MY DEAR ROBERT,

A little ago, on sitting down in my club to answer some urgent

notes (and whence I now write) my heart leapt with pleasure, and an

undeserving stranger received Part I of a beaming welcome—for the waiter

announced that “Mr. Gilchrist would like to see you, Sir.” Alas, it was

no dear Peaklander, but only a confounded interviewer about the Stage

Society!...

Elizabeth and I leave England on the morning of the 12th—and go first

to the South of Provence, near Marseilles: after Yule-tide we’ll go on

to Italy, perhaps first to Shelley’s Spezzia or to Pegli of the Orange

Groves near Genoa: and there we await you, or at furthest a little

later, say in Florence. We shall be away till the end of March.

Meanwhile ‘tis all unpleasantness and incertitude: much to do and little

pleasure in the doing: a restlessness too great to be salved short of

departure, and the longed for mental and nervous rest far away.

I have just returned from a flying visit to Dorset, and saw Thomas

Hardy. He is well, and at work: the two happiest boons of fortune for

all our kinship—and therein I hope _you_ are at one with him. I wish you

could run up and see our first Stage Society production this weekend

(Sunday) when we bring out a short play by Hardy and R. L. Stevenson and

Henley’s ‘Macaire.’ (I resigned my Chairmanship but was re-elected: and

so am extra busy before I go.)

Your loving friend,

WILL.

P. S. Miss Macleod’s drama ‘The Immortal Hour’ is in the November

_Fortnightly_, also her article “The Gael and His Heritage” in the

November _Nineteenth Century_.

And in addition to these a study on the Dramas of Gabriele d’Annunzio

appeared in _The Fortnightly_, in September, signed “W. S.”

* * * * *

To Mr. Macleay he sent an account of the work he had on hand:

AIX-EN-PROVENCE,

30th Nov., 1900.

DEAR MR. MACLEAY,

Your friendly note has reached me here, where I have been some time,

this being my best centre in Provence at this season for my special

studies in Provencal literature and history. My wife and I expect to

remain here till about Christmas time, and then to go on to Italy.

Pressure of urgent work—chiefly a lengthy volume on the Evolution of

the Fine Arts in the Nineteenth Century, primarily for transatlantic

publication—prevented my being much in Scotland this autumn. I was

a brief while in Galloway visiting friends, and for a week or so at

Portpatrick, and a few days in Edinburgh—c’est tout.

At one time there was a chance that I might be near Taynuilt, and I

looked forward greatly to see Mr. Alexander Carmichael again. He is a

splendid type of the true Highlander, and of a nature incomparably sweet

and refined—and I have the greatest admiration of him in all ways....

A remarkable family, and I would to Heaven there were more such families

in the Highlands now. Yes, _what_ a book _Carmina Gadelica_ is! It

ought to become as precious to the Scottish Gael as the Greek Anthology

to all who love the Hellenic ideal, but with a more poignant, a more

personal appeal.... I can’t tell you about Miss Macleod’s historical

romance for the good reason that I don’t know anything about its present

prospects myself. Personally I regret the long postponement, as I think

(judging from what I have seen) that it would be a success as a romance

of history. Miss Macleod, however, became dissatisfied with what she

had done, or its atmosphere, or both, and has not touched it again for

some months past—though the last time she spoke of the subject she

said she hoped it would be ready by midsummer.... I am myself heavily

engaged in work, including many commissions. I’ve finished an essay on

“Impressionism” (“The Impressionist” I call it) for the forthcoming

new monthly, _The North Liberal Review_, and am now in the throes of

a long _Quarterly_ article. Then I have a Provencal book on hand, and

(interlusive) a Provencal romance.

You will, of course, keep all I have said of myself and doings, and

still more importantly of Miss Macleod, to yourself. I don’t think she

wants anyone save friends and acquaintances to know that she is abroad,

and for her health. And above all needing rest as she is, she dreads the

slightest addition to a correspondence already beyond her capacities.

Before I left London I read with deep interest the opening instalments

of Neil Munro’s new book _Doom Castle_. It promises, I think, to be his

_chef-d’œuvre_.

Write to me again soon, with news of your doings and prospects.

Yours sincerely,

WILLIAM SHARP.

The Provencal romance that he was mentally projecting—the never

written _Gypsy Trail_—was in part to have dealt with his early gipsy

experiences. One among other things which revived this strain of memory

was our near vicinage to Les Sainte-Maries, in Provence, where the

bones of Sarah, the gipsy servant of “les Maries,” are enshrined; also

he had recently read the vivid description of the gathering of the

gipsy tribes at that Shrine on her Feast day, written by the Provencal

novelist Jean Aicard, in his _Le Roi des Camargues_.

During my husband’s first visit to Provence he had been much interested

in meeting certain members of Les Félibres, the Provencal literary and

linguistic Nationalists. He visited Frederick Mistral in his charming

country home and noticed the similarity of physical type shared by the

Provencal and himself. I, also, was struck by the likeness between the

two men and thought that Mistral might easily have passed for elder

brother of his Scots _confrère_. At Avignon we saw Madame Roumanille,

the sister of Felix Gras, and widow of one of the founders of Les

Félibres, and her poet-daughter, Térèse, who inherited her father’s

gift. At Aix we met Mistral’s god-daughter Madame Marie Gasquet,

daughter of the poet M. Gerard, another of the original group of

workers in the old _Langue d’Œuil_. Madame Gasquet was the wife of the

young poet, Joachim Gasquet, between whom and my husband there grew up

a warm friendship.

CHAPTER XXII

PROVENCE

_Maniace_

New Year’s Day found us at Palermo where my husband was enchanted

at being presented with a little pottle of freshly gathered wild

strawberries; a week later we traversed the island to Taormina, whence

he wrote to Mrs. Janvier:

MONTE VENERE, TAORMINA,

25th Jan., 1901.

... Today it was too warm to work contentedly indoors even upon our

little terrace with its superb views over Etna and the Ionian Sea—so

at 9 a.m. Elizabeth and I, with a young painter-friend came up here

to a divine spot on the slopes of the steep and grand-shouldered

Hill of Venus, bringing with us our writing and sketching materials

and also fruit and wine and light luncheon. It is now about 3 p.m.

and we have lain here for hours in the glorious warmth and cloudless

sunglow—undisturbed by any sounds save the soft sighing of the sea far

below, the fluttering of a young goatherd with his black flock on a

steep across a near ravine, and the occasional passing of a muleteer or

of a mountaineer with his wine-panier’d donkeys. A vast sweep of sea is

before us and beneath. To the left, under the almond boughs, are the

broad straits which divide Sicily from Calabria—in front, the limitless

reach of the Greek sea—to the right, below, the craggy heights and Monte

Acropoli of Taormina—and, beyond, the vast slope of snow-clad Etna....

I have just been reading (for the hundredth time) in Theocritus. How

doubly lovely he is, read on the spot. That young shepherd fluting away

to his goats at this moment might be Daphnis himself. Three books are

never far from here: Theocritus, the Greek Anthology, and the Homeric

Hymns. I loved them before: now they are in my blood.

Legend has it that near this very spot Pythagoras used to come and

dream. How strange to think that one can thus come in touch with two of

the greatest men of antiquity—for within reach from here (a pilgrimage

to be made from Syracuse) is the grave of Æschylus. Perhaps it was here

that Pythagoras learned the secret of that music (for here both the

sea-wind and the hill-wind can be heard in magic meeting) by which one

day—as told in Iamblicus—he cured a young man of Taormina (Tauromenion)

who had become mad as a wild beast, with love. Pythagoras, it is said,

played an antique air upon his flute, and the madness went from the

youth....

I shall never forget the journey across Sicily. I forget if I told you

in my letter that it had been one of my dreams since youth to read the

Homeric Hymns and Theocritus in Sicily—and it has been fulfilled: even

to the unlikeliest, which was to read the great Hymn to Demeter at Enna

itself. And that I did—in that wild and remote mountain-land. Enna is

now called Castrogiovanni—but all else is unchanged—though the great

temples to Demeter and Persephone are laid low. It was a wonderful

mental experience to read that Hymn on the very spot where Demeter went

seeking—torch in hand, and wind-blown blue peplos about her—her ravished

daughter, the beautiful Pherephata or Persephone. However, I have

already told you all about that—and the strange coincidence of the two

white doves, (which Elizabeth witnessed at the moment I exclaimed) and

about our wonderful sunset-arrival in Greek Tauromenion....

To the same friend he described our visit to Syracuse:

CASA POLITI,

STRADA DIONYSIO,

7th Feb.,:01.

... I must send you at least a brief line from Syracuse—that marvellous

‘Glory of Hellas’ where ancient Athens fell in ruin, alas, when Nicias

lost here the whole army and navy and Demosthenes surrendered by the

banks of the Anapus—the Syracuse of Theocritus you love so well—the

Syracuse where Pindar heard some of his noblest odes sung, where Plato

discoursed with his disciples of New Hellas, where (long before) the

Argonauts had passed after hearing the Sirens singing by this fatal

shore, and near where Ulysses derided Polyphemus—and where Æschylus

lived so long and died.

It seems almost incredible when one is in the beautiful little Greek

Theatre up on the rising ground behind modern Syracuse to believe that

so many of the greatest plays of the greatest Greek tragedians (many

unknown to us even by name) were given here under the direction of

Æschylus himself. And now I must tell you of a piece of extraordinary

good fortune. Yesterday turned out the superbest of this year—a real

late Spring day, with the fields full of purple irises and asphodels and

innumerable flowers, and the swallows swooping beneath the multitudes

of flowering almonds. We spent an unforgettable day—first going to the

Castle of ancient Euryalos—perhaps the most wonderful I have ever known.

Then, in the evening, I heard that today a special choral performance

was to be given in the beautiful hillside Greek Theatre in honour of

the visit of Prince Tommaso (Duke of Genoa, the late King’s brother,

and Admiral of the Fleet). Imagine our delight! And _what_ a day it has

been—the ancient Æschylean theatre crammed once more on all its tiers

with thousands of Syracusans, so that not a spare seat was left—while

three hundred young voices sang a version of one of the choral sections

of “The Suppliants” of Æschylus—with it il Principe on a scarlet dais

where once the tyrant Dionysius sat! Over head the deep blue sky, and

beyond, the deep blue Ionian sea. It was all too wonderful....

While we were at Taormina the news came of the death of Queen Victoria.

An impressive memorial service was arranged by Mr. Albert Stopford,

an English resident there, and held in the English Chapel of Sta.

Caterina.

To attend it the Hon. Alexander Nelson Hood came from the “Nelson

property” of Bronte where he was wintering with his father, Viscount

Bridport, Duke of Bronte, who for forty years had been personal Lord in

Waiting to the Queen. To the son we were introduced by Mr. Stopford;

and a day or two later we started on our first visit to that strange

beautiful Duchy on Ætna, that was to mean so much to us.

Greatly we enjoyed the experience—the journey in the little

Circum-Ætnean train along the great shoulder of Etna, with its

picturesque little towns and its great stretches of devastating lava;

the first sight of the Castle of Maniace—in its shallow tree-clad

valley of the Simeto flanked by great solemn hills—as we turned down

the winding hill-road from the great lava plateau where the station

of Maletto stands; the time-worn quadrangular convent-castle with its

Norman chapel, and its great Iona cross carved in lava erected in the

court-yard to the memory of Nelson; the many interesting relics of

Nelson within the castle, such as his Will signed Nelson and Bronte on

each page, medals, many fine line engravings of the battles in which

he, and also Admiral Hood, took part; the beautiful Italian garden, and

wild glen gardens beyond. No less charming was the kindly welcome given

to us by the fine, hale old Courtier who—when his son one afternoon

had taken my husband for a drive to see the hill-town of Bronte,

and the magnificent views of and from Ætna, with its crowning cover

of snow—told me, as we sat in the comfortable central hall before a

blazing log fire, many reminiscences of the beloved Queen he had served

so long.

In the spring we returned to England, through Italy; and from

Florence, where we took rooms for a month, F. M. wrote to an unknown

correspondent:

18th March, 1901.

MY DEAR UNKNOWN FRIEND,

You must forgive a tardy reply to your welcome letter, but I have been

ill, and am not yet strong. Your writing to me has made me happy. One

gets many letters: some leave one indifferent; some interest; a few

are like dear and familiar voices speaking in a new way, or as from an

obscure shore. Yours is of the last. I am glad to know that something in

what I have written has coloured anew your own thought, or deepened the

subtle music that you yourself hear—for no one finds the colour of life

and the music of the spirit unless he or she already perceive the one

and love the other. Somewhere in one of my books—I think in the latest,

_The Divine Adventure_, but at the moment cannot remember—I say that I

no longer ask of a book, is it clever, or striking, or is it well done,

or even is it beautiful, but—out of how deep a life does it come. That

is the most searching test. And that is why I am grateful when one like

yourself writes to tell me that intimate thought and emotion deeply felt

have reached some other and kindred spirit....

I am writing to you from Florence. You know it, perhaps? The pale

green Arno, the cream-white, irregular, green-blinded, time-stained

houses opposite, the tall cypresses of the Palatine garden beyond, the

dove-grey sky, all seem to breathe one sigh ... _La Pace! L’Oblio!_

But then—life has made those words “Peace,” “Forgetfulness,” very sweet

for me. Perhaps for you this vague breath of another Florence than that

which Baedeker described might have some more joyous interpretation. I

hope so....

You are right in what you say, about the gulf between kindred natures

being less wide than it seems. But do not speak of the spiritual life as

“another life”: there is no ‘other’ life: what we mean by that is with

us now. The great misconception of Death is that it is the only door to

another world.

Your friend,

FIONA MACLEOD.

[Illustration: IL CASTELLO DI MANIACE, BRONTE, SICILY

From a photograph taken by the Hon. Alex. Nelson Hood]

The October number of _The Fortnightly Review_ contained a series of

poems by F. M. entitled “The Ivory Gate,” and at the same time an

American edition of _From the Hills of Dream_—altered from the original

issue—was published by Mr. T. Mosher, to whom the poet wrote concerning

the last section of the English Edition:

12th Nov., 1901.

DEAR MR. MOSHER,

What a lovely book _Mimes_ is! It is a pleasure to look at it, to handle

it. The simple beauty of the cover-design charms me. And the contents

... yes, these are beautiful, too.

I think the translation has been finely made, but there are a few slips

in interpretative translation, and (as perhaps is inevitable) a lapse

ever and again from the subtle harmony, the peculiar musical undulant

rhythm of the original. In a _creative_ translation, the faintest jar

can destroy the illusion: and more than once I was rudely reminded that

a foreigner mixt this far-carried honey and myrrh. Yet this is only “a

counsel of perfection,” by one who perhaps dwells overmuch upon the

ideal of a flawless raiment for beautiful thought or dream. Nor would

I seem ungracious to a translator who has so finely achieved a task

almost as difficult as that set to Liban by Oisin in the Land of the

Ever-Living, when he bade her take a wave from the shore and a green

blade from the grass and a leaf from a tree and the breath of the wind

and a man’s sigh and a woman’s thought, and out of them all make an air

that would be like the single song of a bird. Do you wish to tempt me?

Tempt me then with a proposal as to “The Silence of Amor,” to be brought

out as Mimes is!

The short prose-poems would have to be materially added to, of course:

and the additions would for the most part individually be longer than

the short pieces you know....

Sincerely yours,

FIONA MACLEOD.

In sending a copy of the American edition of _From the Hills of Dream_

to Mr. Yeats, the author explained that, though it contained new

material,

... there will be much in it familiar to you. But even here there are

changes which are recreative—as, for example, in the instance of “The

Moon-Child,” where one or two touches and an added quatrain have made a

poem of what was merely poetic.

The first 10 poems are those which are in the current October

_Fortnightly Review_. But when these are reprinted in a forthcoming

volume of new verse ... it will also contain some of the 40 ‘new’ poems

now included in this American edition, and the chief contents will be

the re-modelled and re-written poetic drama _The Immortal Hour_, and

with it many of the notes to which I alluded when I wrote last to you.

In the present little volume it was not found possible to include the

lengthy, intimate, and somewhat esoteric notes: among which I account of

most interest for you those pertinent to the occult myths embodied in

_The Immortal Hour_.

You will see, however, that one or two dedicatory pages—intended for the

later English new book—have here found a sectional place: and will, I

hope, please you.

Believe me,

Your friend truly,

F. M.

Mr. Yeats replied:

18 WOBURN BUILDINGS,

LONDON, Saturday.

MY DEAR MISS MACLEOD,

I have been a long while about thanking you for your book of poems, but

I have been shifting from Dublin to London and very busy about various

things—too busy for any quiet reading. I have been running hither and

thither seeing people about one thing and another. But now I am back

in my rooms and have got things straight enough to settle down at last

to my usual routine. Yesterday I began arranging under their various

heads some hitherto unsorted folk-stories on which I am about to work,

and today I have been busy over your book. I never like your poetry as

well as your prose, but here and always you are a wonderful writer of

myths. They seem your natural method of expressions. They are to you

what mere words are to others. I think this is partly why I like you

better in your prose, though now and then a bit of verse comes well,

rising up out of the prose, in your simplest prose the most, the myths

stand out clearly, as something objective, as something well born and

independent. In your more elaborate prose they seem subjective, an inner

way of looking at things assumed by a single mind. They have little

independent life and seem unique; your words bind them to you. If Balzac

had written with a very personal, very highly coloured style, he would

have always drowned his inventions with himself. You seem to feel this,

for when you use elaborate words you invent with less conviction, with

less precision, with less delicacy than when you forget everything but

the myth. I will take as example, a prose tale.

That beautiful story in which the child finds the Twelve Apostles eating

porridge in a cottage, is quite perfect in all the first part, for

then you think of nothing but the myth, but it seems to me to fade to

nothing in the latter part. For in the latter part the words rise up

between you and the myth. You yourself begin to speak and we forget the

apostles, and the child and the plate and the porridge. Or rather the

more mortal part of you begins to speak, the mere person, not the god.

You, as I think, should seek the delights of style in utter simplicity,

in a self-effacing rhythm and language; in an expression that is like a

tumbler of water rather than like a cup of wine. I think that the power

of your work in the future will depend on your choosing this destiny.

Certainly I am looking forward to “The Laughter of the Queen.” I thought

your last prose, that pilgrimage of the soul and mind and body to the

Hills of Dream promised this simple style. It had it indeed more than

anything you have done.

To some extent I have an advantage over you in having a very fierce

nation to write for. I have to make everything very hard and clear, as

it were. It is like riding a wild horse. If one’s hands fumble or one’s

knees loosen one is thrown. You have in the proper sense far more

imagination than I have and that makes your work correspondingly more

difficult. It is fairly easy for me, who do so much of my work by the

critical, rather than the imaginative faculty, to be precise and simple,

but it is hard for you in whose mind images form themselves without

ceasing and are gone as quickly perhaps.

But I am sure that I am right. When you speak with the obviously

personal voice in your verse, or in your essays you are not that Fiona

who has invented a new thing, a new literary method. You are that Fiona

when the great myths speak through you....

Yours,

W. B. YEATS.

I like your verses on Murias and like them the better perhaps because

of the curious coincidence that I did in summer verses about lovers

wandering ‘in long forgotten Murias.’

* * * * *

During the spring William Sharp had prepared a volume of selections

from the poems of Swinburne, with an Introduction by himself, for

publication in the Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors. Mr.

Swinburne consented that the selection should be made in accordance

with the critical taste of the Editor, with which however he was not in

complete agreement. He expressed his views in a letter dated from The

Pines, Putney Hill:

Oct. 6th.

DEAR MR. SHARP,

Many thanks for the early copy you have had the kindness to send on to

me. I am pleased to find the Nympholept in a leading place, as I think

it one of the best and most representative things I ever did. I should

have preferred on all accounts that In the Bay had filled the place you

have allotted to Ave atque Vale, a poem to which you are altogether too

kind, in my opinion, as others have been before you. I never had really

much in common with Baudelaire tho’ I retain all my early admiration

for his genius at its best. I wish there were fewer of such very

juvenile crudities as you have selected from my first volume of poems:

it is trying to find such boyish attempts as The Sundew, Aholibah,

Madonna Mia, etc., offered as examples of the work of a man who has

written so many volumes since in which there is nothing that is not at

least better and riper than they. I wish too that Mater Triumphalis had

not been separated from its fellow poem—a much fitter piece of work to

stand by itself. On the other hand, I am very cordially obliged to you

for giving the detached extract from Anactoria. I should greatly have

preferred that extracts only should have been given from Atalanta in

Calydon, which sorely needs compression in the earlier parts. Erectheus,

which would have taken up so much less space, would also, I venture to

think, have been a better and a fairer example of the author’s work. Mr.

Watts Dunton’s objections to the book is the omission of Super Flumina

Babylonis. I too am much surprised to find it excluded from a selection

which includes so much that might well be spared—nay, would be better

away. I would like to have seen one of what I call my topographical

poems in full. The tiny scrap from Loch Torridon was hardly worth giving

by itself. I do not understand what you find obscure or melancholy in

The Garden of Cymodoce. It was written simply to express my constant

delight in the recollection of Sark. I hope you will not think anything

in this note captious or ungracious. Candour always seems to be the best

expression possible of gratitude or goodwill.

Ever sincerely yours,

A. SWINBURNE.

In December of 1901 F. M. wrote, ostensibly from Argyll, to Dr.

Goodchild: “I had hoped by this time to have had some definite

knowledge of what I am to do, where to go this winter. But

circumstances keep me here.... Our friend, too (meaning himself as W.

S.), is kept to England by the illness of others. My plans though

turning upon different issues are to a great extent dependent, later,

on his....

I have much to do, and still more to think of, and it may be bring to

life through the mysterious resurrection of the imagination.

What long months of preparation have to go to any writing that contains

life within it.—Even the slightest, the most significant, as it

seems! We, all of us who live this dual life of the imagination and

the spirit, do indeed mysteriously conceive, and fare thereafter in

weariness and heaviness and long travail, only for one small uncertain

birth. It is the common law of the spirit—as the obverse is the common

law of womanhood.”

* * * * *

And again:

“Life becomes more and more strange, complex, interwrought, and

_intentional_. But it is _the end_ that matters—not individuals.”

Owing to my Mother’s serious illness I could not leave England early in

November, as we had intended. London was impossible for my husband for

he, too, was ill. At first he went to Hastings, whence he wrote to Mrs.

Philpot—author of _The Sacred Tree_:

HASTINGS,

Dec. 20, 1901.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

You would have enjoyed “being me” yesterday. I had a most delightful

day at Rye with Henry James who now lives there for many months in

the year. I went over early, lunched, and then we went all over that

wonderfully picturesque old Cinque Port. A lovely walk in a frost-bound

still country, and then back by the sombre old Land Gate, over the

misty marshes down below, and the flame red Cypres Tower against a plum

coloured sunset, to Henry James’ quaint and picturesque old house to

tea. It was in every way a memorable and delightful day, and not least

the great pleasure of intercourse with that vivid brilliant and alive

mind. He is as of course, _you_ realise, an artist to the finger tips.

_Et ils sont rares ces diables d’esprit._ I wish it were spring! I long

to hear the missel thrush in the blossoming pear tree: and the tingling

of the sap, and the laughter in the blood. I suppose we are all, all of

us ever dreaming of resurrections....

The English climate proved equally impossible, so W. S. went to

Bordighera to be near Dr. Goodchild. But he was too restless to remain

long anywhere, and moved on to Rome and finally to Sicily. He wrote to

Mr. Rhys after the New Year from Il Castello di Maniace:

MY DEAR ERNEST,

As I think I wrote to you, I fell ill with a form of fever,—and had a

brief if severe recurrence of it at Rome: and so was glad some time ago

to get on to my beloved ‘Greek’ Taormina, where I rapidly ‘convalesced.’

A few days ago I came on here, to the wilds inlands of the Sicilian

Highlands, to spend a month with my dear friend here, in this wonderful

old ‘Castle-Fortress-Monastery-Mansion—the Castel’ Maniace itself being

over 2,000 feet in the highlands beyond Etna, and Maletto, the nearest

station about 3,000.

How you and Grace would rejoice in this region. Within a day’s easy

ride is Enna, sacred to Demeter, and about a mile or so from Castel’

Maniace, in a wild desolate region of a lava wilderness, is the lonely

heron-haunted moorland-lake wherein tradition has it Persephone

disappeared....

W. S.

I joined him early in February at Maniace and we remained with Mr.

Hood for a month of sunshine and flowers. Among other guests came

Miss Maud Valerie White. She was wishful that the pleasant days spent

there together should be commemorated, and proposed that W. S. should

write a short poem, that she would set to Sicilian airs, and that the

song should be dedicated to our host. To that end Mr. Hood summoned

to the Castello one of the peasant bagpipe players, who one evening

walked round and round the hall, playing the airs that are played

each Christmas by the pipers before the shrines to the Madonna in

the various churches. The result of that evening was a song, “Buon’

Riposo,” written by William Sharp, set to music by Miss Valerie White,

and published by Messrs. Chappell.

BUON RIPOSO

When, like a sleeping child

Or a bird in the nest,

The day is gathered

To the earth’s breast ...

Hush!... ‘tis the dream-wind

Breathing peace,

Breathing rest

Out of the gardens of Sleep in the West.

O come to me ... wandering

Wind of the West!

Gray Doves of slumber

Come hither to nest....

Ah, sweet now the fragrance

Below the dim trees

Of the White Rose of Rest

That blooms in the gardens of Sleep in the West.

On leaving Maniace W. S. wrote to Dr. Goodchild:

Friday, 7th March, 1902.

To-morrow we leave here for Taormina.... And, not without many regrets,

I am glad to leave—as, in turn, I shall be glad (tho’ for other

reasons) when the time comes to leave Taormina. My wife says I am never

satisfied, and that Paradise itself would be intolerable for me if I

could not get out of it when I wanted. And there is some truth in what

she says, though it is a partial truth, only. I think external change as

essential to some natures as passivity is to others: but this may simply

mean that the inward life in one person may best be hypnotised by ‘a

still image,’ that of another may best be hypnotised by a wavering image

or series of wavering images. It is not change of scene one needs so

much as change in these wavering images. For myself, I should, now, in

many ways be content to spend the most of my life in some quiet place in

the country, with a garden, a line of poplars and tall elms, and a great

sweep of sky....

Your friend affectionately,

WILLIAM SHARP.

To Mrs. Philpot.

TAORMINA,

April 3, 1902.

DEAR FRIEND,

... It would take pages to describe all the flowers and other near and

far objects which delight one continually. Persephone has scattered

every treasure in this her birth-island. From my room here in the

Castello-a-Mare—this long terraced hotel is built on the extreme edge

of a precipitous height outside the Messina Gate of Taormina—I look

down first on a maze of vividly green almond trees sloping swiftly

down to the deep blue sea, and over them the snowy vastness of Etna,

phantom-white against the intense blue, with its hitherside 11,000 feet

of gulfs of violet morning shadow. About midway this is broken to the

right first by some ancient cactus-covered fragments of antiquity at the

corner of a winding path, and then by the bend of Santa Caterina garden

wall with fine tall plume-like cypresses filled with a living green

darkness, silhouetted against the foam-white cone.

My French windows open on the terrace, it is lovely to go out early in

the morning to watch sunrise (gold to rose-flame) coming over Calabria,

and the purple-blue emerald straits of Messina and down by the wildly

picturesque shores of these island coasts and across the Ionian sea,

and lying like a bloom on the incredible vastness of Etna and its rise

from distant Syracuse and Mt. Hybla to its cone far beyond the morning

clouds when clouds there are—or to go out at sunrise and see a miracle

of beauty being woven anew—or at night when there is no moon, but only

the flashing of the starry torches, the serpentine glitter of lights,

the soft cry of the aziola, and the drowsy rhythmic cadence of the sea

in the caves and crags far below. Just now the hum of bees is almost

as loud as the drowsy sighing of the sea: among the almonds a boy is

singing a long drowsy Greek-like chant, and on the mass of wild rock

near the cypresses a goatherd is playing intermittently on a reed pipe.

A few yards to the right is a long crescent-shaped terrace garden filled

with roses, great shrublike clumps of white and yellow marguerite,

myrtle, lilies, narcissus, sweet-scented blossom-covered geranium,

oranges hanging in yellow flame, pale-gold lemons. Below the branches a

“Purple Emperor” and a snow-white “May Queen” are hovering in butterfly

wooing. On an oleander above a wilderness of pink and scarlet geraniums

two blue tits are singing and building, building and singing.

* * * * *

Since I wrote the above Easter has intervened. The strange half pagan,

half Christian ceremonies interested me greatly, and in one of the

ceremonials of one processional part I recognized a striking survival of

the more ancient Greek rites of the Demeter and the Persephonæ-Kôrê cult.

To Mrs. Janvier.

TAORMINA.

... It is difficult to do anything here. I should like to come sometime

without anything to do—without even a book to read: simply to come

and dream, to re-live many of the scenes of this inexhaustible region

of romance: to see in vision the coming and going of that innumerable

company—from Ulysses and his wanderers, from Pythagoras and St. Peter,

from that Pancrazio who had seen Christ in the flesh, from Æschylus, and

Dionysius and Hiero and Gelon, from Pindar and Simonides and Theocritus,

to Richard Cœur-de-Lion and Garibaldi and Lord Nelson—what a strange

company!...

As for my own work, it is mostly (what there is of it!) dealing with the

literature, etc., of the south. I do not know whether my long article

on Contemporary Italian Poetry is to be in the April-June issue of _The

Quarterly_, or the summer issue. I am more interested in a strange

Greek drama I am writing—_The Kôrê of Enna_—than in anything I have

taken up for a long time. My reading just now is mostly Greek history

and Italian literature.... Looking on this deep blue, often violet sea,

with the foam washing below that perhaps laved the opposite shores

of Greece, and hearing the bees on the warm wind, it is difficult to

realise the wet and cold you have apparently had recently in New York—or

the fogs and cold in London. I wish you could bask in and sun yourself

on this sea-terrace, and read me the last you have written of “Captain

Dionysius” while _I_ give _you_ tea!

During our first visit to Sicily, though my husband realised the beauty

of the island, he could not feel its charm or get in touch with the

spirit of the place because he was overborne by the sense of battle

and bloodshed that he felt pervaded it. When I suggested how much the

fascination of the beautiful island had seized hold of me he would say:

“No, I cannot feel it for the ground is sodden and every leaf drips

with blood.” To his great relief, on his return there he found, as he

said, that he had got beyond the surface of things, had pierced down

to the great essentials of the ancient land, and had become one of her

devoted lovers.

CHAPTER XXIII

LISMORE

_Taormina_

Our summer was spent on Arran, Colinsay, and on “the Green Isle” of

Lismore in the sea-mouth of Loch Linnhe within sight of the blue hills

of Morven. We had rooms in the Ferryman’s cottage at the north point

of the isle, where the tide race was so strong at the ebb in stormy

weather that at times it was impossible to row across to the Appin

shore, even to fetch a telegram whose advent was signalled to us by a

little flag from the post office—a quicker way of getting it than by

the long road from the Lismore post office. We spent much of our time

on the water in a little rowing boat. A favourite haunt was a little

Isle of Seals, in the loch, where we one day found a baby seagull, fat

and fully fledged, but a prisoner by reason of a long piece of grass

that had tightly wound round and atrophied one of its feet. Sometimes

our friend the ferryman would come too. At first he refused to talk

if I was there, because I could not speak Gaelic, and he thought I

was English. But at last when I had reassured him that I too was a

Scot, when he admitted that though I had not a Highland tongue I had

Highland eyes just like his mother’s—his shyness wore away. And one day

when we were out on the loch at sundown, and an exquisite rosy flush

lay over hill and water, he stopped rowing and leant over his oars,

silent for a time, and at last murmured in his slow Highland English

“’Tis—the—smile—of God—upon—the—waters.”

At Lismore F. M. wrote, to quote the author’s own words, “‘The Four

Winds of Eiré’ (long); ‘The Magic Kingdoms’ (longer and profounder, one

of the best things F. M. has ever written); ‘Sea-Magic’ (a narrative

and strange Sea-Lore); ‘The Lynn of Dreams’ (a spiritual study); and

‘Seumas’ (a memory).”

During the summer and autumn he had, as F. M., also written a long

study on the work of W. B. Yeats for _The North American Review_; had

arranged the first volume of a selection of tales for the Tauchnitz

series, entitled _Wind and Wave_; and had prepared a revised and

augmented edition of _The Silence of Amor_ for publication in America

by Mr. Mosher. W. S. meanwhile had not been idle. After editing a

volume of the Poems by our friend, Eugene Lee-Hamilton, with a long

Introduction for _The Canterbury Poets_, he was at work on a series

of articles which were intended for a projected book to be called

_Literary Geography_; and of these there appeared in _Harper’s_ “Walter

Scott’s Land,” “R. L. Stevenson’s Country”; and a poem, “Capt’n

Goldsack.”

Unfortunately, his increasing delicacy not only disabled him from

the continuous heavy strain of work he was under, but our imperative

absence from England necessitated also the relinquishing of my

journalistic work. The stress of circumstances weighed heavily on

him, as he no longer had the energy and buoyancy with which to make

way against it. At this juncture, however, one or two friends, who

realised the seriousness of conditions petitioned that he should be

put on the Civil Pension List. The Hon. Alex. Nelson Hood and Mr.

Alfred Austin were the chief movers in the matter, and were backed by

Mr. George Meredith, Mr. Thomas Hardy and Mr. Watts Dunton. Realising

however, that the writings of William Sharp, considered alone, would

not constitute a sufficient claim, Mr. Hood urged William to allow him

to acquaint the Prime Minister with the authorship of the Fiona Macleod

writings, and of the many sacrifices their production had entailed. My

husband consented providing that Mr. Balfour were told “confidentially

and verbally.” However, it proved necessary that “a statement of entire

claims to consideration should be laid upon the table of the House of

Commons for the inspection of members.” In writing to acquaint my

husband of this regulation, Mr. Hood added:

“I do not presume to say one word to influence you in the decision

you may come to. In such a matter it is for you to decide. If you

will sacrifice your unwillingness to appear before the world in all

the esteem and admiration which are your due, then, (I may say this)

perhaps you will obtain freedom—or some freedom—from anxiety and worry

that will permit you to continue your work unhampered and with a quiet

mind. But advice I cannot give. I cannot recommend any one to abandon a

high ideal, and your wish to remain unknown is certainly that....”

To this W. S. replied:

EDINBURGH,

21st Aug., 1902.

MY DEAR ALEC,

You will have anticipated my decision. No other was possible for me. I

have not made many sacrifices just to set them aside when a temptation

of need occurs. Indeed, even writing thus of ‘sacrifices’ seems to

me unworthy: these things are nothing, and have brought me far more

than I lost, if not in outward fortune. It is right, though, to say

that the decision is due to no form of mental obstinacy or arrogance.

Rightly or wrongly, I am conscious of something to be done—to be done

by one side of me, by one half of me, by the true inward self as I

believe—(apart from the overwhelmingly felt mystery of a dual self, and

a reminiscent life, and a woman’s life and nature within, concurring

with and oftenest dominating the other)—and rightly or wrongly I believe

that this, and the style so strangely born of this inward life, depend

upon my aloofness and spiritual isolation as F. M. To betray publicly

the private life and constrained ideal of that inward self, for a

reward’s sake, would be a poor collapse. And if I feel all this, as I

felt it from the first (and the _nominal_ beginning was no literary

adventure, but a deep spiritual impulse and compelling circumstances

of a nature upon which I must be silent) how much more must I feel it

now, when an added and great responsibility to others has come to me,

through the winning of so already large and deepening a circle of those

of like ideals or at least like sympathies in our own country, and in

America—and I allude as much or more to those who while caring for the

outer raiment think of and need most the spirit within that raiment,

which I hope will grow fairer and simpler and finer still, if such is

the will of the controlling divine wills that, above the maze, watch us

in our troubled wilderness.

That is why I said that I could not adopt the suggestion, despite

promise of the desired pension, even were that tenfold, or any sum.

As to ‘name and fame,’ well, that is not my business. I am glad and

content to be a ‘messenger,’ an interpreter it may be. Probably a wide

repute would be bad for the work I have to do. Friends I want to gain,

to win more and more, and, in reason, “to do well”: but this is always

secondary to the deep compelling motive. In a word, and quite simply,

I believe that a spirit has breathed to me, or entered me, or that my

soul remembers or has awaked (the phraseology matters little)—and, that

being so, that my concern is not to think of myself or my ‘name’ or

‘reward,’ but to do (with what renunciation, financial and other, may be

necessary) my truest and best.

And then, believing this, I have faith you see in the inward destiny.

I smiled when I put down your long, affectionate, and good letter.

But it was not a smile of bitterness: it was of serene acceptance and

confidence. And the words that came to my mind were those in the last

chorus of Oedipus at Kolônos,

“Be no more troubled, and no longer lament, for all these things will be

accomplished.”

Then, too, there’s the finitude of all things. Why should one bother

deeply when time is so brief. Even the gods passed, you know, or changed

from form to form. I used to remember Renan’s ‘Prayer on the Acropolis’

by heart, and I recall those words “Tout n’est ici-bas que symbole et

que songe. Les dieux passent comme les hommes et il ne serait pas bon

qu’ils fussent eternels.” ...

Elizabeth, who is on a visit to Fife, will, I know, whole-heartedly

endorse my decision.

Again all my gratitude and affection, dear Alec,

Your friend,

WILL.

Early in September Mr. Hood sent the welcome information to my husband

that the Prime Minister had decided “on the strength of the assurance

that Mr. Sharp is F. M.” to make him a grant that would meet his

pressing needs and enable him to go abroad for the winter.

A few days before this message reached W. S. he had written to his

friend.

23d Aug.

DEAR JULIAN,

A little line to greet you on your arrival in Venice, and to wish you

there a time of happy rest and inspiration. May the spirit of the

Sea-Queen whisper to you in romance and beauty.

How I wish I could look in on you at the Casa Persico! I love Venice as

you do. I hope you will not find great changes, or too many visitors:

and beware of the September heats, and above all the September mosquito!

“Julian” ought to have a great lift, and not the least pleasure in

looking forward to seeing you again early in October is that of hearing

some more of your book of Venice and of the other Julian.

[“Julian” is the name of the hero of a book, _Adria_, on which Mr. Hood

was then at work.]

If all goes well—and I have been working so hard, and done so much, that

things ought to go smoothly with me again—then we hope to leave London

for Sicily about the 21st Oct., and to reach Taormina _about_ the 26th

of that month.

I need not say how glad I am that you _knew_ I could not decide

otherwise than I did: and I am more than ever glad and proud of a

friendship so deeply sympathetic and intuitively understanding.

Ever affectionately yours, dear Friend,

Will.

P. S. By the way, you will be glad to know that Baron Tauchnitz is also

going to bring out in 2 vols. a selection of representative tales by

Fiona Macleod. The book called _The Magic Kingdoms_ has been postponed

till next year, but the first part of it will appear in _The Monthly

Review_ in December probably. Stories, articles, studies, will appear

elsewhere.

Your friend W. S. has been and is not less busy, besides maturing work

long in hand. So at least I can’t be accused of needless indolence.

To his great relief October-end found us at Taormina once again; and on

Allhallow-e’en he wrote to Mrs. Janvier:

Oct. 30th.

... We reached Messina all right, and Giardini, the Station for

Taormina, in fair time; then the lovely winding drive up to unique and

beautiful and wildly picturesque Taormina and to the lovely winter

villa and grounds of Santa Caterina where a warm welcome met us from

Miss Mabel Hill, with whom we are to stay till the New Year.... I have

for study a pleasant room on the garden terrace, at the Moorish end

of the old convent-villa with opposite the always open door windows

or great arch trellised with a lovely ‘Japanesy’ vine, looking down

through a sea of roses and lemon and orange to the deep blue Ionian

Sea. The divine beauty, glow, warmth, fragrance, and classic loveliness

of this place would delight you.... Overhead there is a wilderness of

deep blue, instinct with radiant heat and an almost passionate clarity.

Forza, Mola, Roccafiorita, and other little mountain towns gleam in it

like sunlit ivory. Over Forza (or Sforza rather) the storm-cloud of the

Greco, with a rainbow hanging like a scimitar over the old, pagan,

tragic, savagely picturesque mountain-ridge town. The bells of the

hill-chapels rise and fall on the wind, for it is the beginning of All

Souls festa. It is the day when ‘things’ are abroad and the secret ways

are more easily to be traversed.

Beneath my Moorish arch I look down through clustering yellow roses and

orange and lemon to green-blue water, and thence across the wild-dove’s

breast of the Ionian Sea. Far to the S. E. and S., over where Corinth

and Athens lie, are great still clouds, salmon-hued on the horizon with

pink domes and summits. An intense stillness and the phantasmagoria of

a forgotten dreamland dwell upon the long western promontories of the

Syracusan coast, with the cloud-like Hyblæan hill like a violet, and a

light as of melting honey where Leontinoi and Siracusa lie....

Nov. 8: This is a week later. I have accidentally destroyed or mislaid

a sheet of this letter. Nothing of importance—only an account of the

nocturnal festa of All Souls, with the glittering lights and the people

watching by the graves, and leaving lights and flowers on each, the

one to show the wandering souls the way back to the grave, the other

to disguise the odour of mortality and illude them with the old beauty

of the lost world—and the offerings of handfuls of beans, to give them

sustenance on this their one mortal hour in the year. We three came

here yesterday (Elizabeth, Miss Hill and I) and enjoyed the marvellous

mountain-climbing journey from the sea-level of Giarre (near Catania) up

to beautiful Linguaglossa, and Castiglione 2000 ft. high and so on to

Randazzo and Maletto (3000 ft.) where we got out, and drove thro’ the

wild lava-lands of this savage and brigand haunted region to Castello

di Maniace where il Signor Ducino Alessandro gave us cordial and

affectionate welcome.

Sunday 9th. The weather is doubtful, but if it keeps fine we are going

to drive down the gorges of the Simalthos (the Simeto of today) and then

up by the crags and wild town of Bronte, and back by the old Ætnean

hillroad of the ancient Greeks, or by the still more ancient Sikelian

tombs at a high pass curiously enough known not by its ancient fame but

as the Pass of the Gipsies. As the country is in a somewhat troubled and

restive state just now, especially over Bronte, all pre-arrangements

have been made to ensure safety....

I hope you have received the Tauchnitz volume of “Wind and Wave.” The

text of Selected Tales has been revised where advisable, sometimes

considerably. The gain is very marked I think, especially in simplicity.

I hope you will like the preface. The long collective-article in

the _Contemporary_ for October “Sea-Magic and Running Water” I have

already written to you about. One can never tell beforehand, but in all

probability the following F. M. articles will appear in December (if not

January) issues, viz.:

In _The Monthly Review_—The Magic Kingdoms.

In _The Contemporary_—The Lynn of Dreams.

In _The Fortnightly_—The Four Winds of Eirinn.

As soon as I can possibly work free out of my terribly time-eating

correspondence, and am further ahead with my necessary and commissioned

pot-boiling articles etc. I want to put together two F. M. volumes, one

a vol. of Gaelic essays and Spiritual studies to be called _For The

Beauty of an Idea_ and the other a volume of Verse to be called probably

“The Immortal Hour and Poems” or else “The Enchanted Valleys.” But I

have first a great deal to get off as W. S. and F. M.

What is dear old Tom doing now? Give him my love, and affectionate hug,

bless the old reprobate! I was delighted to meet an American admirer

(and two hanger-on American admiresses) of his in Florence, who spoke of

his work with much admiration as well as personal delight. So I warmed

to them mightily in consequence, and had the pleasure of introducing the

latest production—the delightful “Consolate Giantess.”

What a letter in length this is! too long for even _you_, I fear.”

The following letter from Mr. Robert Hichens, another devoted lover of

Sicily, reached William Sharp at Maniace:

DOVER,

Nov. 4, 1902.

MY DEAR WILL,

... The cold is setting in and today there is a fierce east wind. I

scarcely dare think of what you are enjoying. I had hoped to join you at

the end of this month, but the fates are unkind. When I do get away I

may first have to go to the Desert as I am meditating some work there.

Then I hope to make my way there to Sicily but only late in Spring. Will

you still be there? There is magic in its air—or else beauty acts on the

body as powerfully as on the soul, and purifies the blood as well as the

soul....

Every sentence I write wrings my heart. I ought not to write about

Sicily. _Felix_ was begun in that delightful room at Maniace—with

Webster, thoughtfully posed by Alec—on a side table within easy reach.

Thank you again for your kind inspiring letter. I value praise from you.

Yours cordially,

ROBERT HICHENS.

Miss Hill and I returned to Sta. Caterina and left my husband at

Maniace, whence a few days later he wrote to me:

CASTELLO DI MANIACE,

15th Nov., 1902.

How you would have enjoyed today!... one of the most beautiful of its

kind I’ve ever had. It was quite dark when we rose shortly before six,

but lovely dawn by 6.15, and after a gigantic breakfast we all set off

all armed with rifles and revolvers. We drove up to the cutting to the

left, 1/4 of a mile below Otaheite, and there diverged and went up the

wild road of the Zambuco Pass, and for another five miles of ascent.

Then we were met by the forest guard and Meli with great jennets (huge

hill-mules as big as horses) and rode over the Serraspina (6,000 feet).

To my great pleasure it was decided we could risk the further ascent of

the great central Watershed of Sicily, the Serra del Rè (8,000 ft.) and

I shall never forget it. All the way from about 4,000 ft. the air was

extraordinarily light and intoxicating—and the views of Central Sicily

magnificent beyond words. When we had ridden to about 7,500 feet thro’

wild mountain gorges, up vast slopes, across great plateaux, and at last

into the beginning of the vast dense primeval beech-forests (all an

indescribable glory of colour) we dismounted and did the remaining half

hour on foot. Then at last we were on the summit of the great central

watershed. Thence everything to the south flows to the Ionian Sea,

everything to the north to the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean.

And oh the views and the extraordinary clarity! Even with the naked eye

I saw all the inland mountains and valleys and lost forgotten towns,

Troina on its two hills, Castrogiovanni and Alcara, etc. etc. And with

the powerful binoculars I could see all the houses, and trace the

streets and ruined temples etc. in Castrogiovanni on its extraordinary

raised altar-like mountain plateau. Then, below us, lay all the northern

shores of Sicily from Capo Cefalù to Milazzo on its beautiful great

bay, and Capo Milazzo, and the Lipari Islands (so close with the glass

I could see the few houses on their wild precipitous shores), from

‘Volcano,’ the original home of Vulcan, and Lipari itself to Stromboli,

and white ships sailing. Enna (Castrogiovanni) immensely imposing and

unforgettable. And, behind us, Etna vaster, sheerer, more majestic, more

terrible, than I had ever dreamed of it.

Then we lunched, amid that extraordinary and vast panorama—seeing 2,000

feet below us the “almost inaccessible” famous Lake of Balzano, with

its Demeter and Persephone associations (itself about 6,000 feet among

the mountains!) All enjoyed it unspeakably, except poor old Meli, very

nervous about brigands—poor old chap, a ransom of 800 francs had to be

paid to the capitano of the brigand-lot to free his nephew, who is now

ill after his confinement for many days in a hole under the lava, where

he was half suffocated, and would have soon died from cold and damp and

malaria.

On the way down (in the forest, at about 6,000 feet) Alec suddenly

without a word dashed aside, and sprang through the sloping undergrowth,

and the next moment I saw him holding his revolver at the head of a

man crouching behind a mass of bramble, etc. But the latter had first

managed to hide or throw away his gun, and swore he hadn’t got one, and

meant no harm, and that the ugly weapon he carried (a light, long axe

of a kind) was to defend himself from the wolves! His companion had

successfully escaped. The man slunk away, to be arrested later by the

Carabinieri.

On his return to Taormina W. S. wrote to the Author of _Adria_, who had

gone to Venice for “local colour”:

TAORMINA,

19th Nov., 1902.

CARO FRA GIULIANO,

To my surprise I hear from our common friend, Mr. Aurelio Da

Rù, the painter of Venice, that you are at present staying at

San-Francisco-in-Deserto. This seems to me a damp and cold place to

choose for November, but possibly you are not to be there long: indeed,

Da Rù hints at an entanglement with a lady named “Adria.” Perhaps I am

indiscreet in this allusion. If so, pray forgive me. The coincidence

struck me as strange, for only the other day I heard our friend Alec

Hood speaking of an Adria, of whom, to say the least of it, he seemed to

think very highly. By the way, I wouldn’t tell him (A. H.) too much of

your affairs or doings—or _he may put them in a book_. (He’s a “literary

feller” you know!)

I have just been staying with him—and I wish when you see him you would

tell him what a happy time I had at Maniace, and how pleasantly I

remember all our walks and talks and times together, and how the true

affection of a deepened friendship is only the more and more enhanced

and confirmed.

It is a lovely day, and very warm and delightful. Sitting by the open

French-window of my study, with a bunch of narcissus on my table, there

is all the illusion of Spring. I have just gone into an adjoining

Enchanted Garden I often frequent, and gathered there some sprays of

the Balm of Peace, the azure blossoms of Hope, and the white roses of

Serenity and Happiness and sending them, by one of the wild-doves of

loving thought and sympathy and affection, to Alec at Maniace.

Ever, dear Fra Giuliano, with love to Da Rù, the Graziani, the Manins,

and above all to Alec,

Yours,

WILL.

And again two days later:

SHAR SHAN, BOR!

Which, being interpreted, is Romany (Gypsy) for “How d’ye do, Mate!”—I

fear you are having a bad day for your return to Maniace. Here, at

any rate, ‘tis evil weather. Last night the wind rose (after ominous

signals of furtive lightnings in every quarter) to the extent of

tempest: and between two and three a.m. became a hurricane. This lasted

at intervals till dawn, and indeed since: and at times I thought a

cyclone had seized Taormina and was intent on removing ‘Santa Caterina’

on to the top of Isola Bella. Naturally, sleep was broken. And in one

long spell, when wind and a coarse rain (with a noise like sheep that

has become sleet) kept wakefulness in suspense, my thoughts turned to

Venice, to Giuliano in the lonely rain-beat wave-washed sanctuary of

San-Francisco-in-Deserto; to Daniele Manin, with his dreams of the

Venice that was and his hopes of the Venice to be; and to Adria, stilled

at last in her grave in the lagunes after all her passionate life and

heroic endeavour. And then I thought of the Venice they, and you, and

I, love:—and recalled lines of Jacopo Sannazaro which I often repeat to

myself when I think of the Sea-City as an abstraction—

“O d’Italia dolente

Eterno lumine

Venezia!”

And that’s all I have to say to-day!... except to add that this very

moment there has come into my mind the remembrance of some words of

Montesquieu I read last year (in the _Lettres Persanes_), to the effect

(in English) that “altho’ one had seen all the cities of the world,

there might still be a surprise in store for him in Venice,”—which would

be a good motto for your book.

Your friend,

WILL.

The few entries in William Sharp’s Diary for 1903 begin with New Year’s

Day:

TAORMINA.

_Thursday, 1st Jan., 1903._ Yesterday afternoon I ended literary

work for the year, at p. 62 on my MS. of “The King’s Ring” with the

sentence: “Flora Macdonald saw clearly that the hearts of these exiles

and New Englanders would follow a shepherd more potent than any kind,

the shepherd called Freedom, who forever keeps his flocks of hopes and

ideals on the hills of the human heart.” To-day, this afternoon, wrote

till end of p. 70. In the evening we dined with Robert Hichens at the

Hotel Timeo.

_Sat. 3rd._ Finished “The King’s Ring.” Revised: and sent off to Mary to

type. We lunched at the Timeo. After lunch we spent an hour or more in

the Greek Theatre with Hichens. Then we walked to Miss Valerie White’s

villa and had tea with her. In evening ‘turned in’ about 9 and read

Bourget’s Calabria _Ricordi_, and Lenormant on Crotone and Pythagorus.”

Saturday, 9th Jan.

_To the Editor of The Pall Mall Magazine_:

DEAR SIR,

I have written a story somewhat distinct in kind from the work

associated with my name, and think it is one that should appeal to a

far larger public than most of my writings do: for it deals in a new

way with a subject of unpassing interest, the personality of Flora

Macdonald. “The King’s Ring,” however, is not concerned with the

hackneyed Prince Charlie episode. It is, in a word, so far as I know,

the only narrative presentment of the remarkable but almost unknown

late-life experiences of Flora Macdonald: for few know that, long

after her marriage, she went with her husband and some of her family

and settled in South Carolina, just before the outbreak of the War of

Independence: how her husband was captured and imprisoned: how two of

her sons in the Navy were lost tragically at sea: and how she herself

with one daughter with difficulty evaded interference, and set sail

from a southern port for Scotland again, and on that voyage was wounded

in an encounter with a French frigate. True, all these things are

only indicated in “The King’s Ring,” for fundamentally the story is a

love-story, that of Flora M.’s beautiful eldest daughter Anne and Major

Macleod, with the tragical rivalry of Alasdair Stuart, bearer of the

King’s Ring.

Practically the facts of the story are authentic: save the central

episode of Alasdair Stuart, which is of my own invention. I think the

story would appeal to many not only in Scotland and England but in

America.

Yours very truly,

FIONA MACLEOD.

The story was accepted and the first instalment was printed in the

_Pall Mall Magazine_ in May, 1904; but after its appearance the author

did not care sufficiently for it to republish it in book form.

The Diary continues:

_Sunday 4th._ Began article on “Thro’ Nelson’s Duchy” commissioned

for _The Pall Mall Magazine_. Received _The Monthly Review_ for Jany.

with the Fiona Macleod article, “The Magic Kingdoms”: the _Mercure de

France_ for January: and proofs from the _Pall Mall Magazine_ of my

articles on Scott and George Eliot. Among several letters one from Mrs.

Gilchrist, who says (apropos of F. M.’s “By Sundown Shores”) “she always

can send one back to the distance which is all the future.”

Later, after a walk alone I looked in at Villa Bella Rocca and had a

pleasant chat with M. et Mme. Grandmont about Anatole France, Loti,

and treatment of sea in “Pecheur d’Islande,” Bourget’s and Lenormant’s

“Calabria,” etc. Wrote after dinner from 9 till 11; and read some

Bacchylides, etc. At 11.15 suddenly some five or six cocks began to crow

vehemently: and about five minutes later abruptly stopped.

_Monday 5th._ A day of perfect beauty. Divinely warm. In morning sat out

on Loggia two hours or so working at revision. After lunch Hichens came

for me and we walked down to Capo San Andrea and thence took a boat with

two men (Francesco and his brother) across to Capo Schiso (Naxos) and

thence walked some five or six miles back. Tea at H’s. A divinely lovely

sunset.

_Tuesday 6th._ As beautiful a day as yesterday. More could be said of no

day. Worked at “Thro’ Nelson’s Duchy” material, and wrote a letter. A

walk after lunch. Then again a little work. Had a charming letter from

Joachim Gasquet, and to F. M. one from Stephen Gwynn (with his “Today

and Tomorrow in Ireland”)—and an _Academy_ with pleasant para. about F.

M. saying just what I would want said (with an allusion to a special

study of F. M. in the _Harvard Monthly_, by the Editor).

This afternoon, the Festa of the Epiphany, more great doings with the

delayed Xmas tree treat of the School-children of Taormina. Much enjoyed

it.

_Thursday 8th._ Finished the P. M. Mag. commissioned article “Thro’

Nelson’s Duchy”—about 5,000 words—then revised: marked with directions

the 8 fine Photos selected by A. N. H. (Alex. Nelson Hood) and sent off

to be registered....

After dinner wrote one or two letters including longish one of literary

advice to Karl Walter. Read some Æschylus’ “Eumenides.”

[Illustration: WILLIAM SHARP

From a photograph taken by the Hon. Alex. Nelson Hood, 1903]

This is the letter in question:

TAORMINA,

Jan., 1903.

MY DEAR WALTER,

... In some respects your rendering of your sonnet is towards

improvement. But it has one immediate and therefore fatal flaw.

Since the days of Sophocles it has been recognized as a cardinal

and imperative law, that a great emotion (or incident, or idea,

or collective act) must not be linked to an effective image, an

incongruous metaphor. Perhaps the first and last word about passion

(in a certain sense only, of course, for to immortal things there is

no mortal narrowing or limiting in expression) has been said more than

two thousand years ago by Sappho and to-day by George Meredith. “The

apple on the topmost bough” ... all that lovely fragment of delicate

imperishable beauty remains unique. And I know nothing nobler than

Meredith’s “Passion is noble strength on fire.” ... But turn to a

poet you probably know well, and study the imagery in some of the

Passion-sonnets in “The House of Life” of Rossetti—of Passion

... “creature of poignant thirst

And exquisite hunger” ...

—the splendid sexual diapason in the sestet of the sonnet celled “The

Kiss”—or, again, to “the flame-winged harp-player.”

... “thou art Passion of Love,

The mastering music walks the sunlit sea.”

Perhaps I have said enough to illustrate my indication as to the opening

metaphor in your sonnet. Apart from the incongruity of the image, it

has no logical congruity with the collateral idea of Fear. The sonnet

itself turns on a fine emotion in your mind: let that emotion shape a

worthy raiment of metaphor and haunting cadence of music, _not_ as the

metricist desires but as the poet au fond compels.

Yes, both in sonnet-writing and in your terza-rima narrative (cultivate

elision here, also fluent terminals, or you will find the English

prosody jib at the foreign reins) you will find G. useful. But the

secret law of rhythm in a moving or falling wave, in the cadence of

wind, in the suspiration of a distant song, in running water, in the

murmur of leaves, in chord confluent upon chord, will teach you more—if

you will listen long enough and know what you listen to.

I hope I have not discouraged you. I mean the reverse of that.

Your friend,

WILLIAM SHARP.

I add here a letter of criticism and encouragement sent by F. M. to

another young writer, in the previous summer, to the nephew of William

Black the novelist:

LONDON, June, 1902.

MY DEAR MR. BLACK,

As soon as possible after my return from Brittany I read your MS. It

is full of the true sentiment, and has often charm in the expression:

but I think you would do well to aim at a style simpler still, freer

from mannerisms, and above all from mannerisms identified with the work

of other writers. As I am speaking critically, let me say frankly that

I have found your beautiful tale too reminiscent ever and again of an

accent, a note, a vernacular (too reminiscent even in names), common to

much that I have written. You are sympathetic enough to care for much

of my work, and loyal enough to say so with generous appreciation: but

just because of this you should be on guard against anything in my style

savouring of affectation or mannerism. You may be sure that whatever

hold my writings may have taken on the imagination of what is at most a

small clan has been in despite of and not because of mannerisms, which

sometimes make for atmosphere and versimilitude and sometimes are merely

obvious, and therefore make for weakness and even disillusion. Be on

guard, therefore, against a sympathy which would lead you to express

yourself in any other way than you yourself feel and in other terms than

the terms of our own mind. Mannerism is often the colour and contour of

a writer’s mind: but the raiment never fits even the original wearer,

and is disastrous for the borrower, when the mental habit of mannerism

is translated into the mental incertitude of mannerisms. You have so

natural a faculty and so eager a desire, that I have no hesitation in

urging you to devote your best thought and time and effort to a worthy

achievement.

But no work of the imagination has any value if it be not shaped and

coloured from within. Every imaginative writer must take his offspring

to the Fountain of Youth, and the only way is through the shadowy and

silent avenues of one’s own heart. My advice to you, then, is, not to

refrain from steeping your thought and imagination in what is near to

your heart and dream, but to see that your vision is always your _own_

vision, that your utterance is always your own utterance, and to be

content with no beauty and no charm that are dependent on another’s

vision of beauty and another’s secret of charm.

Meanwhile, I can advise you no more surely than to say, write as simply,

almost as baldly, above all as _naturally_ as possible. Sincerity, which

is the last triumph of art, is also its foster-mother. You will do well,

I feel sure: and among your readers you will have none more interested

than

Yours Sincerely,

FIONA MACLEOD.

To another friend he wrote in answer to a question on ‘style’:

“Rhythmic balance, fluidity, natural motion, spontaneity, controlled

impetus, proportion, height and depth, shape and contour, colour and

atmosphere, all these go to every _living_ sentence—but there, why

should I weary you with uncertain words when you can have a certainty

of instance almost any time where you are: you have hut to look at a

wave to find your exemplar for the ideal sentence. All I have spoken of

is there—and it is alive—and part of one flawless whole.”

From W. S. to Mrs. Janvier.

TAORMINA,

18th Feb., 1903.

... In fact, letters are now my worst evil to contend against—for,

with this foreign life in a place like this, with so many people I

know, it is almost impossible to get anything like adequate time for

essential work—and still less for the imaginative leisure I need, and

dreaming out my work—to say nothing of reading, etc. As you know, too,

I have continually to put into each day the life of two persons—each

with his or her own interests, preoccupations, work, thoughts, and

correspondence. I have really, in a word, quite apart from my own

temperament, to live at exactly double the rate in each day of the

most active and preoccupied persons. No wonder, then, that I find the

continuous correspondence of ‘two persons’ not only a growing weariness,

but a terrible strain and indeed perilous handicap on time and energy

for work....

A little later William Sharp started for a fortnight’s trip to Greece

by way of Calabria—Reggio, Crotona, Taranto, Brindisi to Corfù and

Athens, with a view of gathering impressions for the working out of his

projected book (by W. S.) to be called _Greek Backgrounds_.

_En route_ he wrote to me:

23d Jan., 1903.

“Where of all unlikely places do you think this is written from? Neither

Corfù nor Samothrace nor Ithaka nor Zante, nor any Greek isle betwixt

this and the Peloponnesus, but in Turkey!... i.e., in Turkish Albania,

surrounded by turbaned Turks, fezzed Albanians, and picturesque kilted

Epeirotes, amid some of the loveliest scenery in the world.

You will have had my several cards en route and last from Târantô. The

first of a series of four extraordinary pieces of almost uncanny good

fortune befell me _en route_,—but it would take too long now to write in

detail. Meanwhile I may say I met the first of three people to whom I

already owe much—and who helped me thro’ every bother at Brindisi. (He

is a foreign Consul in Greece.)

(By the way, the engine from Târantô to Brindisi was called the

_Agamemnon_ and the steamer to Greece the _Poseidon_—significant names,

eh?)

I had a delightful night’s rest in my comfortable cabin, and woke at

dawn to find the _Poseidon_ close to the Albanian shore, and under the

superb snow-crowned Acrokerannian Mountains. The scenery superb—with

Samothrace, and the Isle of Ulysses, etc., etc., seaward, and the

beautiful mountainous shores of Corfù (here called _Kepkuga_, Kêrkyra)

on the S.W. and S. There was a special Consul-Deputation on board,

to land two, and also to take off a number of Turks, Albanians, and

Epeirotes for Constantinople. We put in after breakfast at Eavri

Kagavri—a Greco-Albanian township of Turkey. The scattered oriental

‘town’ of the Forty Saints crowns a long ridge at a considerable

height—the harbour-town is a cluster of Turkish houses beside an

extraordinary absolutely deserted set of gaunt ruins. Hundreds of

Albanians and Epeirotes, Moslem priests and two Greek _papas_ (or popes)

were on the shore-roads, with several caravans each of from 20 to 50

mules and horses. Costumes extraordinarily picturesque, especially the

white-kilted or skirted Albanian mountaineers, and the Larissa Turks. We

were 3 hours—and I the only ‘privileged’ person to get thro’ with the

consul. We took many aboard—a wonderful crew, from a wonderful place,

the fairyland of my Greek resident from Paris—who is on his way to spend

a month with his mother in Athens, and has asked me to visit him at his

house there....

Well, the _Poseidon_ swung slowly out of the bay,—a lovely, exciting,

strange, unforgettable morning—and down the lovely Albanian coast—now

less wild, and wooded and craggy, something like the West Highlands at

Loch Fyne, etc., but higher and wilder. When off a place on the Turkish

Albanian coast called Pothlakov (Rothroukon) the shaft of the screw

suddenly broke! The engineer told the captain it would be five hours at

least before it could be mended—adding, a little later, that the harm

could probably not be rectified here, and that we should have to ride

at sea till a relief boat came from Corfù or Greece to take off the

passengers, etc.

As no one has a Turkish passport, no one can get ashore except lucky

me, with my influential friend, in a Turkish steam-pinnacle! (It is so

beautiful, so warm, and so comfortable on the _Poseidon_, that, in a

sense, I’m indifferent—and would rather _not_ be relieved in a hurry.)

(Later.) Late afternoon on board—still no sign of getting off. No Corfù

to-day, now, though about only an hour’s sail from here! _Perhaps_

tonight—or a relief steamer may come. I’ll leave this now, as I want to

see all I can in the sundown light. It is all marvellously strange and

lovely. _What_ a heavenly break-down! _What_ luck!

Just had a talk with another passenger stamping with impatience. I

didn’t soothe him by remarking I hoped we should adrift ashore and

be taken prisoners by the Turks. He says he wants to get on. Absurd.

“There’s more beauty here than one can take-in for days to come,” I

said—“Damn it, sir, what have _I_ got to do with beauty,”—he asked

indignantly. “Not much, certainly,” I answered drily, looking him over.

An Italian _maestro_ is on board on his way to Athens—now playing

delightfully in the salon. A Greek guitarist is going to play and sing

at moonrise. No hills in the world more beautiful in shape and hue

and endless contours—with gorgeous colours. Albania is lost Eden, I

think. Just heard that a steamer is to come for us in a few hours, or

less, from Corfù, and tow us into Kêrkyra (the town)—and that another

Austro-Lloyd from Trieste or Brindisi will take us on to-morrow

sometime from Corfù to Athens.... The only perfectly happy person on

board.

Yours,

WILL.

ATHENS, 29th Jan.

... This lovely place is wonderful. How I wish you were here to enjoy

it too. I take you with me mentally wherever I go. It is a marvellous

_home-coming_ feeling I have here. And I know a strange stirring, a kind

of spiritual rebirth.

ATHENS, Feb. 1st.

... Yesterday, a wonderful day at Eleusis. Towards sundown drove through

the lovely hill-valley of Daphne, with its beautifully situated isolated

ruin of the Temple of Aphrodîtê, a little to the north of the Sacred

Way of the Dionysiac and other Processions from Aonai (Athenai) to the

Great Fane of Eleusis. I have never anywhere seen such a marvellous

splendour of living light as the sundown light, especially at the Temple

of Aphrodîtê and later as we approached Athens and saw it lying between

Lycabettos and the Acropolis, with Hymettos to the left and the sea to

the far right and snowy Pentelicos behind. The most radiant wonder of

light I have ever seen.

On his return to Taormina he received the following letter from Mr.

Hichens:

ST. STEPHENS,

CANTERBURY.

MY DEAR SHARP,

... Lately I recommended a very clever man, half Spanish and half

German, to read the work of Fiona Macleod. I wondered how it would

strike one who had never been in our Northern regions, and he has just

written to me, and says: “I am reading with intense delight Fiona

Macleod’s books and thank you very much for telling me to get them.

I ordered them all from London and cannot tell you how I admire the

thoughts, the style, “toute la couleur locale.” They are books I shall

keep by me and take about with me wherever I go.” I suppose he feels

they are fine, as I feel Tourgeney’s studies of Russian character are

fine, although I have never lived among Russians. I shall take _Anna

Karénina_ to Italy with me and read it once more. At Marseilles I saw

the “Resurrection” acted. It was very interesting and touching, though

not really a very good play. It was too episodical. In London it is an

immense success.

Well, I hope you will really come to winter in Africa. You can stay at

either the Oasis or the Royal and I think we should be very happy. We

must often go out on donkey-back into the dunes and spend our day there

far out in the desert. I know no physical pleasure,—apart from all the

accompanying mental pleasure,—to be compared with that which comes from

the sun and air of the Sahara and the enormous spaces. This year I was

more enchanted than ever before. Even exquisite Taormina is hum-drum

in comparison. I expect to go to Italy very early in May, and back

to Africa quite at the beginning of November. Do try to come then as

November is a magnificent month. Don’t reply. You are too busy. I often

miss the walks, and your company, which wakes up my mind and puts the

bellows to my spark of imagination.

Ever yours,

ROBERT HICHENS.

I can’t help being rather sorry that you won’t go to Sicily again for a

long while. I always feel as if we all had a sort of home there.

For, as Mr. Hichens wrote to me, “I still think Taormina the most

exquisite place in Europe. On a fine morning it is ineffably lovely.”

CHAPTER XXIV

WINTER IN ATHENS

_Greek Backgrounds_

During the following summer William Sharp saw George Meredith for the

last time. Concerning that visit to Box Hill he wrote to a friend:

Monday, June 22, 1903.

... I am so glad I went down to see George Meredith to-day. It was

goodbye, I fear, though the end may not be for some time yet: not

immediate, for he has recovered from his recent severe illness and

painful accident, though still very weak, but able to be up, and to move

about a little.

At first I was told he could see no one, but when he heard who the

caller was I was bidden enter, he gave me a sweet cordial welcome, but

was frail and weak and fallen into the blind alleys that so often await

the most strenuous and vivid lives. But, in himself, in his mind, there

is no change. I felt it was goodbye, and when I went, I think he felt it

so also. When he goes it will be the passing of the last of the great

Victorians. I could have (selfishly) wished that he had known a certain

secret: but it is better not, and now is in every way as undesirable

as indeed impossible. If there is in truth, as I believe, and as he

believes, a life for us after this, he will know that his long-loving

and admiring younger comrade has also striven towards the hard way that

few can reach. What I _did_ tell him before has absolutely passed from

his mind: had, indeed, never taken root, and perhaps I had nurtured

rather than denied what _had_ taken root. If in some ways a little sad,

I am glad otherwise. And I had one great reward, for at the end he spoke

in a way he might not otherwise have done, and in words I shall never

forget. I had risen, and was about to lean forward and take his hands in

farewell, to prevent his half-rising, when suddenly he exclaimed “Tell

me something of _her_—of Fiona. I call her so always, and think of her

so, to myself. Is she well? Is she at work? Is she true to her work and

her ideal? No, _that_ I know!”

It was then he said the following words, which two minutes later, in

the garden, I jotted down in pencil at once lest I should forget even

a single word, or a single change in the sequence of words. “She is a

woman of genius. That is rare ... so rare anywhere, anytime, in women

or, in men. Some few women ‘have genius,’ but she is more than that.

Yes, she is a woman of genius: the genius too, that is rarest, that

drives deep thoughts before it. Tell her I think often of her, and of

the deep thought in all she has written of late. Tell her I hope great

things of her yet. And now ... we’ll go, since it must be so. Goodbye,

my dear fellow, and God bless you.”

Outside, the great green slope of Box Hill rose against a cloudless sky,

filled with a flowing south wind. The swifts and swallows were flying

high. In the beech courts thrush and blackbird called continually, along

the hedgerows the wild-roses hung. But an infinite sadness was in it

all. A prince among men had fallen into the lonely and dark way.

Goodbye it was in truth; but it was the older poet who recovered hold

on life and outlived the younger by four years.

[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH

From a photograph by F. Hollyer, about 1898]

A wet spring, and a still damper autumn affected my husband seriously;

and while we were visiting Mrs. Glassford Bell in Perthshire he became

so ill that we went to Llandrindod Wells for him to be under special

treatment. As he explained to Mr. Ernest Rhys:

LLANDRINDOD WELLS,

Sept., 1903.

MY DEAR ERNEST,

... I know that you will be sorry to learn that things have not gone

well with me. All this summer I have been feeling vaguely unwell and,

latterly, losing strength steadily.... However, the rigorous treatment,

the potent Saline and Sulphur waters and baths, the not less potent

and marvellously pure and regenerative Llandrindod air—and my own

exceptional vitality and recuperative powers—have combined to work a

wonderful change for the better; which may prove to be more than “a

splendid rally,” tho’ I know I must not be too sanguine. Fortunately,

the eventuality does not much trouble me, either way: I have lived, and

am content, and it is only for what I don’t want to leave undone that

the sound of ‘Farewell’ has anything deeply perturbing.

W. S.

And later to Mrs. Janvier:

LONDON, Sept. 30, 1903.

Thanks for your loving note. But you are not to worry yourself about

me. I’m all right, and as cheerful as a lark—let us say as a lark

with a rheumatic wheeze in its little song-box, or gout in its little

off-claw.... Anyway, I’ll laugh and be glad and take life as I find it,

till the end. The best prayer for me is that I may live vividly till

“Finis,” and work up to the last hour....

My love to you both, and know me ever your irrepressible,

BILLY.

In a letter to Mr. Alden (Aug. 25th, 1903) he describes the work he had

on hand at the moment, and the book he had projected and hoped to write:

“ ... in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ you may have noticed a series of

topographical papers (with as much or more of anecdotal and reminiscent

and critical) contributed, under the title of “Literary Geography,” by

myself. The first three were commissioned by the editor to see how they

‘took.’ They were so widely liked, and those that followed, that this

summer he commissioned me to write a fresh series, one each month till

next March. Of these none has been more appreciated than the double

article on the Literary Geography of the Lake of Geneva. Forthcoming

issues are The English Lake Country, Meredith, Thackery, The Thames,

etc. In the current issue I deal with Stevenson.

... About my projected Greek book, to comprise Magna Grecia as well,

i. e. Hellenic Calabria and Sicily, etc.... I want to make a book out

of the material gathered, old and new, and to go freshly all over the

ground.... I intend to call it _Greek Backgrounds_ and to deal with the

ancient (recreated) and modern backgrounds of some of the greatest of

the Greeks—as they were and are—as, for example, of Æschylus, Sophocles,

Euripides, Empedocles, Theocritus, etc.—and of famous ancient cities,

Sybaris, Corinth, etc.; and deal with the home or chief habitat or

famous association. For instance:

(1) Calabria (Crotan and Metapontum) with Pythagoras.

(2) Eleusis in Greece, } with life and death of

Syracuse and Gela in Sicily } Æschylus.

(3) Colonos Sophocles.

(4) Athens etc. with Euripides.

(5) Syracuse } with Pindar etc. etc.

and Acragas (Girgente) }

The two following letters were acknowledgments of birthday greetings.

In the first to Mr. Stedman our plans for that winter are described:

THE GROSVENOR CLUB,

Oct. 2, 1903.

MY DEAR E. C. S.,

Two days ago, on Wednesday’s mail, I posted a letter to reach you, I

hope, on the morning of your birthday—and today, to my very real joy,

I safely received your long and delightful letter. It has been a true

medicine—for, as I told you, I’ve been gravely ill. And it came just at

the right moment, and warmed my heart with its true affection.

... I know you’ll be truly glad to hear that the tidings about myself

can be more and more modified by good news from my physician,—a man

in whom I have the utmost confidence and who knows every weakness as

well as every resource and reserve of strength in me, and understands

my temperament and nature as few doctors do understand complex

personalities.

He said to me today “You look as if you were well contented with the

world.” I answered “Yes, of course I am. In the first place I’m every

day feeling stronger, and in the next, and for this particular day, I’ve

just had a letter of eight written pages from a friend whom I have ever

dearly loved and whom I admire not less than I love.” He knew you as a

poet as well as the subtlest and finest interpreter of modern poetry—and

indeed (tho’ I had forgotten) I had given him a favourite volume and

also lent your Baltimore addresses.

When I’m once more in the land of Theocritus (and oh how entrancing it

is) I’ll be quite strong and well again, he says. Indeed I’m already ‘a

live miracle’! We sail by the Orient liner “Orizaba” on the 23rd; reach

Naples (via Gibraltar and Marseilles) 9 to 10 days later; and leave by

the local mail-boat same evening for Messina—arrive there about 8 on

Monday morning—catch the Syracuse mail about 10, change at 12 at Giarre,

and ascend Mt. Etna by the little circular line to Maletto about 3,000

ft. high, and thence drive to the wonderful old Castle of Maniace to

stay with our dear friend there, the Duke of Bronte—our third or fourth

visit now. We’ll be there about a fortnight: then a week with friends at

lovely and unique Taormina: and then sail once more, either from Messina

or Naples direct to the Piræus, for Athens, where we hope to spend the

winter and spring.

How I wish you were to companion us. In Sicily, I often thought of you,

far off Brother of Theocritus. You would so delight in it all, the

Present that mirrors the magical Past; the Past that penetrates like

stars the purple veils of the Present.

Yes, I know well how sincere is all you say as to the loving friend

awaiting me—awaiting _us_—if ever we cross the Atlantic: but it is

gladsome to hear it all the same. All affectionate greetings to dear

Mrs. Stedman, a true and dear friend.

Ever, dear Stedman,

Your loving friend,

WILLIAM SHARP.

13th Sept., 1903.

DEAR MRS. GILCHRIST,

It is at all times a great pleasure to hear from you, and that pleasure

is enhanced by hearing from you on my birthday and by your kind

remembrance of the occasion....

We look forward to Athens greatly, though it is not (as in Elizabeth’s

case) my first visit to that land of entrancing associations and still

ever-present beauty. But as one grows older, one the more recognises

that ‘climate’ and ‘country’ belong to the geography of the soul rather

than to that secondary physical geography of which we hear so much. The

winds of heaven, the dreary blast of the wilderness, the airs of hope

and peace, the tragic storms and cold inclemencies—these are not the

property of our North or South or East, but are of the climes self-made

or inherited or in some strange way become our ‘atmosphere.’ And the

country we dream of, that we long for, is not yet reached by Cook nor

even chartered by Baedeker. You and yours are often in our thought. In

true friendship, distance means no more than that the sweet low music is

far off: but it is there.

Your friend,

WILLIAM SHARP.

We journeyed by sea to Naples. Our hopes of a chat with our friends

the Janviers at Marseilles were frustrated by a violent gale we

encountered. As my husband wrote to Mrs. Janvier while at sea:

R.M.S. ORIZABA,

Oct. 31, 1903.

It seems strange to write to you on the Festival of Samhain—the Celtic

Summer-end, our Scottish Hallowe’en—here on these stormy waters between

Sardinia and Italy. It is so strong a gale, and the air is so inclement

and damp that it is a little difficult to realise we are approaching the

shores of Italy. But wild as the night is I want to send you a line on

it, on this end of the old year, this night of powers and thoughts and

spiritual dominion.

It was a disappointment not to get ashore at Marseilles—but the fierce

gale (a wild mistral) made it impossible. Indeed the steamer couldn’t

approach: we lay-to for 3 or 4 hours behind a great headland some 4 or

5 miles to S. W. of the city, and passengers and mails had to be driven

along the shore and embarked from a small quarry pier.... We had a very

stormy and disagreeable passage all the way from Plymouth and through

the Bay. ... The first part of the voyage I was very unwell, partly from

an annoying heart attack. You may be sure I am better again, or I could

not have withstood the wild gale which met us far south in the Gulf of

Lyons and became almost a hurricane near Marseilles. But I gloried in

the superb magnificence of the lashed and tossed sport of the mistral,

as we went before it like an arrow before a gigantic bow.

It is now near sunset and I am writing under the shelter of a windsail

on the upper deck, blowing ‘great guns’ though I don’t think we are in

for more than a passing gale. But for every reason I shall be glad to

get ashore, not that I want to be in Naples, which I like least of any

place in Italy, but to get on to Maniace ... where I so much love to be,

and where I can work and dream so well....

But the gale increased and became one of the wildest we had ever known,

as William reminded me later when he showed me an unrhymed poem he had

composed—exactly as it stands—in the middle of the night, and the next

day, in Naples, recalled it and wrote it down. It was his way of mental

escape from a physical condition which induced great nervous strain or

fatigue, to create imaginatively a contrary condition and environment,

and so to identify himself with it, that he could become oblivious to

surrounding actualities. This is the poem:

INVOCATION

Play me a lulling tune, O Flute-Player of Sleep,

Across the twilight bloom of thy purple havens,

Far off a phantom stag on the moonyellow highlands

Ceases; and as a shadow, wavers; and passes:

So let Silence seal me and Darkness gather, Piper of Sleep.

Play me a lulling chant, O Anthem-maker,

Out of the fall of lonely seas, and the wind’s sorrow:

Behind are the burning glens of the sunset-sky

Where like blown ghosts the sea-mews wail their desolate sea-dirges:

Make me of these a lulling chant, O Anthem-maker.

No—no—from nets of silence weave me, O Sigher of Sleep,

A dusky veil ash-gray as the moonpale moth’s grey wing;

Of thicket-stillness woven, and sleep of grass, and thin evanishing air

Where the tall reed spires breathless—for I am tired, O Sigher of Sleep,

And long for thy muffled song as of bells on the wind, and the wind’s cry

Falling, and the dim wastes that lie

Beyond the last, low, dim, oblivious sigh.

During a short visit to Maniace W. S. wrote to Mrs. Philpot:

11th Nov., 1903.

... At this season of the year, beautiful and unique in its appeal

and singular wild fascination as it is, this place does not suit me

climatically, being for one thing too high between 2,000 and 3,000 ft.

and also too much under the domination of Etna, who swings vast electric

current, and tosses thunder charged cloud-masses to and fro like a Titan

acolyte swinging mighty censers at the feet of the Sun. We drive to

Taormina on Tuesday and the divine beauty and not less divinely balmy

and regenerative climate—sitting as she does like the beautiful goddess

Falcone worshipped there of old, perched on her orange and olive-clad

plateau, hundreds of feet above the peacock-hued Ionian Sea, with one

hand as it were reaching back to Italy (Calabria ever like opal or

amethyst to the North-east), with the other embracing all the lands of

Etna to Syracuse and the Hyblæan Mount, the lands of Empedocles and

Theocritus, of Æschylus and Pindar, of Stesichorus and Simonides, and so

many other great names—and with her face ever turned across the Ionian

Sea to that ancient Motherland of Hellas, where once your soul and mine

surely sojourned.

We shall have a delightful “going” and one you would enjoy to the

full.... Tomorrow if fine and radiant we start for that absolutely

unsurpassable expedition to the great orange gardens a thousand feet

lower at the S. W. end of the Duchy. We first drive some eight miles or

so through wild mountain land till we come to the gorges of the Simeto

and there we mount our horses and mules and with ample escort before

and behind ride in single file for about an hour and a half. Suddenly

we come upon one of the greatest orange groves in Europe—26,000 trees

in full fruit, an estimated crop of 3,000,000! stretching between the

rushing Simeto and great cliffs. Then once more to the saddle and back a

different way to barbaric Bronte and thence a ten mile drive back along

the ancient Greek highway from Naxos to sacred Enna. And so, for the

moment, à revedèrla!”

After a delightful week at Corfù we settled in Athens (at Maison

Merlin) for four months, and found pleasant companionship with members

of the English and American Schools of Archeology—of which Mr. Carl

Bosenquet and Prof. Henry Fowler were respectively the heads—with Dr.

Wilhelm head of the Austrian School,—with Mr. Bikelas the Greek poet,

at whose house we met several of the rising Greek men of letters, and

other residents and wanderers.

The winter was very cold and at first my husband was very ill—the

double strain of his life seemed to consume him like a flame. At the

New Year he wrote again to Mrs. Philpot:

MAISON MERLIN,

ATHENS.

DEAR FRIEND,

This is mainly to tell you that I’ve come out of my severe feverish

attack with erect (if draggled) colours and hope to march

“cock-a-hoopishly” into 1904 and even further if the smiling enigmatical

gods permit!... To-day I heard a sound as of Pan piping, among the glens

on Hymettos, whereon my eyes rest so often and often so long dream.

Tomorrow I’ll take Gilbert Murray’s fine new version of Hippolytus or

Bacchæ as my pocket companion to the Theatre of Dionysus on the hither

side of the Acropolis; possibly my favourite Œdipus at Kolonos and read

sitting on Kolonos itself and imagine I hear on the wind the rise and

fall of the lonely ancient lives, serene thought-tranced in deathless

music. And in the going of the old and the coming of the new year, a

friend’s thoughts shall fare to you from far away Athens.... As far as

practicable I am keeping myself to the closer study of the literature

and philosophy and ethical concepts and ideals of ancient Hellas and

of mythology in relation thereto, but you know how fascinating and

perturbing much else is, from sculpture to vase paintings, from Doric

and Ionic architecture to the beauty and complex interest of the

almost inexhaustible field of ancient Greek coins, and those of Græcia

Magna,—And then (both Eheu and Evoe!) I have so much else to do—besides

“Life” the supreme and most exciting of the arts!

A letter of New Year wishes to Dr. Garnett from W. S.; and a copy of

_The House of Usna_ to Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Rhys brought the following

acknowledgments:

27 TANZA ROAD, HAMPSTEAD,

Jan. 8, 1904.

MY DEAR SHARP,

Your letter has given me infinite pleasure....

Athens must be a delightful residence at this time of year, especially

if there are no “cold snaps,” against which I fear that the modern

Athenians are no better provided than their ancestors were. There is a

very amusing letter in Alisplorn’s epistles, describing the sufferings

of a poor parasite in a hard winter. You seem to have very charming

society. The name of Bikelas is well known to me, but I am not much

versed in Roman literature. The history of Paparrhegopoulos has been

a good deal noticed here of late. It seems to be a really classical

work. By producing such the Greeks will indicate their claim to a high

position in the European family, until the time has come for action,

which apparently has not come yet.

I quite agree in the conclusion at which they seem to have arrived that

it is better to have the Turks in Constantinople than the Bulgarians,

much more the Russians. If either of their victims once occupy it, the

rightful possessors will be forever excluded.

I have not wanted for literary occupations—one a little work of fancy

which I am about finishing, and of which you will hear more. Then I have

a story to translate from the Portuguese, published in the _Venture_;

an edition of Browning’s preface to Shelley’s forged letters, with

an introduction by me, and the second volume of English literature

in conjunction with Gosse, which has been these six weeks ready for

issue but delayed from time to time to suit the Americans. It is now

positively announced for the 31st.

With kindest regards to Mrs. Sharp, who I hope finds Attica entirely to

her taste,

I am, dear Sharp,

Very sincerely yours,

R. GARNETT.

DERWEN,

HERMITAGE LANE, N. W.,

Jan. 28, 1904.

DEAR MISS FIONA MACLEOD,

Most delightful of all New Year’s gifts is a really beautiful book;

and we thank you,—both of us,—for sending us your most characteristic

heroic-lyric tragedy, _The House of Usna_. We were fortunate in being

allowed to see it performed—how long ago can it have been!—at the

Stage Society’s instance.... The “Psychic Drama,” as you conceive it,

opens the door to a lost world of Nature and the emotions of Nature

in the imagination. No doubt it is a frightfully difficult thing to

attire these emotions in fair and credible human dress, one that seemed

impossible even, but the “House of Usna” may serve as a test of how

far those who have the key to these emotions can hope to fit it to old

or new-old dramatic forms. Your ‘Foreword’ is suggestive enough to be

treated separately; but we write from a sick house, and in such states,

it is harder to think of critical things than of pure imaginative ones.

For these last, as they rise out of your magic ‘House,’ and haunt the

ear, we owe you very whole and ample thanks.

With many wishes for health and spirit in this year of 1904,

We are, yours most truly,

G. AND E. RHYS.

With Spring sunshine and warmth my husband regained a degree of

strength, and it was his chief pleasure to take long rambles on the

neighbouring hills alone, or with the young American archeologist,

Mrs. Roselle L. Shields, a tireless walker. We made some interesting

expeditions to Tyrens, Mycenæ, Corinth, Delphi, etc. and from ‘Olympia

in Elis’ he wrote to a friend:

“How you would love this radiant heat, this vast solitude of ruins,

the millions of flowers and dense daisied grass. This fragment of vast

Olympia is the most ancient Greek temple extant. It lies at the base of

the Hill of Kronos, of which the lowest pines are seen to the right and

overlooks the whole valley of the Alpheios....

And the millions of flowers. They are almost incredible in number and

density. The ground is often white with thick snow of daisies. Wild

plums, pears, cherries, etc. The radiant and glowing heat is a joy. I am

sad to think that this day week beautiful Greece will be out of sight.”

Later he wrote to Mr. Rhys:

MAISON MERLIN, ATHENS,

Friday, 26th Feb., 1904.

MY DEAR ERNEST,

... Yesterday I had a lovely break from work, high up on the beautiful

bracing dwarf-pine clad slopes of Pentelicos, above Kephisia, the

ancient deme of Menander—and then across the country behind Hymettos,

the country of Demosthenes, and so back by the High Convent of St. John

the Hunter, on the north spur of the Hymettian range, and the site of

ancient Gargettos, the place of Epicurus’ birth and boyhood. At sundown

I was at Heracleion, some three or four miles from Athens—and the city

was like pale gold out of which peaked Lycabettos rose like a purple

sapphire. The sky beyond, above Salamis, was all grass-green and mauve.

A thunder-cloud lay on extreme Hymettos, rising from Marathon: and three

rainbows lay along the violet dusk of the great hill-range....

We intend to spend April in France, mostly in Southern Provence, which

we love so well, and where we have dear French friends.

I am apparently well and strong again, hard at work, hard at pleasure,

hard at life, as before, and generally once more full of hope and energy.

Love to you both, dear friends and a sunbeam to little Stella.

Ever yours,

WILL.

On leaving Greece we loitered at Hyères in the month of

cherry-blossoms, and moved slowly northwards through Nîmes to the

fantastic neighbourhood of Le Puy, with its curious hill-set town and

churches perched on pinnacles of conical rock.

From Le Puy W. S. wrote to Mrs. Janvier:

18th April, 1904.... What has most impressed my imagination in this

region is what I saw today outside of fantastic Le Puy—namely at the

magnificent old feudal rock-Chateau fortress of Polignac, erected on

the site of the famous Temple of Apollo (raised here by the Romans on

the still earlier site of a Druidic Temple to the Celtic Sun God). I

looked down the mysterious hollow of the ancient oracle of Apollo, and

realised how deep a hold even in the France of today is maintained by

the ancient Pagan faith....

CHAPTER XXV

THE WINGED DESTINY

_Literary Geography_

Two important events of 1904 to William Sharp were the publication of

_The Winged Destiny_, at midsummer, by Messrs. Chapman & Hall; and of

his _Literary Geography_ in October.

In the Dedication to Dr. John Goodchild of _The Winged Destiny_ (the

title of _The Magic Kingdoms_ was discarded), the author set forth

‘her’ intention:

“In this book I have dealt—as I hope in all I write—only with things

among which my thought has moved, searching, remembering, examining,

sometimes dreaming....

It is not the night-winds in sad hearts only that I hear, or the sighing

of vain fatalities: but, often rather, of an Emotion akin to that

mysterious Sorrow of Eternity in love with tears, of which Blake speaks

in _Vala_. It is at times, at least I feel it so, because Beauty is more

beautiful there. It is the twilight hour in the heart, as Joy is the

heart’s morning.

Perhaps I love best the music that leads one into the moonlit coverts

of dreams, and old silence, and unawakening peace. But Music, like the

rose of the Greeks, is ‘the thirty petalled one’ and every leaf is the

gate of an equal excellence. The fragrance of all is Joy, the beauty of

all is Sorrow: but the Rose is one—_Rosa Sempiterna_, the Rose of Life.

As to the past, it is because of what is there, that I look back: not

because I do not see what is here today, or may be here tomorrow. It is

because of what is to be gained that I look back: of what is supremely

worth knowing there, of knowing intimately: of what is supremely worth

remembering, of remembering constantly: not only as an exile dreaming of

the land left behind, but as one travelling in narrow defiles who looks

back for familiar fires on the hills, or upward to the familiar stars

where is surety. In truth is not all creative art remembrance: is not

the spirit of ideal art the recapture of what has gone away from the

world, that by an imperious spiritual law is forever withdrawing to come

again newly.”

To a friend W. S. wrote:

It is a happiness to me to know that you feel so deeply the beauty

that has been so humbly and eagerly and often despairingly sought, and

that in some dim measure, at least, is held here as a shaken image in

troubled waters. It it a long long road, the road of art ... and those

who serve with passion and longing and unceasing labour of inward

thought and outward craft are the only votaries who truly know what long

and devious roads must be taken, how many pitfalls have to be avoided or

escaped from, how many desires have to be foregone, how many hopes have

to be crucified in slow death or more mercifully be lost by the way,

before one can stand at last on “the yellow banks where the west wind

blows,” and see, beyond, the imperishable flowers, and hear the immortal

voices.

A thousand perils guard the long road. And when the secret gardens are

reached, there is that other deadly peril of which Fiona has written in

“The Lynn of Dreams.” And, yet again, there is that mysterious destiny,

that may never come, or may come to men but once, or may come and not

go, of which I wrote to you some days ago, quoting from Fiona’s latest

writing: that destiny which puts dust upon dreams, and silence upon

sweet airs, and stills songs, and makes the hand idle, and the spirit as

foam upon the sea.

For the gods are jealous, O jealous and remorseless beyond all words to

tell. And there is so little time at the best ... and the little gain,

the little frail crown, is so apt to be gained too late for the tired

votary to care, or to do more than lie down saying ‘I have striven, and

I am glad, and now it is over, and I am glad!’

A letter of appreciation to the author from an unknown Gaelic

correspondent contained this beautiful wish:

“May you walk by the waters of Life, and may you rest by Still Waters,

and may you know the mystery of God.”

To Mrs. Helen Bartlett Bridgman, “Fiona” wrote in acknowledgment of

a letter, and of a sympathetic, printed appreciation of _The Winged

Destiny_:

MY DEAR FRIEND,

(For if deep sympathy and understanding do not constitute friendship,

what does?) It would be strange indeed if I did not wish to write to you

after what Mr. Mosher has told me, and after perusal of what you have

written concerning what I have tried to do with my pen. There are few

things so helpful, perhaps none so pleasant to a writer in love with

his or her work and the ideals which are its source, than the swift

understanding and sympathy of strangers. So much of my work is aside

from the general temper and taste, and not only in its ideals but in its

‘atmosphere,’ indeed even in its writer’s methods and manner, that I

have to be content (as I gladly am content) to let the wind that blows

through minds and hearts carry the seed whithersoever it may perchance

take root, and this with the knowledge that the resting places must

almost of necessity, as things are, be few and far between. But it

is not number that counts, and, as I say, I am well content—would be

content were my readers far fewer than they are. It seems enough to me

that one should do one’s best in a careful beauty and in the things of

the spirit. It is enough to be a torch-bearer, whether the flame be a

small and brief light or a beacon—it is to take over and to tend and to

hand on the fire that matters. As I say in my very shortly forthcoming

new book, _The Winged Destiny_, I desire to be of the horizon-makers;

if I can be that, however humbly, I am glad indeed. This would be so

with anyone, I think, feeling thus. To me outside sympathy means perhaps

more; for I stand more isolated than most writers do, partly by my will,

partly by circumstances as potent and sometimes more potent. It is not

only that I am devoid of the desire of publicity, of personal repute,

and that nothing of advantage therefrom has the slightest appeal to me

(though, alas, both health and private circumstances make my well-being

to a large extent dependent on what my work brings me), but that I am

mentally so constituted that I should be silenced by what so many are

naturally and often rightly eager for and that so many seek foolishly

or unworthily. In this respect I am like the mavis of the woods, that

sings full-heartedly in the morning shadow or evening twilight in secret

places, but will be dumb and lost in the general air of noon and where

many are gathered in the frequented open to see and hear.

It is for these, and other not less imperative private reasons, why I am

known personally to so very few of my fellow-writers: and why in private

circles the subject is not one that occurs. I cannot explain, though not

from reluctance or perversity or any foolish and needless mystery. The

few who do not know me, as you know me, but with added intimacy, are

loyal in safe-guarding my wishes and my privacy. That explains why I

refuse all editorial and other requests of “interviews,” “photographs,”

“personal articles” and the like. In a word, I am blind to all the

obvious advantages that would accrue from my ‘entering the arena’ as

others do. I have all that frequently borne in upon me. But still less

so do I ignore what would happen to my work, to its quality and spirit,

to myself, if I yielded. I may be wrong, but I do not think I am. I am

content to do my best, as the spirit moves me, and as my sense of beauty

compels me; and if, with that, I can also make some often much-needed

money, enough for the need as it arises; and, further, can win the

sympathy and deep appreciation of the few intimate and the now many

unknown friends whom, to my great gladness and pride, I have gained,

then, indeed, I can surely contentedly let wider “fame” (of all idle

things the idlest, when it is, as it commonly is, the mere lip-repute of

the curious and the shallow) go by, and be indifferent to the lapse of

possible but superfluous greater material gain....”

Dr. Goodchild, after a first acknowledgment of the dedication, again

wrote to F. M.:

AUTHOR’S CLUB,

July 1904.

DEAR FRIEND,

... Yesterday I read your Preface to a friend of mine, and afterwards a

lady (a clever woman I believe) came into the room. I had never met her

before, and she had never read anything of yours, but she picked up the

book and asked what it was. “Just read the introduction” said my friend.

The reader had an expressive face, and I wish you had seen it. “But this

is something quite new. I never read anything like it before” she said

as she finished: and I fancy that many will do likewise.

A woman said in my hearing not long ago, of one of your poems, “_I_

could not put out my heart for daws to peck at” and I said “only the

Eagle could do that, and not only daws, but blackbirds of all kinds will

come to do that, and when the Eagles hear the call of their mates, there

will be such slaughter of carrion crows as the World has not seen yet.”

J. A. G.

A few days later William described to a friend the events of

... one of the loveliest days of the year, with the most luminous

atmosphere I have seen in England—the afternoon and evening divinely

serene and beautiful.

I had a pleasant visit to Bath, and particularly enjoyed the long day

spent yesterday at Glastonbury and neighbourhood, and the glowing warmth

and wonderful radiance.

As usual one or two strange things happened in connection with Dr. G. We

went across the ancient “Salmon” of St. Bride, which stretches below the

hill known as “Weary-All” (a corruption of Uriel, the Angel of the Sun),

and about a mile or less westward came upon the narrow water of the

ancient ‘Burgh.’ Near here is a very old Thorn held in great respect....

He put me (unknowing) to a singular test. He had hoped with especial and

deep hope that in some significant way I would write or utter the word

“Joy” on this 1st day of August (the first three weeks of vital import

to many, and apparently for myself too)—and also to see if a certain

spiritual influence would reach me. Well, later in the day (for he could

not prompt or suggest, and had to await occurrence) we went into the

lovely grounds of the ancient ruined Abbey, one of the loveliest things

in England I think. I became restless and left him, and went and lay

down behind an angle of the East end, under the tree. I smoked, and

then rested idly, and then began thinking of some correspondence I had

forgotten. Suddenly I turned on my right side, stared at the broken

stone of the angle, and felt vaguely moved in some way. Abruptly and

unpremeditatedly I wrote down three enigmatic and disconnected lines. I

was looking curiously at the third when I saw Dr. G. approach.

“Can you make anything out of that,” I said—“I’ve just written it, I

don’t know why.” This is the triad:

“_From the Silence of Time, Time’s Silence borrow.

In the heart of To-day is the word of To-morrow.

The Builders of Joy are the Children of Sorrow._”

To Mr. Stedman W. S. announced our plans for the coming winter:

Aug. 29, 1904.

DEAR POET,

This is not an advance birthday letter, as you may think! It is to

convey tidings of much import to my wife and myself, and I hope of

pleasure to you and other friends over-sea—namely that this late autumn

we are going to pay a brief visit to New York.

It is our intention to spend January, February, and March in Rome—which

for me is the City of Cities. But we are going to it via New York. In

a word, we intend to leave England somewhere between 23rd and 26th of

October, according as steamers and our needs fit it. Then after six

weeks or so in New York, we intend to sail direct to the Mediterranean

by one of the Hamburg-American or North-German Lloyd Special

Mediterranean line, sailing to Genoa and Naples....

I have been very busy of late, and for one thing have been occupied with

collecting and revising the literary studies of some years past—and much

else of which I’ll tell you when we meet. My _Literary Geography_, which

has been running serially in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ for the last 14

or 15 months will be out in book-form in October. My wife’s recently

published little book on Rembrandt has had a good reception, I am very

glad to say.

With all affectionate greetings to you both, ever, Dear Stedman,

Affectionately your friend,

WILLIAM SHARP.

Before we started for New York _Literary Geography_ (by W. S.) was

published. According to the critic in _The World_: