), which I (“I” standing for editor, and

associates, and pagans in general) now quote for the delectation of all

readers, adversely minded or generously inclined, or dubious as to our

real intent—with blithe hopes that they may be the happier therefor:

“Frankly, I am in earnest this time. Order me a dove-coloured vest,

apple-green trousers, a pouch, a crook; in short, the entire outfit of a

Lignon Shepherd. I shall have a lamb washed to complete the pastoral.”

* * *

This is “the lamb.”

THE EDITOR.

The Review was well subscribed for, and many letters came to the

Editor and his secretary (myself) that were a source of interest and

amusement. Mr. Richard Whiteing—who knew the secret of the Editorship

wrote: “I want to subscribe to _The Pagan Review_ if you will let me

know to whom to send my _abonnement_ for the half year. I think, you

know, you will have to put some more clothes on before the end of the

year. You are certainly the liveliest and most independent little devil

of a review I ever saw in a first number.”

The Editor, however, swiftly realised that there could be no

continuance of the Review. Not only could he not repeat such a _tour

de force_, and he realised that for several numbers he would have to

provide the larger portion of the material—but the one number had

served its purpose, as far as he was concerned for by means of it he

had exhausted a transition phase that had passed to give way to the

expression of his more permanent self.

To Thomas A. Janvier the Editor wrote:

RUDGWICK, SUSSEX.

DEAR MR. JANVIER,

For though we are strangers in a sense I seem to know you well through

our friend in common, Mr. William Sharp!

I write to let you know that _The Pagan Review_ breathed its last

a short time ago. Its end was singularly tranquil, but was not

unexpected. Your friend Mr. Sharp consoles me by talking of a certain

resurrection for what he rudely calls “this corruptible”: if so the P/R

will speak a new and wiser tongue, appear in a worthier guise, and put

on immortality as a Quarterly.

In the circumstances, I return, with sincerest thanks, the subscription

you are so good as to send. Also the memorial card of our late lamented

friend—I mean the P/R, not W. S. Talking of W. S., what an admirable

fellow he is! I take the greatest possible interest in his career. I

read your kind and generous estimate of him in _Flower o’ the Vine_

with much pleasure—and though I cannot say that I hold quite so

high a view of his poetic powers as you do, I may say that perusal

of your remarks gave me as much pleasure as, I have good reason for

knowing, they gave to him. He and I have been ‘delighting’ over your

admirably artistic and charming stories in _Harper’s_. By the way,

he’s settling down to a serious ‘tussle.’ He has been “a bad boy” of

late: but about a week previous to the death of the Pagan/Review he

definitively reformed—on Sept. 11th in the early forenoon, I believe.

I hope earnestly he may be able to live on the straight henceforth:

but I regret to say that I see signs of backsliding. Still, he may

triumph; the spirit is (occasionally) willing. But, apart from this, he

is now becoming jealous of such repute as he has won, and is going to

deserve it, and the hopes of friends like yourself. Mrs. Brooks’ love

to Catherine and yourself: Mine, Tommaso Mio,

You know you have ...

W. H. BROOKS.

Elizabeth A. Brooks was so pleased to receive your letter.

One or two young writers sent in MS. contributions and these of course

he had to return. One came from Mr. R. Murray Gilchrist with whom he

had come into touch through his editorship of the Literary Chair in

_Young Folk’s Paper_. To him he wrote:

RUDGWICK, SUSSEX, 10: 92.

MY DEAR SIR,

As it is almost certain that for unforeseen private reasons serial

publication of _The Pagan Review_ will be held over till sometime in

1893, I regret to have to return your MS. to you. I have read _The

Noble Courtesan_ with much interest. It has a quality of suggestiveness

that is rare, and I hope that it will be included in the forthcoming

volume to which you allude.... It seems to me that the story would

be improved by less—or more hidden—emphasis on the mysterious aspect

of the woman’s nature. She is too much the “principle of Evil,” the

“modern Lilith.” If you do not use it, I might be able—with some

alterations of a minor kind—to use it in the P/R when next Spring it

reappears—if such is its dubious fate.

Yours very truly,

W. H. BROOKS.

P. S. It is possible that you may surmise—or that a common friend may

tell you—who the editor of the P/R is: if so, may I ask you to be

reticent on the matter.

PHENICE CROFT, RUDGWICK,

22: 10: 92.

DEAR MR. GILCHRIST,

Although I do not wish the matter to go further I do not mind so

sympathetic and kindly a critic knowing that “W. S.” and “W. H. Brooks”

are synonymous.

I read with pleasure your very friendly and cordial article in _The

Library_. By the way, it may interest you to know that the “Rape of the

Sabines” and—well, I’ll not say what else!—is also by W. H. Brooks. But

this, no outsider knows.... _The Pagan Review_ will be revived next

year, but probably as a Quarterly: and I look to you as one of the

younger men of notable talent to give a helping hand with your pen.

I suppose you come to London occasionally. I hope when you are

next south, you will come and give me the pleasure of your personal

acquaintance. I can offer you a lovely country, country fare, a bed,

and a cordial welcome.

Yours sincerely,

WILLIAM SHARP.

Intimation had also to be sent to each subscriber; with it was enclosed

a card with the following inscription:

_The Pagan Review._

On the 15th September, still-born _The Pagan Review_.

Regretted by none, save the affectionate parents and a few forlorn

friends, _The Pagan Review_ has returned to the void whence it came.

The progenitors, more hopeful than reasonable, look for an unglorious

but robust resurrection at some more fortunate date. “For of such is

the Kingdom of Paganism.”

W. H. BROOKS.

And at the little cottage a solemn ceremony took place. The Review was

buried in a corner of the garden, with ourselves, my sister-in-law Mary

and Mr. Stanley Little as mourners; a framed inscription was put to

mark the spot, and remained there until we left Rudgwick.

CHAPTER XIII

ALGIERS

_Vistas_

Many schemes were mentally cartooned for the autumn and winter’s work;

but all our plans were suddenly upset by an unlooked for occurrence.

While in Rome I had had a severe attack of Roman fever; and I had never

quite recovered therefrom. The prolonged rains in the hot autumn, the

dampness of the clay soil on which lay the hamlet of Buck’s Green, made

me very ill again with intermittent low fever. It was deemed imperative

that I should not spend the whole winter in England, but go in search

of a dry warm climate. But we had not the necessary funds. So instead

of devoting himself to his dream-work, as he had hoped, my husband

laid it temporarily aside and settled himself to write between October

and Xmas, two exciting boys’ serial stories for _Young Folk’s Paper_,

and thus procured sufficient money to enable us to cross to North

Africa. “The Red Rider” and “The Last of the Vikings” were crowded

with startling adventures. The weaving of sensational plots offered

no difficulties to him, but an enjoyment. He did not consider the

achievement of any real value, and did not wish that particular kind

of writing to be associated with his name. His impressions of Algeria

and Tunisia were chronicled in a series of articles, such as “Cardinal

Lavigerie,” “The March of Rome,” “Rome in Africa,” etc.; also in a

series of letters to a friend from which I select one or two:

BISKRA, 2d Feb., 1893.

“Here we are in the Sahara at last! I find it quite hopeless to attempt

to give you any adequate idea of the beauty and strangeness and the

extraordinary fascination of it all. The two days’ journey here was

alone worth coming to Africa for! We left Mustapha shortly before dawn

on Tuesday, and witnessed a lovely daybreak as we descended the slopes

to Agha: and there we saw a superb sunrise streaming across the peaks

and ranges of the Djurdjura of Kabylia (the African Highlands) and

athwart the magnificent bay. The sea was dead calm, and in parts still

mirrored the moon and a few stars: then suddenly one part of it became

molten gold, and that nearest us was muffled into purple-blue wavelets

by the dawn-wind. The sound of it washing in, almost at the feet of

the palms and aloes and Barbary-figtrees was delicious. We had a long

and delightful day’s journey till sunset. Our route was through Grande

Kabylie, and the mountain scenery in particular was very impressive. At

many places we had a long stop: but everywhere here railway-travelling

is more like journeying in a carriage, the rate of speed not being much

more, with ample facilities for seeing everything en route. The Kabyles

are the original inhabitants of Mauritanian Africa—and both in language

and appearance these Berbers differ markedly from the Moors and the

nomadic Arabs. They are the hardiest and most industrious though also

the most untameable, of the native races. They live in innumerable

little villages scattered among the mountains and valleys and plains of

the Djurdjura country.

“The sun sank over the uplands of Kabylia as we mounted towards the

ancient Roman outpost-city, Setif. Setif stands about 3,500 ft. high:

and crossing the plateaux beyond it was like making an excursion

through Scotland in midwinter. Still, despite the snow on the hills,

and even along the roads of Setif itself, the cold was not so severe as

we expected.

“At four next morning we steamed slowly out of Setif in full moonlight.

An hour or so later dawn broke as we passed a series of Arab

encampments, and then came another sunrise over a wild and desolate

country. We were now entirely in Mahommedan lands, for there are

comparatively few Europeans south of the city of Constantine.

“At a place called El Guerrah we stopped for half an hour for déjeuner.

Soon thereafter we passed the Salt Lakes, covered with wild-fowl,

flamingoes, and other birds. It was hereabouts that we first saw some

camels. Once more we mounted, and soon were high among the Aurès

mountains, perhaps the most delightful hill-region of North Africa,

with certainly the finest population, Berbers like the Kabyles, but

Berber-aristocrats—Berbers refined by potent inherited strains from the

Romans of old. From Batna onwards the journey was an endless delight.

We came more and more into the East, and soon grew wholly accustomed

to Arab encampments, herds of camels, Moors and Negroes coming in with

herds of bouricoes (little donkeys), wild black goats and gaunt sheep,

Nomads travelling southward or eastward, picturesque Saharians or

Spahis dashing past on grey Arab horses, and semi-nude agriculturous

Berbers. At last the desert (the hill-desert) was entered. Here one

can realise the full significance of the French epithet _tourmenté_:

and, as one fares further, of the Biblical phrase, the abomination of

desolation. The whole country seemed under the curse of barrenness:

nothing but gaunt ribbed mountains, gaunt ribbed hills, gaunt ribbed

sand-plains—this, or stony wastes of an arid desolation beyond words.

But though the country did not become less awful in this respect, it

grew wilder and stranger as we neared Elkantara. I never saw scenery

so _terrific_. The entrance to the last Gorge was very exciting, for

beyond the narrow outlet lay the Sahara and all torrid Africa! North of

this last outpost of the colder zone the date-palm refuses to flourish:

and here, too, the Saharan Arab will not linger: but in a quarter of

a mile one passes from this arid waste into African heat and a superb

oasis of date-palms. It is an indescribable sensation—that of suddenly

swinging through a narrow and fantastic mountain-gorge, where all is

gloom and terror, and coming abruptly upon the full splendour of the

sunswept Sahara, with, in the immediate foreground, an immense oasis

of date-palms, all green and gold! The vista—the vast perspectives—the

glory of the sunflood! From that moment, one can hardly restrain one’s

excitement. Very soon, however, we had fresh and unexpected cause for

excitement. The train slowly came to a stop, and crowds of Arabs came

up. The line had been destroyed for more than half a mile—and we were

told we must walk across the intervening bit of desert, and ford the

Oued-Merjarla, till we reached the train sent to meet us. We could see

it in the distance—a black blotch in the golden sunlight. One account

was that some revolted Arabs (and some of the outlying tribes are said

to be in a chronic state of sullen ill will) had done the mischief:

another, and more probable, that the hill-courses had swollen the

torrent of the Oued-Biskra, which had rent asunder the desert and

displaced the lines. The Arabs carried our baggage, and we set forth

across our first Sahara-stretch. Despite the heat, the air was so light

and delicious that we enjoyed the experience immensely. The river (or

rather barren river-bed with a pale-green torrent rushing through a

deep cleft in the sandy grit) was crossed on a kind of pontoon-bridge.

Soon after this the sun sank. We were in the middle of a vast plain,

almost surrounded by a series of low, pointed hills, which became a

deep purple. Far to the right was a chott (or salt lake) and of lucent

silver. For the rest, all was orange-gold, yellow-gold, green-gold,

with, high over the desert, a vast effulgence of a marvellous roseate

flush. Then came the moment of scarlet and rose, saffron, and deepening

gold, and purple. In the distance, underneath the dropping sparkle of

the Evening Star, we could discern the first palms of the oasis of

Biskra. There was nothing more to experience till arrival, we thought:

but just then we saw the full moon rise out of the Eastern gloom. And

what a moon it was! Never did I see such a splendour of living gold.

It seemed incredibly large, and whatever it illumed became strange and

beautiful beyond words.

“Then a swift run past some ruined outlying mud-walls and Arab tents,

some groups of date-palms, a flashing of many lights and clamour of

Eastern tongues—and we were in Biskra: El Biskra-ed-Nokkel, to give

it its full name (the City of the Palms)! We found pleasant quarters

in the semi-Moorish Hotel on Sahara. It has cool corridors, with

arched alcoves, on both sides, so that at any time of day one may have

coolness somewhere. In the courtyard are seats where we can have coffee

and cigarettes under the palms, beside two dear little tame gazelles....

“This morning we had many novel and delightful glimpses of oriental

life. In one narrow street the way was blocked by camels lying or

squatting right across the road. As they are laden, they open their

mouths, snarlingly, and give vent to an extraordinary sound—part roar,

part grunt of expostulation....

“We came across a group of newly arrived camels from the distant Oasis

of Touggourt, laden with enormous melons and pumpkins: and, hopping and

running about, two baby camels! They were extraordinary creatures, and

justified the Arab saying that the first camel was the offspring of

an ostrich and some now extinct kind of monster.... Oh, this splendid

flood of the sun!

CONSTANTINE, 12th Feb., 1893.

“It would be useless to attempt to give you any idea of all we have

seen since I last wrote. The impressions are so numerous and so

vivid until one attempts to seize them: and then they merge in a

labyrinth of memories. I sent you a P/c from Sidi Okba—the memory of

which with its 5,000 swarming Arab population has been something of

a nightmare-recollection ever since. I can well believe how the City

of Constantine was considered one of the seven wonders of the world.

It is impossible to conceive anything grander. Imagine a city hanging

down the sides of gorges nearly 1,000 feet in depth—and of the most

fantastic and imposing aspect. In these terrible gorges, which have

been fed with blood so often, the storks and ravens seem like tiny

sparrows as they fly to and fro, and the blue rock-doves are simply

wisps of azure....

Last night I had such a plunge into the Barbaric East as I have

never had, and may never have again. I cannot describe, but will

erelong tell you of those narrow thronged streets, inexplicably

intricate, fantastic, barbaric: the Moorish cafés filled with motley

Orientals—from the turban’d Turk, the fez’d Jew, the wizard-like Moor,

to the Kabyl, the Soudanese, the desert Arab: the strange haunts of

the dancing girls: the terrible street of the caged women—like wild

beasts exposed for sale: and the crowded dens of the Haschisch-eaters,

with the smoke and din of barbaric lutes, tam-tams, and nameless

instruments, and the strange wild haunting chanting of the ecstatics

and fanatics. I went at last where I saw not a single European: and

though at some risk, I met with no active unpleasantness, save in

one Haschisch place, where by a sudden impulse some forty or fifty

Moors suddenly swung round, as the shriek of an Arab fanatic, and

with outstretched hands and arms cursed the _Gaiour-kelb_ (dog of an

infidel!): and here I had to act quickly and resolutely. Thereafter one

of my reckless fits came on, and I plunged right into the midst of the

whole extraordinary vision—for a kind of visionary Inferno it seemed.

From Haschisch-den to Haschisch-den I wandered, from strange vaulted

rooms of the gorgeously jewelled and splendidly dressed prostitutes to

the alcoves where lay or sat or moved to and fro, behind iron bars, the

caged “beauties” whom none could reach save by gold, and even then at

risk; from there to the dark low rooms or open pillared places where

semi-nude dancing girls moved to and fro to a wild barbaric music....

I wandered to and fro in that bewildering Moorish maze, till at last

I could stand no more impressions. So I found my way to the western

ramparts, and looked out upon the marvellous nocturnal landscape of

mountain and valley—and thought of all that Constantine had been—”

CARTHAGE,

Sunday, 19th Feb.

“How strange it seems to write a line to London from this London of

2,000 years ago! The sea breaks at my feet, blue as a turquoise here,

but, beyond, a sheet of marvellous pale green, exquisite beyond words.

To the right are the inland waters where the Carthaginian galleys

found haven: above, to the right, was the temple of Baal: right above,

the temple of Tanit, the famous Astarte, otherwise “The Abomination

of the Sidonians.” Where the Carthaginians lived in magnificent

luxury, a little out of the city itself, is now the Arab town of

Sidi-ban-Saïd—like a huge magnolia-bloom on the sunswept hillside.

There is nothing of the life of to-day visible, save a white-robed

Bedouin herding goats and camels, and, on the sea, a few felucca-rigged

fisherboats making for distant Tunis by the Strait of Goletta. But

there is life and movement in the play of the wind among the grasses

and lentisks, in the hum of insects, in the whisper of the warm earth,

in the glow of the burning sunshine that floods downward from a sky of

glorious blue. _Carthage_—I can hardly believe it. What _ivresse_ of

the mind the word creates!”

The following letter was received shortly after our return:

19 ST. MARY ABBOTTS TERRACE, W.,

7th March, 1893.

MY DEAR SHARP,

I did not reply to your kind letter because I could not divest myself

of a certain suspicion of the postal arrangements of the desert. I

admit however there was little warrant for misgiving since they are

evidently civilised enough to keep the natives well supplied with

copies of _The Island_. The thought of the studious Sheik painfully

spelling out that work with the help of his lexicon is simply

fascinating, and I have made up my mind to read _The Arabian Nights_

in the original by way of returning the compliment. But if I talk any

more about myself I shall forget the immediate purpose of this letter

which is to ask if you and Mrs. Sharp are back again; and, if you are,

how and when we may see you. I think this was about the date of your

promised return. We shall all be delighted to see you and to hear

about your journey. You are more than ever Children of To-morrow in my

esteem, to be able not only to dare such trips but to do them. When I

read your letter I felt more than ever a child of yesterday. Do write

and give us a chance of seeing you as soon as you can.

Ever yours,

R. WHITEING.

Mr. Whiteing was one of the many friends who came to our cottage for

week-end visits in the ensuing spring and summer. Among others whom

we welcomed were Mrs. Mona Caird, Miss Alice Corkran, Mr. George

Cotterell, Mr. and Mrs. Le Gallienne, the Honble Roden Noel, Mr.

Percy White, Dr. Byres Moir, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rinder, Mr. R. A.

Streatfield, Mr. Laurence Binyon, my brother R. Farquharson Sharp,

and my sister-in-law Mary, or Marik, who for many years acted as my

husband’s secretary and whose handwriting became familiar to many

correspondents who afterwards received letters in handwriting from

Fiona Macleod.

The Diary for December 1893 has the following entries:

“We came back to a lovely English Spring, the finest for a quarter of

a century it is said. In May E. went to Paris for the Salon: I went to

Ventnor and Freshwater. Wrote my long article for _Harpers’_ on ‘The

March of Rome in North Africa.’

“At the end of July we went to Scotland: first for three weeks to St.

Andrew’s: then to Mrs. Glasford Bells’ at Tirinie, near Aberfeldy in

Perthshire: then to Corrie, in Arran, for over a fortnight. Then E.

visited friends, and I went to Arrochar, etc. Then at my mother’s in

Edinburgh: and on my way south I stopped with R. Murray Gilchrist at

Eyam, in Derbyshire.

“In the autumn I arranged with Frank Murray of Derby to publish

_Vistas_. He could afford to give me only £10, but in this instance

money was a matter of little importance. _Harpers’_ gave me £50 for

“The March of Rome.” Knowles asked me to do “La Jeune Belgique” for

the September number which I did, and he commissioned other work. On

the head of it, too, Elkin Matthews and John Lane have commissioned

an extension of the essay, and translation, for a volume to be issued

in the spring. In _Good Words_, “Froken Bergliot,” a short story, was

much liked: later, in December, “Love in a Mist” (written June /92)

still more so. African articles commissioned by _Harpers_, _Atlantic

Monthly_, _Art Journal_, _Good Words_, and provisionally two others.

“Have written several stories and poems. Also done the first part of a

Celtic romance called _Pharais_, from the word of Muireadach Albarmach,

“Mithil domb triall gu tigh na Pharais.” Have mentally cartooned

_Nostalgia_ (a short one vol. romance) _The Woman of Thirty_ (do.

novel), _Ivresse_ (which I have proposed to Lady Colin Campbell for

our collaboration in preference to _Eve and I_): “Passée,” “Hazard of

Love”: a collection of short stories, collectively called _The Comedy

of Woman_: and other volumes in romance, fiction, poetry, and drama.

Have done part of _Amor_ (in Sonnets mostly as yet): and the first

part of “The Tower of Silence.” Have thought out “Demogorgon”: also,

projected a dramatic version of _Anna Karenina_.

“Some time ago signed an agreement with Swan Sonnenschin & Co. to write

a new life of Rossetti. It will be out, I hope, next spring. Been

getting slowly on with it.

“Besides the bigger things I am thinking of, e. g. in poetic drama

“Demogorgon”: in fiction “The Lunes of Youth” (Part 1 of the Trilogy

of _The Londoners_), and the _Women_ series, have thought out _The

Literary Ideal_ etc.—and also the philosophical “The Brotherhood of

Rest.” Besides, a number of short stories: some with a definite end in

view, that of coherent book-publication. In the background are other

works: e. g. _Darthûla_, thought out nearly fully, which I would like

to make my _chef d’œuvre_. In all, I have actually on hand eight books,

and innumerable stories, articles, etc.

[Illustration: HANDWRITING

Fac-simile of an autograph poem by William Sharp

Venilia

Exspirare rosas, decrescere lilia vidi

Claudian

Along the faint shores of the foamless gulf

I see pale lilies droop, wan roses fall,

And Silence stilling the upplifted wave

And in the moment of the lifted wave

And ere the rose fall or the lily breathe,

A husht far voice hath Silence, like to hers,

Venilia’s, who when love was given wings

And vanishing flight, mourned ceaseless as a dove

Till bitter Circe changed her to a strain

Long lingering in old, forgotten woods

When on the grey wind swims the yellow leaf.

William Sharp

]

The things first to be done now are

Books 1 Finish new Life of Rossetti

2 Finish Pharais

3 Write Nostalgia

4 Collaborate in Ivresse

then, The Brotherhood of Rest

and, The Comedy of Woman

and, The Lunes of Youth

(Articles) “The Literary Ideal”: Flemçen: “Tunisia”: “The Province

of Constantine”: “The Province of Oran”: “Lyric Japan”: “Chansons

D’Amour”: etc. etc.

(Short Stories) “The late Mrs. Pygmalion” etc. etc.”

* * * * *

_Vistas_ was published early in 1894 by Mr. Frank Murray of Derby in

“his Regent Series,” of which _Frangipani_ by R. Murray Gilchrist was

the first number. The English edition of _Vistas_ is dedicated to

_Madame Elspeth H. Barzia_—an anagram on my name.

In the Dedication to H. W. Alden (author of “God in His World”) in the

American edition—which contains an extra ‘_Interlude_’ entitled “The

Whisperer”—the intention of the book is thus explained:

“You asked me what my aim was in those dramatic interludes which,

collectively, I call _Vistas_. I could not well explain: nor can I do

so now. All are vistas of the inner life of the human soul, psychic

episodes. One or two are directly autopsychical, others are renderings

of dramatically conceived impressions of spiritual emotion: to two or

three no quotation could be more apt than that of the Spanish novelist,

Emilia Pardo Bazàn: ‘Enter with me into the dark zone of the human

soul.’ These _Vistas_ were written at intervals: the most intimate in

the spiritual sense, so long ago as the spring of 1886, when during

recovery from a long and nearly fatal illness ‘Lilith’ came to me as a

vision and was withheld in words as soon as I could put pen to paper.

Another was written in Rome, after a vain effort to express adequately

in a different form the episode of death-menaced and death-haunted love

among those remote Scottish wilds where so much of my childhood and

boyhood and early youth was spent.... I came upon for the first time

‘La Princesse Maleine’ and ‘L’Intruse.’

“One or two of the _Vistas_ were written in Stuttgart in 1891, others

a year or so later in London or elsewhere—all in what is, in somewhat

unscholarly fashion, called the Maeterlinckian formula. Almost from the

first moment it seemed clear to me that the Belgian poet-dramatist had

introduced a new and vital literary form. It was one that many had been

seeking—stumblingly, among them, the author of _Vistas_—but Maurice

Maeterlinck wrought the crude material into a form fit for swift and

dextrous use, at once subtle and simple. The first which I wrote under

this impulse is that entitled ‘Finis.’ The latest or latest but one

(’The Whisperer,’ now added to this Edition) seems to me, if I may say

so, as distinctively individual as ‘The Passing of Lilith,’ and some,

at least of my critics have noticed this in connection with ‘The Lute

Player.’ In all but its final form, it embodies a conception that has

been with me for many years, ever since boyhood: a living actuality for

me, at last expressed, but so inadequately as to make me differ from

the distinguished critic who adjudged it the best of the _Vistas_. To

me it is the most obvious failure in the book, though fundamentally, so

near and real emotionally.”

END OF PART ONE

PART II

FIONA MACLEOD

_I too will set my face to the wind and throw my handful

of seed on high,

It is loveliness I seek, not lovely things._

_F. M._

CHAPTER XIV

THE PSEUDONYM

_Pharais_

The summer of 1893 was hot and sunny: and we delighted in our little

garden with its miniature lawns, its espalier fruit trees framing the

vegetable garden, and its juvenile but to us fascinating flower beds.

Horsham, our nearest town, was seven miles distant and the village of

Rudgwick lay a mile away up a steady ascent beyond the station. William

Sharp was happy once more to be resident in the country, although the

surroundings were not a type of scenery that appealed to him. But, as

he wrote to a friend, it was not so much the place that he liked “as

what is in it conducive to that keen perturbation, elation, excitement

of mind, which is life worth living.”

At Phenice Croft his imagination was in a perpetual ferment. Out of the

projected work that he had noted in his diary, out of those subjects

that lay in his mind to germinate and mature, or to wither and be

rejected, grew one or two achievements; and in particular after the

completion of _Vistas_, a romance of the Isles, _Pharais_, about which

his friend Mr. Cotterell in acknowledging a copy of these Dramatic

Interludes, wrote to the author:

“_Vistas_ should mark a point in your career from which you should go

forward to greater things. I am eager to see the Celtic romance.”

The quiet and leisure at Phenice Croft, the peace, the “green life”

around were unspeakably welcome to my husband. Once again, he saw

visions and dreamed dreams; the psychic subjective side of his dual

nature predominated. He was in an acutely creative condition; and,

moreover he was passing from one phase of literary work to another,

deeper, more intimate, more permanent. So far, he had found no

adequate method for the expression of his “second self” though the way

was led thereto by _Sospiri di Roma_ and _Vistas_.

The _Sospiri di Roma_ was the turning point. Those unrhymed poems of

irregular meter are filled not only with the passionate delight in

life, with the sheer joy of existence, but also with the ecstatic

worship of beauty that possessed him during those spring months we

spent in Rome, when he had cut himself adrift for the time from the

usual routine of our life, and touched a high point of health and

exuberant spirits. There, at last, he had found the desired incentive

towards a true expression of himself, in the stimulus and sympathetic

understanding of the friend to whom he dedicated the first of the books

published under his pseudonym. This friendship began in Rome and lasted

throughout the remainder of his life.

And though this newer phase of his work was at no time the result of

collaboration, as certain of his critics have suggested, he was deeply

conscious of his indebtedness to this friend, for—as he stated to me in

a letter of instructions, written before he went to America in 1896,

concerning his wishes in the event of his death—he realised that it was

“to her I owe my development as ‘Fiona Macleod’ though, in a sense of

course, that began long before I knew her, and indeed while I was still

a child,” and that, as he believed, “without her there would have been

no ‘Fiona Macleod.’”

Because of her beauty, her strong sense of life and of the joy of life;

because of her keen intuitions and mental alertness, her personality

stood for him as a symbol of the heroic women of Greek and Celtic days,

a symbol that, as he expressed it, unlocked new doors in his mind and

put him “in touch with ancestral memories” of his race. So, for a

time, he stilled the critical, intellectual mood of William Sharp to

give play to the development of this new found expression of subtler

emotions, towards which he had been moving with all the ardour of his

nature.

From then till the end of his life there was a continual play of

the two forces in him, or of the two sides of his nature: of the

intellectually observant, reasoning mind—the actor, and of the

intuitively observant, spiritual mind—the dreamer, which differentiated

more and more one from the other, and required different conditions,

different environment, different stimuli, until he seemed to be two

personalities in one. It was a development which, as it proceeded,

produced a tremendous strain on his physical and mental resources;

and at one time between 1897-8 threatened him with a complete nervous

collapse.

And there was for a time distinct opposition between these two natures

which made it extremely difficult for him to adjust his life, for the

two conditions which were equally imperative in their demands upon him.

His preference, naturally, was for the intimate creative work which he

knew grew out of his inner self; though the exigencies of life, his

dependence on his pen for his livelihood—and, moreover the keen active

interest ‘William Sharp’ took in all the movements of the day, literary

and political, at home and abroad—required of him a great amount of

applied study and work.

During those two years at Phenice Croft, to which he always looked

back with deep thankfulness, he was the dreamer—he was testing his

new powers, living his new life, and delighting in the opportunity

for psychic experimentation. And for such experimentation the place

seemed to him to be peculiarly suited. To me it seemed “uncanny,” and

to have a haunted atmosphere—created unquestionably by him—that I

found difficult to live in, unless the sun was shining. This uncanny

effect was felt by more than one friend; by Mr. Murray Gilchrist, for

instance, whose impressions were described by his host in one of the

short “Tragic Landscapes.”

_Pharais_ was the first of the books written and published under the

pseudonym of “Fiona Macleod.” The first reference to it is in the afore

noted diary: “Have also done the first part of a Celtic romance called

_Pharais_.” The next is in a letter written to Mrs. Janvier from St.

Andrews, on 12th August, 1893, before the author had decided on the use

of a pseudonym:

“ ... The white flowers you speak of are the moondaisies, are they

not?—what we call moonflowers in the west of Scotland and ox-eye

daisies in England, and marguerites in France?... It is very strange

that you should write about them to me just as I was working out a

scene in a strange Celtic tale I am writing, called _Pharais_, wherein

the weird charm and terror of a night of tragic significance is brought

home to the reader (or I hope so) by a stretch of dew-wet moonflowers

glimmering white through the mirk of a dusk laden with sea mists.

Though this actual scene was written a year or two ago—and one or two

others of the first part of _Pharais_—I am going to re-write it, your

letter having brought some subtle inspiration with it. _Pharais_ is a

foil to the other long story I am working at. While _it_ is full of

Celtic romance and dream and the glamour of the mysterious, the other

is a comedy of errors—somewhat in the nature, so far, of “A Fellowe

and His Wife” (I mean as to style). In both, at least the plot, the

central action, the germinal _motif_, is original: though I for one

lay little stress on extraneous originality in comparison with that

inner originality of individual life.... I have other work on the many

occupied easels in the studio of my mind: but of nothing of this need I

speak at present. Of minor things, the only one of any importance is a

long article on a subject wherein I am (I suppose) the only specialist

among English men of letters—the Belgian literary Renaissance since

1880. It is entitled “La Jeune Belgique,” and will appear in (I

understand) the September number of _The Nineteenth Century_....”

“ ... We must each ‘gang our ain gait.’ I’m singularly indifferent to

what other people think in any matter where I feel strongly myself.

Perhaps it is for this reason that I am rarely ‘put out’ by adverse

criticism or opinion—except on technical shortcomings. I do a lot of

my own work here lying out on the sand-dunes by the sea. Yesterday I

had a strange experience. I was writing in pencil in _Pharais_ of death

by the sea—and almost at my feet a drowned corpse was washed in by the

tide and the slackening urgency of the previous night’s gale. The body

proves to be that of a man from the opposite Forfar coast. It had been

five days in the water, and death had played havoc with his dignity

of lifeless manhood. I learned later that his companion had been

found three days ago, tide-drifted in the estuary of the Tay. It was

only a bit of flotsam, in a sense, but that poor derelict so sullenly

surrendered of the sea changed for me, for a time, the aspect of those

blithe waters I love so well. In the evening I walked along the same

sands. The sea purred like a gigantic tigress, with a whisper of peace

and rest and an infinite sweet melancholy. What a sepulchral fraud....

“Life seems to move, now high and serene and incredibly swift as an

albatross cleaving the upper air, now as a flood hurled across rocks

and chasms and quicksands. But it is all life—even the strangely still

and quiet backwaters, even, indeed, the same healthful commonplace

lagoons where one havens so gladly often....”

* * * * *

Three months later, he wrote to Mr. Richard Stoddart and proposed

for serial publication in _Lippincotts_ a romance to be called

_Nostalgia_—which was never written. In the same letter he speaks of

“another story, _Pharais_,” which he describes as “written deeply in

the Celtic spirit and from the Celtic standpoint.” Neither suggestion

was accepted; and the author decided to issue _Pharais_ as soon as

possible in book form, and not under his own name.

When in the following year the book was published the author,

forgetting that he had ever written Mrs. Janvier about it, sent a

copy of it to her, and said merely that it was a book in which he was

interested. Whereupon she wrote and asked if the book were not his own,

and he replied:

“ ... Yes, _Pharais is mine_. It is a book out of my heart, out of the

core of my heart. I wrote it with the pen dipped in the very ichor of

my life. It has reached people more than I dreamt of as likely. In

Scotland especially it has stirred and created a new movement. Here,

men like George Meredith, Grant Allen, H. D. Traill, and Theodore Watts

hailed it as a ‘work of genius.’ Ignored in some quarters, abused

in others, and unheeded by the ‘general reader,’ it has yet had a

reception that has made me deeply glad. It is the beginning of my true

work. Only one or two know I am ‘Fiona Macleod.’ Let you and my dear

T.A.J. preserve my secret. I trust you.

“You will find more of me in _Pharais_ than in anything I have written.

Let me add that you will find _The Mountain Lovers_, at which I am now

writing when I can, more elemental still, while simpler.... By blood I

am part Celt, and partly so by upbringing, by Spirit wholly so.... One

day I will tell you of some of the strange old mysteries of earlier

days I have part learned, part divined, and other things of the spirit.

You can understand how I cannot do my true work, in this accursed

London.”

* * * * *

A little later he wrote:

“ ... I resent too close identification with the so-called Celtic

renaissance. If my work is to depend solely on its Gaelic connection,

then let it go, as go it must. My work must be beautiful in

itself—Beauty is a Queen and must be served as a Queen.

“ ... You have asked me once or twice about F. M., why I took her name:

and how and when she came to write _Pharais_. It is too complex to

tell you just now.... The name was born naturally: (of course I had

associations with the name Macleod.) It, Fiona, is very rare now. Most

Highlanders would tell you it was extinct—even as the diminutive of

Fionaghal (Flora). But it is not. It is an old Celtic name (meaning “a

fair maid”) still occasionally to be found. I know a little girl, the

daughter of a Highland clergyman, who is called Fiona. _All_ my work is

so intimately wrought with my own experiences that I cannot tell you

about _Pharais_, etc., without telling you my whole life.”

As a matter of fact _Pharais_ was not the first written expression

of the new work. It was preceded by a short story entitled “The Last

Fantasy of James Achanna” that in the autumn of 1893 was sent to _The

Scots Observer_. It was declined by Mr. Henley who, however, wrote a

word of genuine encouragement. He accepted Mr. Henley’s decision, and

the story was never reprinted in its first form. It was re-written

several times; it was included in _The Dominion of Dreams_ as “The

Archer.” During the writing of _Pharais_ the author began to realise

how much the feminine element dominated in the book, that it grew out

of the subjective, or feminine side of his nature. He, therefore,

decided to issue the book under the name of _Fiona Macleod_, that

“flashed ready made” into his mind. Mrs. Janvier wrote later and asked

why he, a man, chose to send forth good work under the signature of a

woman. He answered:

“ ... I can write out of my heart in a way I could not do as William

Sharp, and indeed I could not do so if I were the woman Fiona Macleod is

supposed to be, unless veiled in scrupulous anonymity....

“This rapt sense of oneness with nature, this _cosmic ecstasy_ and

elation, this wayfaring along the extreme verges of the common world,

all this is so wrought up with the romance of life that I could not

bring myself to expression by my outer self, insistent and tyrannical as

that need is.... My truest self, the self who is below all other selves,

and my most intimate life and joys and sufferings, thoughts, emotions

and dreams, _must_ find expression, yet I cannot save in this hidden

way.”

He was wont to say “Should the secret be found out, Fiona dies.” Later

in the year he wrote: “Sometimes I am tempted to believe I am half

a woman, and so far saved as I am by the hazard of chance from what

a woman can be made to suffer if one let the light of the common day

illuminate the avenues and vistas of her heart....”

* * * * *

A copy of _Vistas_ and one of _Pharais_ were sent to George Meredith,

who wrote in acknowledgment to the author:

BOX HILL, July 5, 1894.

DEAR MR. SHARP,

‘Vistas’ gave me pleasure, and a high lift at times. There is the breath

in it. Only beware of a hurried habit of mind that comes of addiction to

Impressionist effects. They engender that mood in readers ultimately.

‘Pharais’ is in many respects most admirable—pure Celtic salt. I should

have written to thank the writer before this: but I am at work up to an

hour of the dinner bell day by day at the finish of this novel—and not

too happy about it.

Will you beg Miss Macleod’s excuse of me for the moment? Her book is one

to fly sure to the mark. I hope you will come to me in September, when I

shall be back there.

Give my warm respects to your wife.

Ever faithfully yours,

GEORGE MEREDITH.

The following letter to Mr. Grant Allen is one of the earliest that

were signed with the pseudonym:

1894.

GRANT ALLEN, ESQ.:

DEAR SIR,

I have only now ascertained that you are in England. I was informed that

you were in the south of France. Some short time ago I asked Mr. Frank

Murray of Derby to forward to you a copy of my just published romance

_Pharais_. I now write to ask if you will accept it as a slight token

of homage from the youngest and latest of Celtic writers to the most

brilliant champion of the Celtic genius now living. I do not, however,

send it by way of inveigling you to write about it, much as any word of

yours would mean to me both in service and honour: but primarily because

of your deep and vivid sympathy not only with nature but with the Celtic

vision of nature—and, also, let me add, because of the many delightful

hours I have enjoyed with your writings.

Faithfully yours,

FIONA MACLEOD.

Mr. Grant Allen replied:

THE CROFT, HINDHEAD.

DEAR MADAM,

I thank you for your book, and still more for your charming and too

flattering letter. _Pharais_ strikes me as a beautiful and poetical

piece of work. It is instinct with the dreamy Celtic genius, and seems

to come to us straight from the Isles of the Dead. That shadowy Ossianic

spirit, as of your misty straits and your floating islands, reminds me

exactly of the outlook from the western mountains over the summer-blue

belted sea as I saw it once on an August morning at Oban. Too shadowy,

sometimes, and too purely poetical, I fear, for your Saxon readers. But

the opening sentences are beautiful, and the nature-studies and the

sense of colour throughout are charming. Now, after so much praise,

will you forgive a few questions and a word of criticism? You are, I

take it, a young writer, and so an older hand may give you a hint or

two. Don’t another time interlard your English with Gaelic. Even a

confirmed Celtomaniac like myself finds it a trifle distracting. Don’t

say “the English,” and “the Gaelic.” Give a little more story to less

pure poetry. Of course I recognise that your work is an idyll, not a

novel, a cameo, not a woodcut; but even so, it seems to me a trifle too

dreamy. Forgive this frankness, and remember that success still lies in

the lap of the Saxon. Also that we Celts have our besetting sins, and

that perfection in literature lies in avoiding excess in any direction,

even that of one’s own best qualities. Now a question or two—because

you interest me. How in English letters would you write _Pharais_

phonetically, or as near it as our clumsy southern lips can compass? (I

have not “the Gaelic,” and my Celtic blood is half Irish, half Breton.)

And how “Fiona?” Is it something like Feena? And are you Miss or Mrs.?

And do you live in Edinburgh? If ever you come south, we hope you will

let us know; for my wife read your book before I did, and interested me

in it by sketching the story for me. Now see how long a letter I have

written unto you, going the Apostle one better, with my own left hand:

only the busiest man in England could have found time to do it.

Faithfully yours,

GRANT ALLEN.

Questions as to the identity of the author were already ‘in the air’;

“F. M’s” answer to Mr. Allen shows that the author felt ‘her’ security

menaced:

KILCREGGAN, ARGYLL,

1894.

DEAR MR. GRANT ALLEN,

You are very kind indeed—both to write to me, you who are so busy, and

to promise to do anything you can for my book. It is very good of you.

Truly, it is the busiest people who find time to do what is impossible

to idle folk....

I have just had a letter of deeply gratifying praise and recognition

from Mr. George Meredith, who says he finds my work ‘rare and

distinctive.’ He writes one phrase, memorable as coming from him: “Be

sure that I am among those readers of yours whom you kindle.”

Permit me, dear Mr. Allen, to make a small request of you. If you are

really going to be so kind as to say anything about my book I trust you

will not hint playfully at any other authorship having suggested itself

to you—or, indeed, at my name being a pseudonym. And, sure, it will be

for pleasure to me if you will be as scrupulous with Mr. Meredith or

anyone else in private, as in public, if chance should ever bring my

insignificant self into any chit-chat.

My name is really Fiona (i. e. Fionnaghal—of which it is the diminutive:

as Maggie, Nellie, or Dair are diminutives of Margaret, Helen, or

Alasdair).

I hope to have the great pleasure of seeing Mrs. Allen and yourself when

(as is probable) I come south in the late autumn or sometime in November.

Sincerely and gratefully yours,

FIONA MACLEOD.

ST. ANDREWS, 1894.

DEAR MR. GRANT ALLEN,

How generous you are! If it were not for fear of what you say about my

Gaelic phrases I should quote one to the effect that the wild bees that

make the beautiful thoughts in your brain also leave their honey on your

lips.

Your _Westminster_ review has given me keen pleasure—and for everything

in it, and for all the kind interest behind it, I thank you cordially.

What you say about the survival of folklore as a living heritage is

absolutely true—_how_ true perhaps few know, except those who have lived

among the Gaels, of their blood, and speaking the ancient language. The

Celtic paganism lies profound and potent still beneath the fugitive

drift of Christianity and Civilisation, as the deep sea beneath the

coming and going of the tides. No one can understand the islander and

remote Alban Gael who ignores or is oblivious of the potent pagan and

indeed elementally barbaric forces behind all exterior appearances.

(This will be more clearly shown in my next published book, a vol. of

ten Celtic tales and episodes—with, I suppose, a more wide and varied

outlook on life, tho’ narrow at that!—than either of its predecessors.)

But excuse this rambling. Your review is all the more welcome to me

as it comes to me during a visit to friends at St. Andrews, and to

me, alas, the East Coast of Scotland is as foreign and remote in all

respects as though it were Jutland or Finland....

Again with thanks, dear Mr. Allen,

Most sincerely yours,

FIONA MACLEOD.

P. S. In his letter Mr. Sharp says (writing to me in his delightful

shaky Gaelic) that ‘both Grant and Nellie Allen are _clach-chreadhain_.’

It took me some time to understand the compliment. _Clach-chreadh_ means

‘stone of clay’—i. e. _a Brick_!

That Mr. Grant Allen was half persuaded as to the identity of the

author is shown in the following invitation:

THE CROFT, HINDHEAD,

July 12, 1894.

MY DEAR SHARP,

Kindly excuse foolscap, I am out of note-paper, and on this remote

hilltop can’t easily get any. As for the type-writing, I am reduced

to that altogether, through writer’s cramp, which makes my right hand

useless even for this machine, which I am compelled to work with my left

hand only.—As to _Pharais_, I will confess I read it with some doubt as

to whether it was not your own production; and after I had written my

letter to Miss Macleod, I took it to my wife and said, “Now, if this

is William Sharp, what a laugh and a crow he will have over me!” Le

Gallienne, who is stopping with us, was sure it was yours; but on second

thoughts, I felt certain, in spite of great likeness of style, there was

a feminine touch in it, and sent on my letter. All the same, however, I

was not quite satisfied you were not taking us in, especially as your

book with Blanche Willis Howard had shown one how womanly a tone you

could adopt when it suited you; and I shan’t feel absolutely at rest on

the subject till I have seen the “beautiful lassie” in person. If she

turns out to be W. S. in disguise, I shall owe you a bad one for it;

for I felt my letter had just that nameless tinge of emotion one uses

towards a woman, and a beginner, but which would be sadly out of place

with an old hand like yourself, who has already won his spurs in the

field of letters.

We shall be glad to make your cousin’s acquaintance (supposing her

to exist) in October. It will afford us the opportunity we have long

desired of asking you and Mrs. Sharp to come and see us in our moorland

cottage, all up among the heather. Indeed, we have had it in our minds

all summer to invite you—you are of those whom one would wish to know

more intimately. I have long felt that the Children of To-morrow ought

to segregate somehow from the children of to-day, and live more in a

world of their own society.

With united kindest regards, and solemn threats of vengeance if you are

still perpetrating an elaborate hoax against me,

I am ever

Yours very sincerely,

GRANT ALLEN.

Unfortunately, there was an imperative reason for bringing our

residence at Rudgwick to a close. The damp, autumnal days in the little

cottage on its clay soil, and the fatigue of constantly going up and

down to town in order to do the work of the Art critic for the _Glasgow

Herald_—which I for some time had undertaken—proved too severe a strain

on me, and I found that in the winter months I could not remain at

Phenice Croft without being seriously ill. So with great reluctance we

decided to give it up at midsummer. I was anxious that we should seek

for another cottage, on a main line of railway, and on sandy soil; but

my husband feared to make another experiment and preferred that we

should make our headquarters in London once again, and that he should

go into the country whenever the mood necessitated. But his regret

was deep. Phenice Croft had seen the birth of Fiona Macleod; he had

lived there with an intensity of inner life beyond anything he had

ever experienced. He knew that life in town would create difficulties

for him, yet it seemed the wisest compromise to make. Our difficulty

of choice was mainly one of ways and means; a considerable part of

the ordinary work was in my hands, and I found it difficult to do it

satisfactorily away from London. He expressed his regret in a letter to

Mr. Murray Gilchrist:

PHENICE CROFT,

27th March, 1894.

MY DEAR GILCHRIST,

You would have heard from me before this—but I have been too unwell.

Besides, I have had extreme pressure of matters requiring every possible

moment I could give. My wife’s health, too, has long been troubling me:

and we have just decided that (greatly to my disappointment) we must

return to Hampstead to live. Personally, I regret the return to town

(or half town) more than I can say: but the matter is one of paramount

importance, so there is nothing else to be done. We leave at midsummer.

As for me, one of my wander-fits has come upon me: the Spring-madness

has got into the blood: the sight of green hedgerows and budding leaves

and the blue smoke rising here and there in the woodlands has wrought

some chemic _furor_ in my brain. Before the week is out I hope to be

in Normandy—and after a day or two by the sea at Dieppe, and then at

beautiful and romantic Rouen, to get to the green lanes and open places,

and tramp ‘towards the sun.’ I’ll send you a line from somewhere, if you

care to hear.

And now, enough about myself. I have often meant to write to you in

detail about your _Stone-Dragon_....

I believe in you, camerado mio, but you must take a firm grip of the

reins; in a word, be the driver, not the driven. I think you ought to

be able to write a really romantic romance. I hope _The Labyrinth_ may

be this book: if not, then it will pave the way. But I think you should

see more of actual life: and not dwell so continually in an atmosphere

charged with your own imaginings—the glamour through which you see life

in the main at present.

Probably you are wise to spend the greater part of each year as you

do: but part of the year should be spent otherwise—say in a town like

London, or Paris, or in tramping through alien lands, France or Belgium,

Scandinavia, or Germany, or Italy, or Spain: if not, in Scotland, or

Ireland, or upon our Isles, or remote counties.

It is because I believe in you that I urge you to beware of your own

conventions. Take your pen and paper, a satchel, and go forth with a

light heart. The gods will guide _you_ to strange things, and strange

things to you. You ought to _see_ more, to _feel_ more, to _know_ more,

at first hand. Be not afraid of excess. “The road of excess leads to

the palace of wisdom,” says Blake, and truly.... Meanwhile let me send

you a word of sunshine. To be alive and young and in health, is a boon

so inestimable that you ought to fall on your knees among your moorland

heather and thank the gods. Dejection is a demon to be ruled. We cannot

always resist his tyranny, but we can always refuse to become bondagers

to his usurpation. Look upon him as an Afreet to be exorcised with a

cross of red-hot iron. He is a coward weakling, after all: take him by

the tail and swing him across the moor or down the valley. Swing up into

your best.

Be brave, strong, self-reliant. Then you live.

Your friend

WILLIAM SHARP.

We took a small flat in South Hampstead (Rutland House, Greencroft

Gardens) that stood high enough for us to see, on clear days, the line

of the Surrey hills from the windows, and to give us a fine stretch of

sky above the chimney pots.

The night before leaving Phenice Croft, a lovely still evening, he

wrote the little poem,

THE WHITE PEACE

It lies not on the sunlit hill

Nor in the sunlit gleam

Nor ever in any falling wave

Nor ever in running stream—

But sometimes in the soul of man

Slow moving through his pain

The moonlight of a perfect peace

Floods heart and brain.

and sent it to me in a letter (for I had gone to town in advance of

him), and told me:

“Before I left I took up a handful of grassy turf, and kissed it three

times, and then threw it to the four quarters—so that the Beauty of the

Earth might be seen by me wherever I went and that no beauty I had seen

or known there should be forgotten. Then I kissed the chestnut tree on

the side lawn where I have seen and heard so much: from the springing of

the dream flowers, to the surge of the sea in _Pharais_.”

Thence he went to Scotland and wrote to me from Kilcreggan, where he

was staying with his mother and sisters till I could join him:

“I told you about Whistlefield? how it, and all the moorland parts about

here just now, is simply a boggy sop, to say nothing of the railway

works. I hope we’ll have fine weather in Iona: it will be lovely there

if we go....

(By the way Mr. Traill had a gratifying notice of _Pharais_ in the

_Graphic_ a week or two ago.)

I have made friends here with a Celtic Islesman from Iona who is settled

here: and have learned some more legends and customs etc. from him—also

got a copy of an ancient MS. map of Iona with all its fields, divisions,

bays, capes, isles, etc. He says my pronunciation of Gaelic is not only

surprisingly good, but is distinctively that of the Isles.

I have learned the rune also of the reading of the spirit. The

‘influence’ itself seems to me purely hypnotic. I was out with this man

McC—— on Saty. night last in a gale, in a small two-sailed wherry. We

flew before the squalls like a wild horse, and it was glorious with the

shriek of the wind, the heave and plunge of the boat, and the washing

of the water over the gunwales. Twice ‘the black wind’ came down upon

us out of the hills, and we were nearly driven under water. He kept

chanting and calling a wild sea-rune, about a water-demon of the isles,

till I thought I saw it leaping from wave to wave after us. Strangely,

he is a different man the moment others are present. He won’t speak a

word of Gaelic, nor be ‘Celtic’ in any way, nor even give the word as

to what will be doing in the isles at this time or any other. This,

however, I have noticed often: and all I have ever learned has been in

intimacy and privily and more or less casually. On Sunday and Monday he

avoided me, and would scarce speak: having given himself away and shown

his Celtic side—a thing now more than ever foreign to the Celtic nature,

which has become passionately reticent. But a few words in Gaelic, and

a private talk, put all right again. Last night I got the rune of the

‘Knitting of the Knots’ and some information about the _Dalt_ and the

_Cho-Alt_ about which I was not clear. He has seen the Light of the

Dead, and his mother saw (before her marriage, and before she even saw

the man himself) her husband crossing a dark stream followed by his

four unborn children, and two in his arms whom afterwards she bore

still-born....”

To me the summer was memorable because of my first visit to Iona. While

there he wrote part of _The Sin-Eater_, and its prefatory dedication

to George Meredith, and projected some of the St. Columba tales; he

renewed impressions of his earlier days on the sacred isle, and stored

new experiences which he afterwards embodied in his long essay on Iona

published in _The Divine Adventure_ volume.

From that Isle of Dreams “Fiona” wrote to Mrs. Tynan-Hinkson:

ISLE OF IONA,

September, 1894.

DEAR MRS. HINKSON,

I am, in summer and autumn, so much of a wanderer through the Isles

and Western Highlands that letters sometimes are long in reaching me.

But your kind note (and enclosure) has duly followed me from Edinburgh

to Loch Goil in eastern Argyll and thence deviously here. It will be a

great pleasure to me to read what you have to say in the _Illus. London

News_ or elsewhere, and I thank you. I wish you could be here. Familiar

with your poetry as I am, I know how you would rejoice not only in the

Iona that is the holy Icolmkill but also in the Iona that is Ithona,

the ancient Celtic Isle of the Druids. There is a beauty here that no

other place has, so unique is it. Of course it does not appeal to all.

The Sound of Iona divides the Island from the wild Ross of Mull by no

more than a mile of water; and it is on this eastern side that the

village and the ancient Cathedral and ruined Nunnery etc. stand. Here it

is as peaceful as, on the west side, it is wild and grand. I read your

letter last night, at sunset, while I was lying on the Cnoc-an-Angeal,

the hillock on the west where the angel appeared to St. Columba. To

the north lay the dim features of the Outer Hebrides: to the west an

unbroken wilderness of waves till they fall against Labrador: to the

south, though invisible, the coastline of Ireland. There was no sound,

save the deep hollow voice of the sea, and a strange reverberation in

a hollow cave underground. It was a very beautiful sight to see the

day wane across the ocean, and then to move slowly homeward through

the gloaming, and linger awhile by the Street of the Dead near the

ruined Abbey of Columba. But these Isles are so dear to me that I think

everyone must feel alike!

I remain

Sincerely yours,

FIONA MACLEOD.

P. S. I enclose a gillieflower from close to St. Columba’s tomb.

In November came a letter from Mr. Stedman:

137 WEST 78TH ST.,

NEW YORK.

MY DEAREST FRIEND BEYOND SEAS,

For this in truth you now are. An older poet and comrade than you once

held that place in my thoughts, but Time and Work have somehow laid the

sword between us—and neither of us is to blame. I never so well obeyed

Emerson’s advice to recruit our friendship (as we grow older) as when

I won, I scarcely know how or why, your unswerving and ever increasing

affection. In truth, again, it has been of the greatest service to me,

during the most trying portion of my life—the period in which you have

given me so much warmth and air—and never has it been of more worth than

now you might well think otherwise.

My birthday began for me with the “Sharp Number” of _The Chapbook_.

I don’t know what fact of it gave me the more pleasure (it came at a

time when I had a-plenty to worry me)—the beautiful autographic tribute

to myself or the honour justly paid to my dear Esquire-at-arms, whose

superb portrait is the envy of our less fortunate Yankee-torydons. The

last five years have placed you so well to the front, on both sides of

the Atlantic, that I can receive no more satisfying tributes than those

which you have given me before the world. I feel, too, that it is only

during these years that you have come to your full literary strength,

there is nothing which the author of your “Ballads” and of “Vistas”

cannot do.

It is a noteworthy fact which you will be glad to hear, that your letter

lay by my plate, when I came down to breakfast on the morning of October

the eight! The stars in their courses must be in league with you....

Mrs. Stedman sends her love, and says that your portrait is that of a

man grown handsomer, and, she trusts, more discreet and ascetic! The

month and this letter are now ending with midnight.

Ever affectionately yours

EDMUND C. STEDMAN.

The Chap-book was a little semi-monthly issue published by Messrs.

Stone and Kimball, Chicago. No. 9, the “William Sharp” number, appeared

on the 15th of September, three days after that author’s birthday. It

contained the reproduction of an autograph signed poem, by William

Sharp “To Edmund Clarence Stedman in Birthday Greeting 8th October”; an

appreciation of William Sharp’s Poems by Bliss Carmen; “The Birth of a

Soul” one of the Dramatic Interludes afterwards included in _Vistas_,

and a portrait of the Author.

Notwithstanding the paramount interest to the author of the “F. M.”

expression of himself as, “W. S.” he was not idle. After a visit to

Mr. Murray Gilchrist in the latter’s home on the Derbyshire moors, W.

S. wrote his story “The Gypsy Christ,” founded on a tradition which

he had learned from his gipsy friends, and set in a weird moorland

surroundings. In _Harper’s_ there appeared a description of the

night-wanderers on the Thames’ embankment, pathetic frequenters of

“The Hotel of the Beautiful Star.” The July number of _The Portfolio_

consisted of a monograph by him on “Fair Women in Painting and Poetry”

(afterwards published in bookform by Messrs. Seeley) which he, at

first, intended to dedicate to Mr. George Meredith. His ‘second

thought’ was approved of by the novelist, who wrote his acknowledgment:

“You do an elusive bit of work with skill. It seems to me, that the

dedication was wisely omitted. Thousands of curdling Saxons are surly

almost to the snarl at the talk about ‘woman.’ Next to the Anarchist,

we are hated.”

The month of July was saddened by the death of our intimate and valued

friend Walter Pater; upon that friend and his work William Sharp wrote

a long appreciation which appeared in _The Atlantic Monthly_. Another

death, at the year-end, caused him great regret, that of Christina

Rossetti, whom he had held in deep regard. He felt, as he wrote to her

surviving brother: “One of the rarest and sweetest of English singers

is silent now. 1882 and 1894 were evil years for English poetry.”

Later he wrote a careful study of her verse for _The Atlantic Monthly._

As a Christmas card that year he gave me a little book of old wood-cut

illustrations, reproduced and printed on Iona. On the inside of the

cover he wrote what he held to be his creed. It is this:

CREDO

“The Universe is eternally, omnipresently and continuously filled with

the breath of God.

“Every breath of God creates a new convolution in the brain of Nature:

and with every moment of change in the brain of Nature, new loveliness

is wrought upon the earth.

“Every breath of God creates a new convolution in the brain of the

Human Spirit, and with every moment of change in the brain of the Human

Spirit, new hopes, aspirations, dreams, are wrought within the Soul of

the Living.

“And there is no Evil anywhere in the Light of this creative Breath: but

only, everywhere, a redeeming from Evil, a winning towards Good.”

CHAPTER XV

THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS

_The Sin-Eater_

It was soon evident that the noise and confused magnetism of the great

City weighed disastrously on William Sharp. At the New Year, 1895, he

wrote to a friend:

“London I do not like, though I feel its magnetic charm, or sorcery.

I suffer here. The gloom, the streets, the obtrusion and intrusion of

people, all conspire against thought, dream, true living. It is a vast

reservoir of all the evils of civilised life with a climate which makes

me inclined to believe that Dante came here instead of to Hades.”

The strain of the two kinds of work he was attempting to do, the

immediate pressure of the imaginative work became unbearable, “the call

of the sea,” imperative.

As he has related in “Earth, Fire and Water”: “It was all important for

me not to leave in January, and in one way I was not ill-pleased for

it was a wild winter. But one night I awoke hearing a rushing sound in

the street, the sound of water. I would have thought no more of it had

I not recognised the troubled sound of the tide, and the sucking and

lapsing of the flow in muddy hollows. I rose and looked out. It was

moonlight, and there was no water. When after sleepless hours I rose in

the grey morning I heard the splash of waves, I could not write or read

and at last I could not rest. On the afternoon of that day the waves

dashed up against the house.”

An incident showed me that his malaise was curable by one method only.

A telegram had come for him that morning, and I took it to his study. I

could get no answer. I knocked, louder, then louder,—at last he opened

the door with a curiously dazed look in his face. I explained. He

answered “Ah, I could not hear you for the sound of the waves!” It was

the first indication to me, in words, of what troubled him.

That evening he started for Glasgow en route for Arran, where I knew he

would find peace.

“The following morning we (for a kinswoman was with me) stood on the

Greenock pier waiting for the Hebridean steamer and before long were

landed on an island, almost the nearest we could reach that I loved so

well.... That night, with the sea breaking less than a score of yards

from where I lay, I slept, though for three nights I had not been able

to sleep. When I woke the trouble was gone.”

There is a curious point in his telling of this episode. Although the

essay is written over the signature of “Fiona Macleod” and belongs to

that particular phase of work, nevertheless it is obviously “William

Sharp” who _tells_ the story, for the “we” who stood on the pier at

Greenock is himself in his dual capacity; “his kinswoman” is his other

self.

He wrote to me on reaching his destination:

CORRIE, ISLE OF ARRAN,

20: 2: 1895.

“You will have had my telegram of my safe arrival here. There was no

snow to speak of along the road from Brodick (for no steamer comes

here)—so I had neither to ride nor sail as threatened: indeed, owing to

the keen frost (which has made the snow like powder) there is none on

the mountains except in the hollows, though the summits and flanks are

crystal white with a thin veil of frozen snow.

It was a most glorious sail from Ardrossan. The sea was a sheet of

blue and purple washed with gold. Arran rose above all like a dream

of beauty. I was the sole passenger in the steamer, for the whole

island! What made the drive of six miles more beautiful than ever was

the extraordinary fantastic beauty of the frozen waterfalls and burns

caught as it were in the leap. Sometimes these immense icicles hung

straight and long, like a Druid’s beard: sometimes in wrought sheets of

gold, or magic columns and spaces of crystal.

Sweet it was to smell the pine and the heather and bracken, and the salt

weed upon the shore. The touch of dream was upon everything, from the

silent hills to the brooding herons by the shore.

After a cup of tea, I wandered up the heights behind. In these vast

solitudes peace and joy came hand in hand to meet me. The extreme

loneliness, especially when I was out of sight of the sea at last, and

could hear no more the calling of the tide, and only the sough of the

wind, was like balm. Ah, those eloquent silences: the deep pain-joy

of utter isolation: the shadowy glooms and darkness and mystery of

night-fall among the mountains.

In that exquisite solitude I felt a deep exaltation grow. The flowing of

the air of the hills laved the parched shores of my heart....

There is something of a strange excitement in the knowledge that two

people are here: so intimate and yet so far-off. For it is with me as

though Fiona were asleep in another room. I catch myself listening for

her step sometimes, for the sudden opening of a door. It is unawaredly

that she whispers to me. I am eager to see what she will do—particularly

in _The Mountain Lovers_. It seems passing strange to be here with her

alone at last....”

_The Mountain Lovers_ was published in the summer of 1895 by Mr. John

Lane. A copy of it was sent to Mr. George Meredith with the following

letter:

9 UPPER COLTBRIDGE TERRACE,

MURRAYFIELD.

DEAR SIR,

Will you gratify one of your most loyal readers by the acceptance of the

accompanying book? Nothing helped

me so much, or gave me so much enduring pleasure, as your generous

message to me about my first book, _Pharais_, which you sent through my

cousin, Mr. William Sharp.

[Illustration: HANDWRITING

Fac-simile of an autograph “Fiona Macleod” poem by William Sharp

The Legions of the time

In the silences of the woods

I have heard all day and all night

The moving multitudes

Of the birds in flight.

He is named Myriad:

And I am sad

Often, and often, I am glad,

But oftener I am white

With fear of the dim broods

That are his multitudes.

Fiona Macleod

]

Naturally, I was eager it should appeal to you—not only because I have

long taken keener delight in your writings than in those of any living

author, but also because you are Prince of Celtland....

I hope you will be able to read, and perhaps care for, _The Mountain

Lovers_. It is not a story of the Isles, like _Pharais_, but of the

remote hill-country in the far northwest. I know how busy you are: so do

not consider it necessary to acknowledge either the book or this letter.

Still, if some happy spirit move you, I need not say that even the

briefest line from you would be a deep pleasure to

Yours, with gratitude and homage,

FIONA MACLEOD.

Acknowledgment came swiftly:

BOX HILL, July 13, 1895.

DEAR MADAM,

If I could have written on any matter out of my press of work when I

received your _Pharais_, there would have been no delay with me to thank

you for such a gift to our literature. This book on the “Mountains”

promises as richly. Whether it touches equally deep, I cannot yet say. I

find the same thrill in it, as of the bard on the three-stringed harp,

and the wild western colour over sea and isles; true spirit of the

mountains. How rare this is! I do not know it elsewhere. Be sure that

I am among those readers of yours whom you kindle. I could write more,

but I have not recovered from the malady of the _degoût de la plume_,

consequent on excess—and I pray that it may never fall on you. For

though it is wisdom at my age to cease to write, it is not well to be

taught to cease by distaste. That is a giving of oneself to the enemy.

I have to be what I am, and I disclose it to win your pardon for my

inexpressiveness when I am warmly sensible of a generous compliment.

I am, Yours most faithful

GEORGE MEREDITH.

It was in 1895 that the Omar Khayyam Club under the Presidentship of

Mr. Edward Clodd, who was an old personal friend of Mr. Meredith,

elected to hold its summer dinner at the Burford Bridge Hotel. Mr.

Thomas Hardy, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. George Gissing and William Sharp

were among the guests. Mr. Clodd knew that it would be difficult to

persuade Mr. Meredith to be present at the dinner. Nevertheless he

lured him to the Hotel, and when coffee was served, (I quote from

a contemporary account) “the beautiful face of the great novelist

appeared within the doorway, and he was welcomed with enthusiasm by

all present. The president extended to Mr. Meredith the right hand of

fellowship on behalf of the Club, in a charming and eloquent speech not

devoid of pathos. Mr. Meredith in his reply declared that Mr. Clodd

was the most amiable of Chairmen but the most dastardly of deceivers.

Never before, he added, had he been on his legs to make a speech in

public, now before he knew it he was bustled over the first fence, and

found himself overrunning the hounds. ‘I have my hands on the fellow

at this moment’ he continued laughingly ‘and I could turn on him and

rend him, but I spare him.’ After a few graceful and characteristic

sentences concerning the Club and its object, and Omar, and expressing

his appreciation of his reception Mr. Meredith said in conclusion: ‘I

thank you from my heart, everyone of you.’”

Much to William Sharp’s satisfaction he was elected member of the

Omar Khayyam Club in the autumn of the same year. On receipt of the

announcement of the fact the new member wrote to the President:

RUTLAND HOUSE,

2d Nov., 1895.

DEAR BROTHER-IN-OMAR,

On my return from Scotland the other day I found a note informing

me that I had been elected an Omarian on the nomination of your

distinguished self.

My thanks, cher confrère. ‘A drop of my special grape to you,’ as Omar

might say, if he were now among us with a Hibernian accent! Herewith I

post to you another babe, born into this ungrateful world so recently

as yesterday.... Such as it is, I hope you may like it. “Ecce Puella”

itself was written at white heat—and ran in ripples off the brain: and

so is probably readable.

“Fragments from The Lost Journals of Piero di Cosimo” when they

appeared (some few years ago) won the high praise of Pater—but perhaps

their best distinction is that they took in the cocksure and levelled

the Omniscient. One critical wight complained that I was not literal

(probably from the lack of knowledge of medieval Italian), which

he clinched by the remark that he had compared my version with the

original! I see that Silas Hocking has just published a book called “All

men are liars.” I would fain send a copy to that critic, even now. By

the way, my cousin Miss Fiona Macleod wrote to me the other day for your

address. I understand she wanted to send you a copy of her new book. If

you get it, you should, as a folk-lorist, read the titular story, _The

Sin-Eater_.

My wife joins with me in cordial regards, and I am

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM SHARP.

The President replied:

19 CARLETON ROAD,

TUFNELL PARK

5th Nov.

MY DEAR SHARP,

It is an addition to the pleasant memories of my year of office to

know that you are of the elect. You come in with Lang and Gissing. By

the way, the next dinner is fixed for the sixth proximo. And it is an

addition to a burden of obligation willingly borne which your kind gift

imposes. For work such as yours has unending charm for me, because while

Science was my first love and is still my dear mistress, I love her more

for what she suggests than what she reveals. Facts, unrelated, bore me:

only in their significance does one get abiding interest. That is why

your ‘Vistas’ and such like delicate, throbbing things attract me. Some

of these were especially welcome on a recent dull Sunday by our ‘cold

restless sea,’ on which in bright days you promise to come with Allen to

look at it from my window. Your delicious story of the critic sent me

straight to the Journal of di Cosimo. How well you produce the archaic

flavour: the style has a Celtic ring about it. As for ‘Ecce Puella’ I

await the hearing of it from the voice of a ‘puella’ who likes your

work. I was at Meredith’s on Sunday week: he keeps wonderfully well for

him: his talk is bright as his face is beautiful. He has his fling at

me over the Burford Bridge deception, and says that my duplicity cost

you all a fine speech. I tell him that the speech we had was good enough

for ‘the likes of us.’ So Fiona Macleod is your cousin! She is of the

‘elect.’ I take it as most kind of her to send me her new book, which I

have as yet but partly read, and am about to acknowledge. She holds a

weird, strong pen, and will help the Celt to make further conquest of

the dullard Saxons. Meredith and I talked about her “_Mountain Lovers_”

when I was with him in August.

Kindest regards to Mrs. Sharp and yourself.

Yours sincerely,

EDWARD CLODD.

In the Autumn of 1894 we had come in touch with Professor and Mrs.

Patrick Geddes of Edinburgh, and a friendship with far reaching results

for “Fiona Macleod” arose between the two men. Both were idealists,

keen students of life and nature; cosmopolitan in outlook and interest,

they were also ardent Celts who believed in the necessity of preserving

the finer subtle qualities and the spiritual heritage of their race

against the encroaching predominance of materialistic ideas and aims of

the day.

It was the desire and dream of such idealists and thinkers as Professor

Geddes, and those associated with him, to preserve and nurture what

is of value and of spiritual beauty in the race, so that it should

fuse into and work with, or become part of, the great acquisitions and

marvellous discoveries of modern thought. To hold to the essential

beauty and thought of the past, while going forward eagerly to meet the

new and ever increasing knowledge, was the desire of both men. In their

aims they were in sympathy with one another; their manner of approach

and methods of work were different. Patrick Geddes—biologist—was

concerned primarily with the practical and scientific expression of his

ideals; William Sharp was concerned primarily with expression through

the art of words. Mutually sympathetic, they were eager to find some

way of collaboration.

It was the dream of Professor Geddes to restore to Scotland something

of its older pre-eminence in the world of thought, to recreate in

Edinburgh an active centre and so arrest the tremendous centralising

power of the metropolis of London; to replace the stereotyped methods

of education by a more vital and synthetic form; and to encourage

national art and literature. Towards the carrying out of these aims

he had built a University Hall and Settlement for students, artists,

etc. Perhaps the most important of his schemes, certainly the most

important from the modern scientific point of view was the planning

of the Outlook Tower—once an observatory—now an educational museum

on the Castle Rock commanding a magnificent view of the city, of the

surrounding country, of sea and sky; “an institution that is designed

to be a method of viewing the problems of the science of life.”

According to Professor Geddes “Our little scholastic colony in the

heart of Edinburgh symbolises a movement which while national to the

core, is really cosmopolitan in its intellectual reach.”

Grouped with this scientific effort, was the aim to revive the Celtic

influence in art and literature; and the little colony contained a

number of men and women who were working to that end; notably among

the painters were James Cadenhead, Charles Mackie, Robert Burns,

John Duncan, also Pittendrigh MacGillivray the sculptor; and among

the writers Professor Arthur Thomson, Dr. Douglas Hyde, Nora Hopper,

Rosa Mulholland, A. Percival Graves, S. R. Crockett, Elisée Réclus,

Alexander Carmichael, Victor Branford, Professor Patrick Geddes, F. M.

and W. S.

Into that eager and sympathetic atmosphere of linked thought and aim

my husband and I were speedily drawn; and before long a Publishing

Firm was established for the issuing of Celtic Literature and Works

on Science. To Mr. and Mrs. Geddes was confided the important secret

relating to the personality of “Fiona Macleod,” to the thoughts and

ideals that unlay ‘her’ projected work. It was arranged that William

Sharp should be the Manager in the Firm of Patrick Geddes & Colleagues

(which post he very soon relinquished for that of Literary Adviser);

an arrangement which made it possible for that particular Colleague

to publish three of his “F. M.” books under his immediate supervision

and from what was then one of the centres of the Celtic movement.

This post, naturally, necessitated frequent visits to Edinburgh. For

the month of August 1895 we took a flat in the neighbourhood of the

University settlement so that we might share actively in the Summer

Session.

It was an interesting experience. The students came from England,

Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany; among the lecturers in addition

to Professors Geddes and Arthur Thomson were Elisée Réclus the

geographer and his brother Elie Réclus, Edmond Demolins and Abbé Klein.

W. S. prepared his lectures in rough outline. His inexperience in such

work led him to plan them as though he were drafting out twelve books,

with far more material than he could possibly use in the time at his

disposal. His subject was “Art and Life” divided into ten lectures:

I. Life & Art: Art & Nature: Nature.

II. Disintegration: Degeneration: Regeneration.

III. The Return to Nature: In Art, in Literature. The

Literary Outlook in England & America.

IV. The Celtic Renascence, Ossian, Matthew Arnold,

The Ancient Celtic Writers.

V. The Celtic Renascence. Contemporary. The

School of Celtic Ornament.

VI. The Science of Criticism: What it is, what it is

not. The Critical Ideal.

VII. Ernest Hello.

VIII. The Drama of Life, and Dramatists.

IX. The Ideals of Art—pagan, Mediæval, modern.

X. The Literary Ideal—Pagan, Mediæval. The Modern

Ideal.

One lecture only was delivered; for during it he was seized with a

severe heart attack and all his notes fell to the ground. It was with

the greatest effort that he was able to bring the lecture to a close:

and he realised that he must not attempt to continue the course; the

risk was too great. Therefore, while I remained in Edinburgh to keep

open house for the entertainment of the students, he went to the little

Pettycur Inn at Kinghorn, on the north side of The Firth of Forth, till

I was able to join him at Tighnabruaich in the Kyles of Bute where we

had taken a cottage with his mother and sisters for September.

Two volumes of short stories were published in the late Autumn. It

was the writer’s great desire that work should be issued by W. S.

and by F. M. about the same time; in part to sustain what reputation

belonged to his older Literary self, and in part to help to preserve

the younger literary self’s incognito. _Ecce Puella_ published by Mr.

Elkin Matthew for W. S. was a collection of stories &c. that had

been written at different times and issued in various magazines, and

prefaced by a revised and shortened version of the Monograph on “Fair

Women in Painting and Poetry.” It contained among other short stories

one entitled “The Sister of Compassion,” dedicated “to that Sister

of compassion for all suffering animals, Mrs. Mona Caird,” our dear

friend. The other volume contained the first series of barbaric tales

and myths of old Celtic days, “recaptured in dreams,” that followed in

quick succession from the pen of Fiona Macleod. _The Sin-Eater_ was

the first of the three F. M. books published by the new Scoto-Celtic

publishers. The Author was gratified by favourable reviews from

important journals, and by letters, from which I select two.

The first is from Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie:

THE OUTLOOK,

13 ASTOR PLACE,

May 23d, 1897.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

_The Sin-Eater_ came in holiday week and was one of my most welcome

remembrances. I have read it with deep pleasure, almost with envy; so

full is it of the stuff which makes literature. It has the vitality and

beauty of a rich and living imagination. The secrets of the spirit are

in it, and that fellowship with the profounder experiences which gets

at the heart of a race. I have not forgotten your kind words about my

own work; words which gave me new heart and hope. For you are the very

type of man to whose mind I should like to appeal. The judgment of Mrs.

Sharp, which you quote, gave me sincere pleasure. To get the attention

of the few for whose opinion one cares most is a piece of great good

fortune; to really find one’s way to their hearts is best of all. I

am looking forward to a good long talk with you. I wish you were here

today. This is a divine May; balmy, fragrant, fresh; as if it had never

been here before. There is enough _soul_ in Miss Macleod’s stories to

set up a generation of average novelists. The work of the real writer

seems to me a miracle; something from the sources of our life. I have

found, however, so few among all my good literary friends who feel about

literature as I do that I have felt at times as if I had no power of

putting into words what lies in my heart. This does not mean that I have

missed appreciation; on the contrary, I have had more than I deserve.

But most of the younger men here regard literature so exclusively as

a craft and so little as a revelation that I have often missed the

kind of fellowship which you gave me. The deeper feeling is, however,

coming back to us in the work of some of the newest men—Bliss Carman for

instance. There is below such a book as “Vistas” a depth and richness of

imagination which have rarely been disclosed here. I hope you will find

time to send me an occasional letter. You will do me a real service. I

am now at work on a book which I hope will be deeper and stronger than

anything I have done yet. There is the stir of a new life here, although

it may be long in getting itself adequately expressed.

Yours fraternally,

HAMILTON W. MABIE.

The second is from Sir George Douglas, poet, scholar, and keen critic:

SPRINGWOOD PARK, KELSO,

23:12:95.

MY DEAR SHARP,

Many thanks for your interesting letter and enclosures. I am very glad

to find that you think I have understood Miss Macleod’s work, and I

think it very good of her to have taken my out-spoken criticisms in

such good part. Certainly if she thinks I can be of any use to her

in reading over the proofs of “The Washer of the Ford,” it will be a

great pleasure to me. I shall probably be in Italy by the time she

names—the end of Feb. but in these days of swift posts I hope that need

not matter. What you tell me of Fiona’s admirer is very interesting,

and from my recollection of the way in which books and the fancied

personality of their authors possessed my mind when I was a youth, I can

well enter into his infatuation. Fortunately there were no women among

my “influences,” or I might have been in as bad a case as he! Would not

this be a case for telling the secret, under pledges of course, if it

were only to prevent mischief? By the way the whole incident seems to me

to afford excellent material for literary treatment—not by you perhaps,

nor yet by me (for the literary element in the material puts it outside

your province, and makes it not quite the theme I like for my own use

either) but say, for W.

Yours ever sincerely,

GEORGE DOUGLAS.

I do not quite agree with you as to the inception of Miss Macleod,

and possibly this is a matter in which you are not the best possible

judge. At any rate, without going into the matter, I fancy that I could

establish the existence in works earlier than the Poems of Phantasy of

a certain mystical tendency, (German perhaps rather than Celtic in its

colouring at that time) but none the less akin to the mysticisms of F.

M.

But I may be mistaken....

* * * * *

Our friend, Sir George Douglas, had followed the literary career of

William Sharp with careful interest, and gave the same heed to the

writings of “Fiona Macleod.” After perusal of _The Sin-Eater_ he made

a careful study of the two methods of work, and wrote to the author to

tell him he was finally convinced from internal evidence that William

Sharp was the author of these books under discussion. He did not

ask for confirmation but wished the author to know his conclusions.

The latter, who valued not only the friendship but the critical

appreciation of his correspondent, made no denial, but begged that the

secret might be guarded. In Sir George Douglas’ answer is a reference

to a curious incident which had happened while we were at Rudgwick.

A letter came from an unknown correspondence containing a proposal

of marriage to Fiona Macleod. Whether it was intended as a “draw” or

not we could not decide. The proposal was apparently written in all

seriousness. Similarities of taste, details of position, profession

etc., were carefully given. Acceptance was urged with all appearance of

seriousness; therefore the refusal was worded with gravity befitting

the occasion.

CHAPTER XVI

THE WASHER OF THE FORD

Owing to the publication of _The Sin-Eater_ by a firm identified with

the Scoto-Celtic movement the book attracted immediate attention. Dr.

Douglas Hyde voiced the Irish feeling when he wrote to my husband:

“I think Fiona Macleod’s books the most interesting thing in the new

Scoto-Celtic movement, which I hope will march side by side with our

own.” This movement was according to William Sharp “fundamentally

the outcome of Ossian, and immediately of the rising of the sap in

the Irish nation.” Following on the incentive given by such scholars

as Windische, Whitly Stokes, Kuno Meyer, and the various Folklore

societies, a Gaelic League had been formed by enthusiasts in Ireland,

and in Scotland, for the preservation and teaching of the old Celtic

tongue; for the study of the old literatures of which priceless

treasures lay untouched in both countries, and for the encouragement

of natural racial talent. Wales had succeeded in recovering the use of

her Cymric tongue; and the expression in music of racial sentiment had

become widespread throughout that country. Ireland and the Highlands

looked forward to attaining to a similar result; and efforts to

that end were set agoing in schools, in classes, by means of such

organisations as the Irish Feis Ceoil Committee, the Irish Literary

Society and the Irish National Theatre. Their aim was to preserve some

utterance of the national life, to mould some new kind of romance, some

new element of thought, out of Irish life and traditions. Among the

most eager workers were Dr. Douglas Hyde, Mr. W. B. Yeats, Mr. Standish

O’Grady, Mr. George Russell (A.E.), Dr. George Sigerson, and Lady

Gregory.

In Scotland much valuable work had been done by such men as Campbell

of Islay, Cameron of Brodick, Mr. Alexander Carmichael; by the Gaelic

League and the Highland Mod and its yearly gatherings. There were

writers and poets also who used the old language and were consequently

known within only a small area. No conspicuous modern Celtic work had

hitherto been written in the English tongue until the appearance of the

writings of Fiona Macleod, and later of Mr. Neil Munro. _The Sin-Eater_

was therefore warmly welcomed on both sides of the Irish Channel, and

Fiona Macleod, acclaimed as the leading representative of the Highland

Gael, “our one and only Highland novelist.” _The Irish Independent_

pronounced her to be “the poet born,” “her work is pure romance—and she

strikes a strange note in modern literature, but it has the spirit of

the Celt, and is another triumph for the Celtic genius.”

In consequence of this reception, and of a special article in _The

Bookman_, speculations began to be made concerning the unknown and

unseen authoress. _The Highland News_ in pursuance of its desire to

awake in the Highlands of Scotland an active sympathy with the growing

Scoto-Celtic movement, was anxious to give some details concerning the

new writer. To that end Mr. John Macleay wrote to William Sharp to ask

if “considering your relation towards Miss Macleod, you might be able

to tell me where I could obtain any personal information about her.” In

reply, a few sparse notes were sent; the author in question was said to

have passed her girlhood in the West Highlands; her tastes, her dislike

of towns and her love of seclusion, were among the characteristics

described.

When, early in 1896, _The Highland News_ wrote to several authors to

ask their views on the subject of Literature in the Highlands, Mr.

Grant Allen, Mrs. Katherine Tynan Hinkson, Fiona Macleod and William

Sharp were among those writers whose letters, expressive of interest

and sympathy, were published.

The two letters contributed by my husband were written necessarily,

each from a slightly different standpoint. He welcomed the opportunity

of appearing in print in the two characters for he believed that it

would help to shield the secret concerning Fiona Macleod.

The publication by P. Geddes & Coll. of _The Washer of the Ford_—a

collection of Tales and Legendary Moralities—aroused a fresh outbreak

of curiosity. For instance, a sensational article appeared in _The

Highland News_ on the vexed question of the identity of the Highland

writer, headed: “Mystery! Mystery! All in a Celtic Haze.”

According to it: “Highland Celts in Glasgow are, I hear, hot on the

scent of what they imagine to be a female James Macpherson. This, of

course, is Miss Fiona Macleod. The way which Miss Macleod has led our

Glasgow countrymen is strange indeed, and the literary detective has

been busy. In the first place, it is asserted that Miss Fiona Macleod

does not exist. No one seems to have seen her. One gentleman called

twice at her residence in Edinburgh, and Miss Macleod was out. She

has written about Iona, but again in that well watched place her name

is unknown. The natural inference, you will admit, is that there is

something here to be “fahnd aht,” as the Englishman says. Seeing that

the non-existence of Miss Fiona Macleod has been thus established, the

next point is who wrote those books to which that name is attached.

Now, Mr. William Sharp has declared himself to be Miss Fiona Macleod’s

uncle; he has, too, interested himself in Celtic things. Isn’t it the

second natural inference that he has written the books? But Mr. Sharp

has specifically denied the authorship. Then, of course, it must be

Mr. and Mrs. Sharp in collaboration. But again comes denial. Mr. Sharp

has addressed the following note to the Glasgow “Evening News,” which

has been somewhat persistent in casting doubt on the existence of

Miss Macleod—“Miss Fiona Macleod is not Mr. William Sharp, Miss Fiona

Macleod is not Mrs. William Sharp, Miss Fiona Macleod is—Miss Fiona

Macleod.” The persecuted author was much disturbed by this effort

to draw Fiona Macleod into a controversy, to force her to declare

herself. Not only was he indignant at what to him was an unwarrantable

interference with the privacy of the individual, and resented the

traps that were laid to catch the author should “she” be ‘unwary,’ it

was instrumental also in making him much more determined to guard his

secret at all costs. During the months of controversy the subject of it

accomplished a considerable amount of work.

He collaborated with me in the preparation of an Anthology of Celtic

Poetry; prepared an edition of _Ossian_ (P. Geddes & Coll.) for which

he wrote a long introduction; and began to work upon a humourous novel,

not, however, finished until 1898.

As F. M. he published _The Washer of the Ford_ in April, wrote _Green

Fire_, and also a number of Poems, which were subsequently included in

_From the Hills of Dream_. His Diary for the New Year has this entry:

_“Jany 7th, 1896._ _The British Weekly_ has a paragraph given under all

reserve that Fiona Macleod is Mrs. William Sharp. Have written—as W.

S.—to Dr. R. Nicoll and to Mrs. Macdonell of _The Bookman_ to deny this

authoritatively.”

From the first we decided that it would be advisable to admit that F.

M. was my cousin, also, that my husband acted as her adviser and ‘right

hand’ in the matter of publishing.