descriptions of certain localities with criticisms and appreciations
of those famous writers who had identified themselves therewith. It
gives one a fresher and keener insight, for instance, into Mr. George
Meredith’s poems to know how much they reveal of the lovely country
in which he lives, and how many of his exquisite similes are drawn
from observation of the birds and beasts and plants which he sees
daily around his home under the shadow of Box Hill. “The Country of
Stevenson,” “Dickens-Land,” “Scott-Land,” “The Country of George
Eliot,” “Thackeray-Land,” “The Brontë Country,” “The Carlyle Country,”
and “Aylwin-Land” are all both delightful and instructive, full of
poetic description, sound criticism, and brilliant flashes of wit; and
not less so are the chapters on the “literary geography” of the Thames
from Oxford to the Nore, the English Lakes, with all their associations
with Wordsworth and his brother poets, and the Lake of Geneva, which
might have been called Voltaire-Land were it not that so many other
famous personalities and authors are identified with Geneva and its
surroundings that the solitary distinction might seem invidious.”
The book was dedicated to the author’s friend of early days, Mr. George
Halkett (then Editor of _The Pall Mall Gazette_) with the reminder that
“More years ago now than either of us cares to recall, we were both, in
the same dismal autumn for us, sent wandering from our native lands in
Scotland to the end of the earth. I remember that each commiserated the
other because of that doctor’s doom in which we both, being young and
foolish, believed. Since then we have sailed many seas and traversed
many lands, and I, at least, have the wayfaring fever too strong upon me
ever to be cured now.”
The critic in the _Daily Chronicl_e explained that the “book is all
an affair of temperament, and the only thing which really matters is
that Mr. Sharp has made excellent stuff out of his impressions....
For instance, the first time he saw Robert Louis Stevenson was not as
it should have been, in the land of Alan Breck; it was at Waterloo
Station. Is the literary geographer abashed by this conjunction of two
sympathetic Scots in a dismal London shed? Not a bit of it:
‘He was tall, thin, spare—indeed, he struck me as almost fantastically
spare. I remember thinking that the station draught caught him like a
torn leaf blowing at the end of a branch.’
“Mind you, at that moment Mr. Sharp did not know who the stranger was,
but knew by instinct that the station draught ought to make poetical
use of him. More than that, Mr. Sharp saw that Stevenson had the air of
a man just picked out of a watery grave. Anybody could see this.
‘That it was not merely an impression of my own was proved by the
exclamation of a cabman, who was standing beside me expectant of a
“fare” who had gone to look after his luggage: “Looks like a sooercide,
don’t he, sir? One o’ them chaps as takes their down-on-their-luck
’eaders into the Thames!”’
“When Stevenson could inflame a cabman with this picturesque fantasy,
no wonder he turned Waterloo Station into the home of romance. But this
was not all. The ‘sooercide’ had still more magic about him. Stevenson
was waiting for a friend to arrive by train, and when the friend
appeared, the drowned _revenant_ became another being.
‘The dark locks apparently receded, like weedy tangle in the ebb; the
long sallow oval grew rounder and less wan; the sombre melancholy
vanished like cloud-scud on a day of wind and sun, and the dark eyes
lightened to a violet-blue and were filled with sunshine and laughter.’
“This extraordinary man was carrying a book and dropped it. Then
happened something which expanded Waterloo Station into the infinite:
‘I lifted and restored it, noticing as I did that it was the _Tragic
Comedians_, ...
In 1902 W. S. had been greatly gratified by a request from the
composer, Mr. McDowell, couched in generous terms of appreciation:
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
NEW YORK, May 25th.
MISS FIONA MACLEOD,
MY DEAR MADAM,
Your work has so grown into my life that I venture to ask you to permit
my placing your name on some music of mine. Your poems have been an
inspiration to me and I trust you will accept a dedication of music
that is yours already by right of suggestion. By this I do not mean
that my music in any way echoes your words but that your words have been
a most powerful incentive to me in my music and I crave your sympathy
for it.
Sincerely yours,
EDWARD MACDOWELL.
At the end of 1904 F. M. wrote to Mr. Lawrence Gilman, the American
Musical Critic:
22 ORMIDALE TERRACE,
MURRAYFIELD, 31st Dec.
DEAR MR. GILMAN,
Some time ago a friend played to me one or two lovely airs by Mr.
Loeffler, and I was so much impressed by their unique quality and their
atmosphere of subtle beauty that I wrote to find out what I could about
this composer, and also about another, Mr. MacDowell, whose beautiful
Keltic Sonata I have heard. And now I have been sent a copy of your
winsome and deeply interesting and informing little book, _Phases
of Modern Music_. There I not only find much of deep interest to me
about Mr. Loeffler and Mr. MacDowell, but find your whole book at once
informing and fascinating. In addition I had the great pleasure of
coming unexpectedly upon allusions to myself and my writings: and I
would like you to know how truly I appreciate these, and how glad I am
that a critic touched to such fine issues in the great art of Music, and
with so keen a sense for the new ideals of beauty, the new conceptions
of style and distinction, should care for what I am trying to do in my
own art.
I hope you are writing another book. Whether on musical subjects only,
or on literary and musical subjects in conjunction (which of course
would appeal to a wider section of the reading public), any such book
would I am sure, be welcomed by all who know _Phases of Modern Music_.
I wish I knew more of the music of these two composers. There is a
spirit abroad just now, full of a new poignancy of emotion, uplifted on
a secret wave of passion and ecstasy, and these men seem to me of that
small but radiant company who have slept and dreamed in the other world
and drank moon-dew.
Let me thank you again for all the pleasure you have given me, and
Believe me
Most truly yours,
FIONA MACLEOD.
Mr. Lawrence Gilman replied:
NEW YORK,
Jan 14, 1905.
MY DEAR MISS MACLEOD,
It would not be easy for me to tell you, without seeming extravagance,
of the keen pleasure I have had in your cordial letter concerning my
book, _Phases of Modern Music_. The deep impression which your own
work has made upon me must already have become evident to you through
even the most cursory reading of my book—an impression the extent and
definiteness of which I myself had scarcely realised. You will know,
then, how great a satisfaction it is for me to hear that you have been
interested in my thoughts on musical subjects, and that they have seemed
to you worthy of the friendly praise which you have spoken in your
letter.
So you know and like the music of Loeffler and MacDowell! That is good
to hear; for few, even in this country, where they have been active in
their art for so long, are sensible of the beauty and power of their
work. Do you know Loeffler’s latest production—“Quatre Poëmes,” settings
of verses by Verlaine and Baudelaire? They are written for voice,
piano, and viola: a singular and admirable combination. Mr. MacDowell
will be glad to hear of your pleasure in his “Keltic Sonata,” for he is
one of your most sensitive admirers: it was he, indeed, who first made
me acquainted with your work. Have you heard his earliest sonatas—the
“Norse,” “Eroica,” and “Tragica”? They are not very far behind the
“Keltic” in distinction and force, though lacking the import and
exaltation of the latter.
You would be surprised, I think, to know how the Celtic impulse is
seizing the imaginations of some of the younger and more warmly-tempered
of American composers. I am enclosing a programme of a concert given
recently in Boston, consisting entirely of music written on Celtic
themes.
Thank you again.
Very faithfully yours,
LAWRENCE GILMAN.
When in New York William Sharp had written to Mr. Alden “on behalf of
Miss Macleod” concerning her later nature-essay work, and explained
that “Some months ago, by special request from the Editor of _Country
Life_ Miss M. began contributing one or two of these papers. From the
first they attracted notice, and then the Editor asked her if she would
contribute a series to appear as frequently as practicable—averaging
two a month—till next May when they would be issued in book-form. As
Miss M. enjoys writing them, she agreed.”
In the same letter he spoke of a subject on which he had long
meditated. He proposed it for _Harper’s Magazine_:—“I have long been
thinking over the material of an article on the Fundamental Science of
Criticism, to be headed, say ‘A New Degree: D. Crit.’” This project
among many others was never worked out. But the ‘nature-papers’ were a
great pleasure to him, and in 1904 and 1905 he wrote on many subjects
for _Country Life_, over the signature of F. M., also several poems
that were afterwards included in the second edition of _From the Hills
of Dream_.
As month by month the number of nature essays grew, he planned to
issue them in two, and later in three volumes. To the second volume
he thought to give the title “Blue Days and Green Days” (from a line
of R. L. Stevenson’s), and to call the third, which was to deal with
the stars and the skies at night, “Beyond the Blue Septentrion.” Not
all the projected essays for each book, however, were written; but
those which appeared serially were published posthumously in 1906,
by _Country Life_ under the title of _Where the Forest Murmurs_.
Concerning the titular essay, Mr. Alfred Noyes wrote: “It is one of
those pieces of nature-study which, in Matthew Arnold’s phrase, have
that rarest of all modern qualities—‘Healing Power.’”
And according to _The Contemporary Review_:
“Fiona Macleod’s prose baffles description. It is perhaps hardly prose
at all. It is melody in words suggesting scenes as much by sound as
by the passage of ideas. The ideas conveyed by the actual words are
supplemented by the rhythm or melody conveyed by the sequence of
words. But it is, when all analysis is ended, something quite alone:
pure music of a strange and curious quality that is neither prose nor
poetry, but thrilling with the pain and passion of a Gaelic chant. It
conveys to the mind and heart the scenes and sounds of nature with
almost magical accuracy.”
* * * * *
The immediate object of our short visit to New York and Boston was that
I should know in person some of the many friends my husband valued
there, and I was specially interested to make the acquaintance of Mr.
and Mrs. Stedman, who gave me a warm welcome, of Mr. and Mrs. Alden,
Mr. and Mrs. R. Watson Gilder, Mr. John Lafarge, Mrs. Julia Ward
Howe, and Miss Caroline Hazard whom we visited at Wellesley College.
But winter set in with December. The cold proved so severe that we
sailed for and reached Naples in time to spend Xmas Day with friends
at Bordighera whence W. S. wrote to Mr. Murray Gilchrist: “We are back
from America (thank God) and are in Italy (thank Him more).... For
myself I am crawling out of the suck of a wave whose sweep will I hope
be a big one of some months and carry me far.”
* * * * *
In Rome we took rooms at the top of Fischer’s Park Hotel, whence from
the balconies we had a superb view over Rome. There we saw a few
friends—in particular Mr. Hichens who was also wintering there; but my
husband did not feel strong enough for any social effort. As he wrote
to Mr. Mosher:
11th Feb., 1905.
Dubious and ever varying health, with much going to and fro in quest of
what is perhaps not to be found (for mere change of climate will not
give health unless other conditions combine to bring about the miracle)
have, among other causes, prevented my writing to you as I had intended,
or, indeed, from doing much writing of any kind. I have written a few
articles for _Country Life_—and little else, published or unpublished.
The days go by and I say “at night”—and every night I am too tired or
listless, and say “tomorrow”: and so both the nights and the morrows go
to become thistles in the Valley of Oblivion. But with the advancing
Spring I am regathering somewhat of lost energy, and if only I were back
in Scotland I believe I should be hard at work! Well, I shall be there
soon, though I may be away again, in the remote isles or in Scandinavia
for the late spring and summer....
F. M.
CHAPTER XXVI
1905
“_There is a great serenity in the thought of death, when it is known to
be the Gate of Life._”
FIONA MACLEOD.
April my husband spent in the West of Scotland, for which he pined; and
on his way North broke his journey in Edinburgh whence he wrote to Mr.
W. J. Robertson, the translator into English verse of _A Century of the
French poets of the XIX Century_:
April, 1905.
DEAR MR. ROBERTSON,
After our most pleasant evening à deux I had a comfortable journey
north: and last night luxuriated in getting to bed early (a rare thing
for me) with the sure and certain knowledge there would be no glorious
resurrection therefrom at any untimely hour. So after sleeping the sleep
of the true Gael—who is said to put 85 to the poor Sassenach 40 winks—I
woke in peace. I was thereafter having a cigarette over the _Scotsman_
when my youngest (and secretary) sister brought me my letters, papers,
etc. and with them a long narrow box which I soon discovered to be your
generous gift of 100 of these delectable Indian cigars. It is very
good of you indeed, and I am grateful, and may the ancient Gaelic God
Dia-Cheo, God of Smoke, grant you remission of all your philological
sins and derivative ‘howlers’—and the more so as there is no authority
for any such god, and the name would signify hill-mist instead of
pipe-smoke! And may I have a himdred ‘rèves de Notre Dame de Nicotine!’
I couldn’t resist trying one. Wholly excellent. And in the meditative
fumes I arrived through intuition at the following derivation which I
hope will find a place in your book:
Roab ancient Celtic for a Good Fellow
H’Errt ” ” ” Smoke-Maker or Smoke-Bestower
_’s_ contraction for _Agus_ ‘and’,
_Onn_ ancient Celtic for ‘May Heaven Bless’
_W. J._ ancient Celtic Tribal tattoo——
which, assisted in dreams by the spirits of Windisch, D’Arbois de
Jubainville, Loth, Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer, I take to be _W. J.
Roab-H’Errt-S-onn_—i. e. _Bill-Jack_, or in mod. English ‘William John’
of the Clan of Heaven-Blessed Friendly Smokers—i. e. William John of the
Roaberrtsson, or Robertson Clan. This of course disposes of Donnachie
once and for all.
Ever sincerely yours
WILLIAM SHARP.
From Edinburgh he and his secretary-sister Mary went to Lismore, so
that he might “feel the dear West once more.” From Oban he reported
to Mr. W. J. Robertson on a post card addressed to “Ri Willeam Iain
MacRiobeart mhic Donnach aidh”——
“Awful accident in a lonely Isle of the West.
A distinguished stranger was observing the vasty deep, and had laid a
flask-filled cup on a rock beside him when a tamned gull upset it and
at same time carried off a valuable Indian cheroot. Deep sympathy is
everywhere expressed, for the distinguished stranger, the lost cheroot,
and above all for the spilt cup and abruptly emptied flask. A gloom has
been cast over the whole island.
_Verb_: _Sap_:”
From Lismore he wrote to me:
“_April 19._ It was sweet to fall asleep last night to the sound of the
hill-wind and the swift troubled waters. We had a lovely walk in the
late afternoon, and again in the sombre moonlit night. It came on too
stormy for me to go round to the Cavern later, however. I’ll try again.
I was there about first dusk, with Mary. To my chagrin there was neither
sound nor sight of the sea-woman, but she must be there for MacC. has
_twice_ heard her sobbing and crying out at him when he passed close in
the black darkness. There was only a lapwing wailing near by, but both
Mary and I heard a singular furtive sound like something in a trailing
silk dress whispering to itself as it slid past in the dusk—but this, I
_think_, was a curious echo of what’s called ‘a sobbing wave’ in some
narrow columnar hidden hollow opening from the sea. Mary got the creeps,
and loathed a story I told her about a _midianmara_ that sang lovely
songs but only so as to drown the listener and suck the white warm
marrow out of his spine.
Later I joined MacC. for a bit over the flickering fireflaucht. I got
him to tell me all over again and more fully about the Maighdeann Mhara.
The first time he heard ‘something’ was before his fright last November.
‘There was _cèol_ then’ he said....
I asked in Gaelic ‘were songs sung?’ He said ‘Yes, at times.’ Mrs. MacC.
was angry at him he said, and said he hadn’t the common-sense of a
jenny-cluckett (a clucking hen)—_but_ (and there’s a world of difference
in that) _she hadn’t heard what he had heard_. So to cheer him up I
told him a story about a crab that fed on the brains of a drowned man,
and grew with such awful and horrible wisdom that it climbed up the
stairway of the seaweed and on to a big rock and waved its claws at the
moon and cursed God and the world, and then died raving mad. Seeing how
it worked upon him, I said I would tell him another, and worse, about a
lobster—but he was just as bad as Mary, and said he would wait for the
lobster till the morning, and seemed so absurdly eager to get safely to
bed that the pleasant chat had to be abruptly broken off....
P. S. The cold is very great, and it is a damp cold, you couldn’t stand
it. When I got up my breath _swarmed_ about the room like a clutch of
phantom peewits. No wonder I had a dream I was a seal with my feet
clemmed on to an iceberg. A duck went past a little ago seemingly
with one feather and that blown athwart its beak, so strong was the
north-wind blowing from that snowy mass that Ben Nevis wears like a
delicate veil. Cruachan has covered herself with a pall of snow mist.
_April 20_.... Fiona Macleod has just been made an honorary member of a
French League of writers devoted to the rarer and subtler use of Prose
and Verse, a charming letter from Paul Fort acting for his colleagues
Maeterlinck, Henri de Roquier, Jean Moréas, Emile Verhacren, Comte
Antoine de la Rochefoucault, Duchesse de la Roche-Guyon, Richeguin,
Sully Prudhomme, Henri Le Sidaner, Jules Claretie, etc. etc.
We’re glad, aren’t we, you and I? She’s our daughter, isn’t she?
_23d April_.... You will have got my note of yesterday telling you that
I have reluctantly had to relinquish Iona. The primary reason is its
isolation at present....
But from something I heard from old Mr. C. I fancy it’s as well for
me not to visit there just now, where I’d be the only stranger, and
every one would know of it—and where a look out for F. M. or W. S. is
kept! And, too, anything heard there and afterwards utilised would be
as easily traced to me.... After Tiree and Iona and Coll, and Arran in
the South, I don’t care just now for anywhere else—nearer: as for Eigg,
which I loved so much of old, Rum or Canna and the Outer Isles, they
are too inaccessible just now and Skye is too remote and too wet and
cold. However, it is isolation plus ‘atmosphere’ I want most of all—and
I doubt if there is any place just now I could get so much good from as
Lismore. I love that quiet isolated house on the rocks facing the Firth
of Lorne, all Appin to Ben Naomhir, and the great mountains of Morven.
It was on the sandy bindweed-held slope of the little bay near the
house, facing Eilean-nan-Coarach, that F. wrote the prelude to _The
Winged Destiny_—and also the first piece, the “Treud-nan-Ron,” which
describes that region, with Mr. MacC.’s seal legend, and the dear
little island in the Sound of Morvern (do you remember our row to it
one day?) There one could be quiet and given over to dreams and to the
endless fascination of outer nature.... And I have got much of what I
want—the _in-touch_ above all, the atmosphere: enough to strike the
keynote throughout the coming year and more, for I absorb through the
very pores of both mind and body like a veritable sponge. Wild-life and
plant-life too extremely interesting here. There does seem some mystery
about that cave tho’ I cannot fathom it.
I’ve all but finished the preparation of the new Tauchnitz vol. (The
Sunset of Old Tales) and expect to complete it (for May) tonight.
_24th April_.... Yes, I was sorry to leave Lismore. It may be my last
time in the Gaelic west. (I don’t say this “down-ly”—but because I think
it likely). There is much I want to do, and now as much by W. S. as by
F. M. and that I realise must be done abroad where alone can I keep well
and mentally even more than physically. (_How_ I hope Fontainebleau may
some day suit us.) Dear MacC. was sorry to part too. He shook hands
(with both his) and when I said in Gaelic “Goodbye, and Farewell upon
that, my friend” he said “No—no”—and then suddenly said “My blessing on
you—and goodbye now!” and turned away and went down the pier-side and
hoisted the brown sail and went away across the water, waving a last
farewell.
The cold proved so disastrous that my husband was ordered to Neuenahr
for special treatment. Thence he wrote to the Hon. A. Nelson Hood:
June, 1905.
MY DEAR JULIAN,
Just a brief line, for I am still very restricted in permission as to
writing, as so much depends on the rest-cure which is no small factor in
my redemption here....
It has been ‘a narrow squeak.’ Briefly, after a hard tussle at the brink
of ‘Cape Fatal’ and a stumble across ‘Swamp Perilous’ I got into the
merely “dangerous condition” stage—and now at last that’s left behind,
and I’ll soon be as well in body as I’m happy and serene in mind.
It is at best, however, a _reprieve_, not a lifetime-discharge.
_N’importe_. Much can be done with a reprieve, and who is to know how
long the furlough may be extended to. At any rate, I am well content.”
To me he wrote—for I was unable to accompany him:
NEUENAHR,
16th June, 1905.
... Here, at the Villa Usner, it is deliciously quiet and reposeful. I
had not realised to the full how much nervous harm I’ve had for long. To
live near trees is alone a joy and a restorative. The heat is very great
but to me most welcome and strengthening.... In my room or in the garden
I hear no noise, no sounds save the susurrus of leaves and the sweet
monotony of the rushing Ahr, and the cries and broken songs of birds....
I could see that Dr. G. can’t understand why I am not more depressed or,
rather, more anxious. I explained to him that these physical troubles
meant little to me, and that they were largely the bodily effect of
other things, and might be healed far more by spiritual well-being
than by anything else: also that nature and fresh air and serenity and
light and warmth and nervous rest were worth far more to me than all
else. “But don’t you know how serious your condition may become at any
moment, if you got a bad chill or setback, or don’t soon get better?”
“Certainly,” I said; “but what then? Why would I bother about either
living or dying? I shall not die before the hour of my unloosening
comes.”
I want to be helped all I may be—but all the waters in the world can
only affect the external life, and even that only secondarily very
often....
Monday evening.
... “_How_ I enjoyed my breakfast this morning! (in the lovely garden, in
a vine-shadowed arbour or pergola, with great tall poplars and other
trees billowing against the deep blue). Then a cigarette, a stroll in
the lovely sunlit-dappled green shadowiness of an adjoining up-sloping
avenue—and a seat for a little on a deserted south-wall bench (because
of the blazing heat) for a sun-bath, while I watched a nightingale
helping its young to fly among the creaming elders and masses of
wild-rose, while her mate swung on a beech-branch and called long sweet
exquisite cries of a thrilling poignancy (which, however, might only
be “Now then, Jenny, look out, or Tommy will fall into that mass of
syringa:—hillo! there’s Bobby and Polly gone and got scratched pecking
at these confounded white wild-roses!).”
Then I got up to come in and write to you (gladly in one way,
reluctantly in another for I seem to drink in life in the strong
sunlight and heat), but first stopped to speak to a gorgeous solitary
dandelion. I stroked it gently, and said “Hullo, wee brother, isn’t the
world beautiful? Hold up your wee head and rejoice!” And it turned up
its wee golden nose and said “Keep your hair on, you old skidamalink,
I’m rejoicing as hard as ever I can. I’m _always_ rejoicing. What else
would I do? You _are_ a rum old un-shiny animal on two silly legs!” So
we laughed, and parted—but he called me back, and said gently in a wee
soft goldy-yellow voice, “Don’t think me rude, Brother of Joy. It’s only
my way. I love you because you love _me_ and don’t despise me. Shake
pinkies!”—so I gave him a pinkie and he gave me a wee golden-yellow
pinkie-petal....
Tell Marjorie[5] the wee Dandelion was asking about her and sends her
his love—also a milky daisy that says _Hooray!_ every morning when it
wakes, and then is so pleased and astonished that it remains silently
smiling till next morning.
This flower and bird talk doesn’t bother you, does it? Don’t think I
don’t realise how ill I have been and in a small way still am: but
I don’t think about it, and am quite glad and happy in this lovely
June-glory....”
He broke his return journey at Doorn with our friends M. and Mme.
Grandmont and wrote to me:
July, 1905.
“ ... How you’d love to be here!
Nothing visible but green depths fading into green depths, and fringing
the sky-lines the endless surf of boughs and branches. From the
forest-glades the cooing of doves and the travelling-voice of a flowing
cool sweet wind of this delicious morning. I always gain immensely in
mind and body from nearness to woodlands and green growth—hence in
no small part my feeling for Fontainebleau. I’d such a lot to tell
you about it—and of what we should strive to obtain for ourselves in
restful, fine, dignified life, and much else, apropos and apart—as you
lay happy and contented on the long luxurious lounge beside my chair on
the deep balcony, half listening to me and half to the soft continuous
susurrus of the pine-fragrant breeze—that more than an hour elapsed
while I drank my tea and read your letter....
“It is no exaggeration to say, that, so greatly do I value and treasure
afterwards certain aspects of beauty, I would quite willingly go through
all the suffering again for the sake of the lovely impressions here
last night and this morning. The beauty and charm of this house and its
forest-environment, the young moon and the night-jar at dusk (and then
to soothe and sleepify me still more, the soft, sweet, old-fashioned
melodies of Haydn from 9 to 9.30)—one or two lovely peacocks trailing
about in front—the swallows at corner of my great verandah—a
thousandfold peace and beauty, and the goodness of these dear friends,
have not only been, and are, a living continuous joy, but have been like
the Heralds of Spring to the return of gladness and energy into my mind.
Today I realise that too, for one thing, ‘Fiona’ has come back from afar
off. It is peace and greenness she loves—not the physical and psychical
perturbation and demoralisation of towns.
Yes, we’ll make ‘green homes’ for ourselves now. No more long needless
months in London....
Despite his serenity of mind, London as usual wrought him harm, and as
he explained to Dr. Goodchild:
30th July.
... August is always a ‘dark’ month for me—and not as a rule, I fancy, a
good one: at any rate an obscure and perhaps perilous one. But this time
I fancy it is on other lines. I believe strong motives and influences
are to be at work in it perhaps furtively only: but none the less
potently and far reachingly. Between now and September-end (perhaps
longer) many of the Dark Powers are going to make a great effort. We
must all be on guard—for there will be individual as well as racial and
general attack. But a Great Unloosening is at hand.
Yours ever,
W. S.
We therefore went to Scotland to say goodbye to his mother and sisters,
and to see one or two friends, among others, Miss Mary Wilson, the
pastellist, at Bantaskine, her home on the site of the battle of
Falkirk; Mr. D. Y. Cameron, with whom my husband planned an unfulfilled
wander among the Western Isles; and Mr. David Erskine of Linlathen.
While in the North he wrote to Mr. John Maesfield:
KESSOCK COTTAGE,
NAIRN.
DEAR MR. MAESFIELD,
A brief word to tell you what pleasure I have had in your little book _A
Mainsail Haul_. It is not only that it is written with delicate art: but
it is rich in atmosphere—a much rarer thing. The simplicity, the charm,
the subtle implication of floating, evasive yet fluctuating romance,
your own keen sense of the use of words and their veiled life and latent
as well as obvious colour, combine to a winning and often compelling
effect. I do not think any who has read Don Alfonso’s drinking bout
with the little red man and the strange homegoing of the weed and
flower-grown brigantine with the Bible name, will forget it: and what
dream charm also there is in “Port of Many Ships,” “Sea Superstition,”
“The Spanish Sailor’s Yarn.” In such a splendid and delightful colour
fabric as “From the Spanish” “high words and rare” are of course apt—but
is it not a mistake to introduce in “Sea Superstition” words such as
“august” and “wrought” in a sailor’s mouth? (In the text the effect
seems to be enhanced not lessened, by the omission of these words—“were
like things in bronze,” “the roof of which was of dim branches.”)
In “From the Spanish” I would, as a matter of personal taste, prefer
that the end came at the close of the penultimate para, the shore-drift
of the Italian lute. I think the strange dream-like effect would be much
enhanced without (what seems to me) the superfluous ‘realistic’ tag.
Otherwise the piece is a gem of its kind.
But you will forgive the critic (and it shows he has read closely) in
the admirer, I hope?
Let us have more work of the kind. There is much need of it, and you are
of the few who can give it.
Yours sincerely
WILLIAM SHARP.
Mr. Maesfield—who had written concerning Fiona Macleod to a friend:
“I think the genius of a dead people has found re-incarnation in her.
Wherever the Celt is, thence come visions and tears”—replied:
GREENWICH,
Aug. 19, 1905.
DEAR MR. SHARP,
I was deeply touched by your kind letter about my little book [_A
Mainsail Haul_]. If it should go to a second edition I will make use of
your suggestion. I prepared the book rather hurriedly, and there is much
in it that I very much dislike, now that it cannot be altered.
The mood in which I wrote the tales you like, has gone from me, and I am
afraid I shall be unable to write others of the same kind. In youth the
mind is an empty chamber; and the spirits fill it, and move and dance
there, and colour it with their wings and raiment. In manhood one has
familiars. But between those times (forgive me for echoing Keats) one
has little save a tag or two of cynicism, a little crude experience,
much weariness, much regret, and a vision blurred by all four faults.
One is weakened, too, by one’s hatreds.
I thank you again for your very kind and cordial letter.
Yours very sincerely,
JOHN MAESFIELD.
To an unknown correspondent F. M. wrote:
Sept. 15, 1905.
... I have been away, in the isles, and for a time beyond the reach of
letters. I wish there were Isles where one could also go at times, where
no winged memories could follow. In a Gaelic folk-tale, told me by an
old woman once, the woman of the story had only to burn a rose to ashes
and to hold them in the palms of her hands and then to say seven times
_A Eileanain na Sith_, “O Isles of Peace”! and at once she found herself
in quiet isles beyond the foam where no memories could follow her and
where old thoughts, if they came, were like phantoms on the wind, in a
moment come, in a moment gone. I have failed to find these Isles, and
so have you: but there are three which lie nearer, and may be reached,
Dream, Forgetfulness, and Hope.
And there, it may be, we can meet, you and I....
Yes, your insight is true. There is a personal sincerity, the direct
autobiographical utterance, in even, as you say, the most remote and
phantastic of my legends as in the plainest of my words. But because
they cover so much illusion as well as passion, so much love gone on the
wind as well as love that not even the winds of life and death can break
or uproot, so much more of deep sorrow (apart from the racial sorrow
which breathes through all) than of joy save in the deeper spiritual
sense, they were thus raimented in allegory and legend and all the
illusion of the past, the remote, the obscure, or the still simpler if
more audacious directness of the actual, the present, and the explicit.
There is, perhaps, a greater safety, a greater illusion, in absolute
simplicity than in the most subtly wrought of art....
But you will understand me when I say that you must not count on our
meeting—at any rate not this year. I too stand under obscure wings.
Your friend,
F. M.
To the Duchess of Sutherland:
... I have the memory that recalls everything in proportion and
sequence. I have often written that art is memory, is in great part
memory, though not necessarily a recalling of mere personal experience:
and the more deeply I live the more I see that this is so....
When you write, I mean imaginatively, you must write more and more with
concentrated vision. Some time ago I re-read your _Four Winds of the
World_; much of it is finely done, and in some of it your self lives,
your own accent speaks. But you have it in you to do work far more
ambitious. The last is not a word I like, or affect; but here it is
convenient and will translate to your mind what is in my mind. These
stories are _yours_ but they are not _you_: and though in a sense art
is a wind above the small eddies of personality, there is a deeper
sense in which it is nothing else than the signature of personality.
Style (that is, the outer emotion that compels and the hidden life of
the imagination that impels and the brooding thought that shapes and
colours) should, spiritually, reflect a soul’s lineaments as faithfully
as the lens of the photographer reflects the physiognomy of a man or
woman. It is because I feel in you a deep instinct for beauty, a deep
longing for beautiful expression and because I believe you have it in
you to achieve highly in worth and beauty, that I write to you thus....
There is that Lady of Silence, the Madonna of Enigma, who lives in
the heart of many women. Could you not shape something under _Her_
eyes—shape it and colour it with your own inward life, and give it all
the nobler help of austere discipline and control which is called art?
I have not much to tell you of myself just now. At the moment I do not
write to you from the beloved west where I spend much of each year and
where my thoughts and dreams continually are. Tonight I am tired, and
sad, I hardly know why.
O wind, why break in idle foam
This wave that swept the seas—...
Foam is the meed of barren dreams,
And hearts that cry for peace.
Lift then, O wind, this heart of mine
And swirl aside in foam—
No, wander on, unchanging heart,
The undrowning deeps thy home.
Less than a billow of the sea
That at the last doth no more roam
Less than a wave, less than a wave
This thing that hath no home
This thing that hath no grave!
But I shall weary you. Well, forgive me....
The next letter is to Mrs. Helen Hopekirk, the Scottish-American
composer, who has set several of the F. M. poems to music:
18th Oct., 1905.
MY DEAR MRS. HOPEKIRK,
I was very pleased to hear from you again. I am busy with preparations
for Italy, for the doctors say I should be away from our damp Scottish
climate from October-end till Spring comes again. How far off it
seems.... Spring! Do you long for it, do you love its advent, as I do?
Wherever I am, St. Bride’s Day is always for me the joy-festival of the
year—the day when the real new year is born, and the three dark months
are gone, and Spring leans across the often gray and wet, but often
rainbow-lit, green-tremulous horizons of February. This year it seems a
longer way off than hitherto, and yet it should not be so—for I go to
Italy, and to friends, and to beautiful places in the sun, there and in
Sicily, and perhaps in Algeria. But, somehow, I care less for these than
I did a few years ago, than two or three years ago, than a year ago. I
think outward change matters less and less as the imagination deepens
and as the spirit more and more “turns westward.” I love the South:
and in much, and for much, am happy there: but as the fatally swift
months slip into the dark I realise more and more that it is better to
live a briefer while at a high reach of the spirit and the uplifted if
overwrought physical part of one than to save the body and soothe the
mind by the illusions of physical indolence and mental leisure afforded
by long sojourns in the sunlands of the South....
How I wish I knew Loeffler and Debussy and others as you do: but then,
though I love music, tho’ it is one of the vital things in life for me,
I am not a musician, alas. So even if I had all their music beside me
it would be like a foreign language that must be read in translation.
Do you realise—I suppose you do—how fortunate you are in being your
own interpreter. Some day, however, I hope to know intimately all
those wonderful settings of Verlaine and Baudelaire and Mallarmé and
others. The verbal music of these is a ceaseless pleasure to me. I
have a great love of and joy in all later French poetry, and can never
understand common attitude to it here—either one of ignorance, or
patronage, or complete misapprehension. Because of the obvious fact
that French is not so poetic a language as English or German, in scale,
sonority, or richness of vocabulary—it is, indeed, in the last respect
the poorest I believe of all European languages as English is by far
the richest—people, and even those who should be better informed, jump
to the conclusion that therefore all French poetry is artificial or
monotonously alike, or, at best, far inferior to English. So far as I
can judge, finer poetry has been produced in France of late years than
in England, and very much finer than any I know in Germany. However, the
habitual error of judgment is mainly due to ignorance: that, and the
all but universal unfamiliarity with French save in its conventional
usage, spoken or written....
“Fiona” received that summer, from Mr. Yoni Noguchi, a volume entitled
_From the Eastern Sea_ by that Japanese author, and sent acknowledgment:
ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.
DEAR MR. NOGUCHI,
Your note and delightful little book reached me, after considerable
delay, in southern Europe. I write this at sea, and will send it with
other letters, etc., to be stamped and posted in Edinburgh—and the two
reasons of delay will show you that it is not from indolence!
I have read your book with singular pleasure. What it lacks in form (an
inevitable lack, in the circumstances) it offers in essential poetry.
I find atmosphere and charm and colour and naïveté, and the true touch
of the poet; and congratulate you on your ‘success of suggestion’ in a
language so different in all ways from that wherein (I am sure) you have
already achieved the ‘success of finality.’
Believe me, yours very truly,
FIONA MACLEOD.
Later, Mr. Noguchi sent his subsequent book _The Summer Cloud_, a
collection of short prose-poems, which, as he explained in his note
of presentation: “In fact, I had been reading your prose-poems, _The
Silence of Amor_, and wished I could write such pieces myself. And here
is the result!”
* * * * *
It was our habit, when talking to one another of the “F. M.” writings,
to speak of “Fiona” as a separate entity—so that we should not be
taken unawares if suddenly spoken to about ‘her’ books. It was
William’s habit also to write and post to himself two letters on his
birthday—letters of admonition and of new resolutions. On the 12th
Sep. 1905 he brought me the two birthday letters when they reached
him, and gave them to me to read, saying, with a smile, “Fiona is
rather hard on me, but she is quite right.” Both letters are in his
handwriting and are as follows:
GU FIONAGHAL NIC LEOID
SLIABHEAN N’AN AISLING
_Y-Breasil_ (NA TIR-FO-TUINN)
AN DOMHAIN UAINE,
12th Sept., 1905.
DEAREST FIONA,
A word of loving greeting to you on the morrow of our new year. All that
is best in this past year is due to _you_, mo caraid dileas: and I hope
and believe that seeds have been sown which will be reborn in flower
and fruit and may be green grass in waste places and may even grow to
forests. I have not always your serene faith and austere eyes, dear, but
I come to much in and thro’ my weakness as you through your strength.
But in this past year I realise I have not helped you nearly as much as
I could: in this coming year I pray, and hope, it may be otherwise. And
this none the less tho’ I have much else I want to do apart from _our_
work. But we’ll be one and the same _au fond_ even then, shall we not,
Fiona dear?
I am intensely interested in the fuller development of the Celtic
Trilogy—and shall help in all ways. You say I can give you what you
have not: well, I am glad indeed. Together we shall be good _Sowers_,
Fionaghal mo rùn: and let us work contentedly at _that_. I wish you Joy
and Sorrow, Peace, and Unrest, and Leisure, Sun, and Wind, and Rain, all
of Earth and Sea and Sky in this coming year. And inwardly dwell with
me, so that less and less I may fall short of your need as well as your
ideal. And may our “Mystic’s Prayer” be true for us both, who are one.
Ever yours, dear,
WILL.
12th Sept., 1905.
HILLS OF DREAM,
Y-BREASIL.
MY DEAR WILL,
Another birthday has come, and I must frankly say that apart from the
loss of another year, and from what the year has brought you in love and
friendship and all that makes up life, it has not been to your credit.
True, you have been in America and Italy and France and Scotland and
England and Germany—and so have not been long settled anywhere—and
true also that for a month or two you were seriously and for a few
months partially ill or ‘down’—but still, after all allowances, I note
not only an extraordinary indolence in effort as well as unmistakable
laziness in achievement. Now, either you are growing old (in which case
admit dotage, and be done with it) or else you are permitting yourself
to remain weakly in futile havens of ignoble repose or fretful pseudo
rest. You have much to do, or that you ought to do, yourself: and as to
_our_ collaboration I see no way for its continuance unless you will
abrogate much of what is superfluous, curtail much that can quite well
be curtailed, and generally serve me loyally as I in my turn allow for
and serve _you_.
Let our New Year be a very different one from the last, dear friend:
and let us not only beautifully dream but _achieve_ in beauty. Let the
ignoble pass, and the noble remain.
Lovingly yours, dear Will,
FIONA.
[Illustration: HANDWRITING
To
William Sharp
from his comrade
Fiona Macleod
]
Some of his own copies of his F. M. books have an inscription to “W.
S.” from his twin self. For instance, his specially bound copy of _The
Winged Destiny_ bears this inscription in his handwriting: and is
dated 12th Sept., 1904. But William did not write or sign his F. M.
letters himself. When not typed by him, they were copied and signed
for him by his sister Mary, in whose handwriting is the following
signature—familiar to F. M.’s correspondents:
[Illustration: HANDWRITING
Sincerely yours
Fiona Macleod.
]
In the beginning of October we left London accompanied by Miss Mary
Wilson and went to Venice by way of Zurich and Innsbruck. Then to
Florence to stay with our friends Mr. and Mrs. Lee Hamilton, and
finally, to Sicily.
Taormina was beautifully sunny and restful as of yore; and the delicate
man rejoiced greatly in the beautiful gardens that the Duke of Bronte
was designing and planting with flowers and trees, on the slopes of the
hillside below the town.
A letter reached him there from Mr. Hichens:
ST. STEPHEN’S,
CANTERBURY.
OH, MY DEAR WILL,
I cannot help envying you. It is bitterly cold here, like winter, and
neuralgia is flitting about my twitching face and shrinking head. But I
will not inflict my little woes upon you, and only write this word to
say I am sending you my book _The Black Spaniel_. It is a very slight
and mixed affair this time—my last book of stories I think. The new
novel I have some hopes of your liking, as I hope I have imprisoned
something of our beloved Sicily in it. Now I am doing the last act—the
last to be done, I mean, of my play for Wyndham. Yes, we will meet in
Africa, if the gods are kind. I expect to leave England for Rome on Dec.
3. I am looking forward to Biskra immensely but must try to settle in
there as _must_ be working then.... How are you both? Happy in the sun?
All blessings upon you and your work.
Ever yours affectionately,
ROBERTO.
It had been planned that after the New Year Mr. Hood, Mr. Hichens, my
husband and I should go together to Biskra. But as the autumn waned,
we realised the unwisdom of making any such plans. On hearing of our
reluctant decision Mr. Hichens wrote:
Nov., 1905.
MY DEAR WILL,
Your letter was really a blow, but of course I thoroughly understand
that you must not risk such a journey. I am grieved about your delicate
health. You must take great care and stay in places where you can have
your comforts. I wish Rome suited you both. I am suffering from London
dyspepsia. Today there is a thick fog and I envy you all tremendously.
I am counting the days till I can start for Rome. How is Taormina?
Alec describes it as warm and splendid, and pretends that he needs a
sun umbrella and a straw hat! Perhaps you are all bathing in the sea!
Oh, these travellers’ tales! I am going out to bathe in the fog, so au
revoir. Love to you both, kindest regards to Etna from
Yours ever affectionately,
ROBERTO.
During one of our visits to Maniace Mr. Hichens was also a guest; on
a subsequent visit to that lava-strewn country, on the great western
slope of the shoulder of Etna, he wrote to me, in 1906, about my
husband: “I have had many walks here with Will. I think my last long
walk with him here was towards Maletto. We sat on a rock for a long
while, looking at the snow on Ætna and the wild country all around. We
talked about death, and he said he loved life but he did not fear death
at all. I remember well how alive his eyes looked. He always had a very
peculiar look of life in the eyes, an unquenchable vitality.”
On reaching Maniace W. S. wrote to a friend:
Dec. 4, 1905.
... As my card of yesterday will have told you we arrived here all
right on Monday afternoon, after a wonderful journey. We left Taormina
in a glory of midsummerlike warmth and beauty—and we drove down the
three miles of winding road from Taormina to the sea at Giardini;
thence past the bay and promontory of Naxos, and at the site of the
ancient famous fane of Apollo Archagêtês turned inland. Then through
the myriad lemon-groves of Al Cantara, till we crossed the gorges of
the Fiumefreddo, and then began the long ascent, in blazing heat, by
the beautiful hill road to the picturesque mountain-town of Piedemonte.
There we caught the little circum-Ætnean mountain loop-line, and
ascended the wild and beautiful slopes of Etna. Last time we went we
travelled mostly above the clouds, but this time there was not a vestige
of vapour in the radiant air, save for the outriders’ trail of white,
occasionally flame-coloured, smoke from the vast 4-mile wide mouth of
snow-white and gigantically-looming cone of Etna. At the lofty mediæval
and semi-barbaric town of Randazzo we were delayed by an excited
crowd at the station, on account of the arrest and bringing in by the
carabinieri of three chained and heavily manacled brigands, one of them
a murderer, who evidently had the sympathy of the populace. A woman,
the wife of one of the captured men, outdid any lamenting Irish woman
I ever saw: her frenzy was terrible—and of course the poor soul was
life-desolate and probably punished and would likely never see her man
again. Finally she became distracted with despair and fury, and between
her appeals and furious curses and almost maniacal lamentations, the
small station was anything but an agreeable stopping place. The captive
brigands were absolutely impassive: not a glance: only, as the small
train puffed onward, one of them lifted a manacled arm behind one of the
carabinieri and made a singular sign to some one.
[Illustration: MRS. WILLIAM SHARP
From a photograph by T. Craig-Annan, 1909]
Thereafter we passed into the wild and terrible lava-lands of the last
frightful eruption, between Randazzo and the frontier of the Duchy of
Bronte: a region as wild and fantastic as anything imagined by Doré, and
almost terrifying in its sombre deathfulness. The great and broad and
sweeping mountains, and a mighty strath—and we came under the peaked
rocks of Maletto, a little town standing 3000 feet high. Then the
carriage, and the armed escort, and we had that wonderful drive thro’
wild and beautiful lands of which I have heretofore written you. Then
about four we drove up to the gates of the Castle, and passed into the
great court just within the gates, and had the cordial and affectionate
welcome of our dear host.
A few minutes later we were no longer at an ancient castle in the wilds
of Sicily, but in a luxurious English country house at afternoon tea....
My husband had taken with him, as material for the winter’s work, his
notes for the _Greek Backgrounds_, and the finished drafts of two
dramas. One, by W. S., was to be called _Persephonæia, or the Drama of
the House of Ætna_, and of it one act and one scene had been written
at Maniace two years before. It was to have been dedicated to The Duke
of Bronte. The other drama was Fiona’s projected play _The Enchanted
Valleys_, of which one scene only was written. But he felt unable for
steady work, as the following letter to the same friend, shows:
... A single long letter means no work for me that day, and the need
of work terribly presses, and in every way, alas. My hope that I might
be able for some writing in the late afternoon, and especially from 5
to 7.30 is at present futile. I simply can’t. Yesterday I felt better
and more mentally alert than I’ve done since I came, and immediately
after afternoon tea, I came to my study and tried to work, but could
not, though I had one of my nature articles begun and beside me: nor
had I spirit to take up my reviews: then I thought I could at least get
some of that wearisome accumulated correspondence worked off, but a
mental nausea seized me, so that even a written chat to a friend seemed
to me too exhausting. C’est cette maladie poignante, ce “degoût de la
plume,” que Tourgenieff (ou Flaubert?) parlait de son cœur frappé. So I
collapsed, and dreamed over a strange and fascinating ancient-world book
by Lichtenberger, and then dreamed idly, watching the flaming oak-logs.”
In William’s Diary for December there are the following entries:
_1st. Friday._ Wrote the short poem “When greenness comes again.” Read
Zola’s wearisome “His Excellency Eugène Rougon,” and in the evening the
“Jupiter” and “Saturn” chapters in Proctor’s “Otherworlds Than Ours.”
_2d. Saty._ Read and took notes and thought out my Country Life article
on “At the Turn of the Year.” Also incidentally “The Clans of the Rush,
the Reed, and the Fern,” and one to be called “White Weather” (snow, the
wild goose and the wild swan). Alec and I walked to the Boschetto. Began
(about 1300 words) “At the Turn of the Year.”
_3rd. Sunday._ A stormy and disagreeable day. Wrote long letters.
In afternoon felt too tired and too sleepy to work or even to
write letters: so sat before the fire in my study and partly over
that fascinating book I love often to recur to for a few pages,
Lichtenberger’s _Centaures_, and partly in old dreams of my own, it
was 7.30 and time to dress before I knew it. Heard today from Ernest
Rhys about the production of his and Vincent Thomas’ Opera _Guinevere_.
Thought over an old world book to be called _Beyond the Foam_.
_Dec. 4th._ In the forenoon began again and wrote first thousand words
of “At the Turn of the Year.” At 3 went to drive with Elizabeth along
the Balzo to near the Lake of Garrida.
_Dec. 5. Tuesday._ In forenoon wrote the remaining and large half of “At
the Turn of the Year”: revised the whole of it and posted it to Mary,
with long letter.
In afternoon a drive, despite the wet and inclement weather, up to
Maletto. I walked back. A lovely, if unsettled sunset of blue and gold,
purple brown, amethyst, and delicate cinnamon. A marvellous light on the
hills. Luminous mist instead of cloud as of late. For the first time
have seen the Sicilian Highlands with the beauty of Scotland.
From 10 till 11.30 P.M. worked at notes for “White Weather” article.
_Dec. 6. Wed._ In the forenoon worked at Gaelic material partly for
articles, partly for other things. But not up to writing. There is a
sudden change to an April-like heat: damply-hot; though fine: very
trying, all feel it. After lunch walked up the north heights with Alec,
then joined E. and D. L. in carriage and drove up past Otaheite to the
Saw-Mills. Lovely air, gorgeous windy sky in the west, and superb but
thunderous clouds in S. and E. Another bad change I fear. Etna rose
gigantic as we ascended Otaheite-way, and from Serraspina looked like an
immense Phantom with a vast plume of white smoke.
In afternoon (from 5.30 till 7.30) wrote 1200 words of “White Weather.”
_Thursday. 7th._ This morning fresh and bright and clear, a welcome
change from these recent days—with the Beechwoods all frosted with snow.
The Simeto swollen to a big rushing river.
Worked at and finished the latter part of “White Weather,” and then
revised and sent off to Mary to forward with note to _Country Life_.
Also other letters. Turned out the wettest and worst afternoon we’ve had
yet, and return of severe thunderstorm.
_Dec. 8. Friday._ A fine morning but very doubtful if yet settled.
Went out and was taken by Beek to see the observatory instruments and
wind-registers and seismographs. Then took the dogs for a walk, as “off”
work today.
Wrote a long letter to Robert Hichens, also to R. L. S. Also, with
poem “When Greenness comes again” by W. S. to C. Morley _Pall Mall
Magazine_. In afternoon we had a lovely drive up above the Alcantara
Valley along the mountain road toward Cesaro.”
And here the Diary ends, and here too ends the written work of a tired
hand and brain, but of an eager outlooking spirit. Ever since we
left London it was evident that his life forces were on the ebb-tide
slowly but surely; and he knew it, but concerned himself little, and
believed he had at any rate a few months before him and possibly a
whole year. Yet he seemed to have an inner knowledge of what was to
be. In Scotland, in the summer, he told me it would be his last visit
there; that he knew it, and had said farewell to his mother. On the
afternoon when we drove up to the Saw-Mills in the oak-woods he got
out of the carriage and wandered among the trees. When I urged him to
come away, as the light was waning rapidly, he touched the trees again
and again and said, “Ah dear trees of the North, dear trees of the
North, goodbye.” The drive on the 8th, so beautiful, to him so full of
fascination, was fatal to him. We drove far along a mountain pass and
at the furthest point stopped to let him look at the superb sunset over
against the hillset town of Cesaro.
He seemed wrapt in thought and looked long and steadfastly at the
wonderful glowing light; it was with difficulty that I persuaded him
to let us return. On the way back, a sudden turn of the road brought
us in face to the snow covered cone of Ætna. The wind had changed and
blew with cutting cold straight off the snow. It struck him, chilling
him through and through. Half way back he got out of the carriage to
walk and get warm. But the harm was done. That evening, before dinner,
he said to me: “I am going to talk as much as I can tonight. That dear
fellow Alec is rather depressed. I’ve teased him a good deal today;
now I am going to amuse him.” He was as good as his word, anecdote,
reminiscence, followed one another told in the gayest of spirits, and
in saying goodnight to me our host declared, “I have never heard Will
more brilliant than he has been tonight.”
The next morning my husband complained of pain which grew rapidly more
severe. The doctor was sent for, and remained in the house.
On the morning of the 12th—a day of wild storm, wind, thunder and
rain—he recognised that nothing could avail. With characteristic
swiftness he turned his eager mind from the life that was closing to
the life of greater possibilities that he knew awaited him. About 3
o’clock, with his devoted friend Alec Hood by his side, he suddenly
leant forward with shining eyes and exclaimed in a tone of joyous
recognition, “Oh, the beautiful ‘Green Life’ again!” and the next
moment sank back in my arms with the contented sigh, “Ah, all is well.”
On the 14th, in an hour of lovely sunshine, the body was laid to rest
in a little woodland burial-ground on the hillside within sound of the
Simeto; as part of the short service, his own “Invocation to Peace,”
from _The Dominion of Dreams_, was read over the grave by the Duke of
Bronte. Later, an Iona cross, carved in lava, was placed there, and on
it this inscription, chosen by himself:
Farewell to the known and exhausted,
Welcome the unknown and illimitable
and
Love is more great than we conceive, and Death is the keeper
of unknown redemptions.
F. M.
_Now, truly, is Dreamland no longer a phantasy of sleep, but a
loveliness so great that, like deep music, there could be no words
wherewith to measure it, but only the breathless unspoken speech of the
soul upon whom has fallen the secret dews_.
F. M.
CHAPTER XXVII
CONCLUSION
“How the man subdivided his soul is the mystery,” wrote Mr. James
Douglas. And in trying to suggest an answer I would say with “F.
M.”—“I write, not because I know a mystery and would reveal it, but
because I have known a mystery, and am to-day as a child before it,
and can neither reveal nor interpret it.” For that mystery concerns
the evolution of a human soul; and the part of it for which ‘the man’
is consciously and personally responsible, is the method he used, the
fiction he created and deliberately fostered,—rightly or wrongly—for
the protection of his inner, compelling self.
This deliberate ‘blind’—which according to some critics “is William
Sharp’s most notable achievement in fiction rather than the creation of
any of ‘her’ works”—is largely the cause of the sense of confusion that
exists in the minds of certain of his friends, to whom he told the half
but not the whole of the facts. He purposely did not dispel the idea
of a collaborator, an idea which grew out of the half veiled allusions
he had made concerning the friend of whom I have written, whose vivid
personality appealed so potently to a phase of his complex nature, and
stirred his imagination as no one else had done.
In a letter to Mr. W. B. Yeats signed “Fiona Macleod,” and written in
1899, about herself and her friend (namely himself) William tried “as
far as is practicable in a strange and complex manner to be explicit.”
‘She’ stated that, “all the formative and expressional as well as
nearly all the visionary power is my friends. In a sense only his
is the passive part, but it is the allegory of the match, the wind,
and the torch. Everything is in the torch in readiness, and as you
know, there is nothing in the match itself. But there is a mysterious
latency of fire between them ... the little touch of silent igneous
potency at the end of the match—and in what these symbolise, one adds
spiritual affinity as a factor—and all at once the flame is born. The
torch says all is due to the match. The match knows the flame is not
hers. But beyond both is the wind, the spiritual air. Out of the unseen
world it fans the flame. In that mysterious air both the match and the
flame hear strange voices. The air that came at the union of both is
sometimes Art, sometimes Genius, sometimes Imagination, sometimes Life,
sometimes the Spirit. It is all.
“But before that flame people wonder and admire. Most wonder only at
the torch. A few look for the match beyond the torch, and finding her
are apt to attribute to her that which is not hers, save as a spiritual
dynamic agent. Now and then the match may have _in petto_ the qualities
of the torch—particularly memory and vision: and so can stimulate and
amplify the imaginative life of the torch. But the torch is at once
the passive, the formative, the mnemonic, and the artistically and
imaginatively creative force. He knows that in one sense he would be
flameless or at least without that ideal blend of the white and the
red—without the match: and he knows that the flame is the offspring
of both, that the wind has many airs in it, and that one of the most
potent is that which blows from the life and mind and soul of ‘the
match’—but in his heart he knows that, to all others, he and he
alone is the flame, his alone both the visionary, the formative, the
expressional.”
At the last, realising with deep regret that one or two of the friends
he cared greatly for would probably feel hurt when they should know
of the deception, he left the following note to be sent to each
immediately on the disclosure of the secret:
“This will reach you after my death. You will think I have wholly
deceived you about Fiona Macleod. But, in an intimate sense this is
not so: though (and inevitably) in certain details I have misled you.
Only, it is a mystery. I cannot explain. Perhaps you will intuitively
understand or may come to understand. “The rest is silence.” Farewell.
WILLIAM SHARP.
It is only right, however, to add that I, and I only, was the author—in
the literal and literary sense—of all written under the name of “Fiona
Macleod.”
In watching the development of the “Fiona Macleod” phase of expression
it has seemed to me that the writer, in that work, lived a new
sequent life, and passed through its successive phases of growth and
development independently of the tenor of his ordinary life as “W.
S.” He passed from the youth in _Pharais_ and _The Mountain Lovers_,
through the mature manhood of _The Barbaric Tales and Tragic Romances_
to the greater serenity of later contemplative life in _The Divine
Adventure_, _The Winged Destiny_ and _Where the Forest Murmurs_.
In surveying the dual life as a whole I have seen how, from the early
partially realised twin-ship, “W. S.” was the first to go adventuring
and find himself, while his twin, “F. M.,” remained passive, or a
separate self. When “she” awoke to active consciousness “she” became
the deeper, the more impelling, the more essential factor. By reason
of this severance, and of the acute conflict that at times resulted
therefrom, the flaming of the dual life became so fierce that
“Wilfion”—as I named the inner and third Self that lay behind that dual
expression—realised the imperativeness of gaining control over his
two separated selves and of bringing them into some kind of conscious
harmony. This was what he meant when he wrote to Mrs. Janvier in 1899,
“I am going through a new birth.”
For, though the difference between the two literary expressions was so
marked, there was, nevertheless, a special characteristic of “Wilfion”
that linked the dual nature together—the psychic quality of seership if
I may so call it. Not only did he, as F. M. “dream dreams” and “get in
touch with the ancient memory of the race” as some of ‘her’ critics
have said; but as W. S. he also saw visions by means of that seership
with which he had been dowered from childhood. And though, latterly,
he gave expression to it only under shelter of the Fiona Macleod
writings—as for instance in _The Divine Adventure_, because he was as
sensitive about it as he was to the subtler, more imaginative side of
his dual self—a few of his friends knew William Sharp as psychic and
mystic, who knew nothing of him as Fiona Macleod.
I have said little concerning my husband as a psychic; a characteristic
that is amply witnessed to in his writings. From time to time he
interested himself in definite psychic experimentation, occasionally
in collaboration with Mr. W. B. Yeats; experimentation that sometimes
resulted in such serious physical disturbance that he desisted from it
in later years.
In a lecture given by Mr. Yeats to the Aberdeen Centre of the
Franco-Scottish Society in 1907 the Irish poet referred to his friend.
He considered that “Sharp had in many ways an extraordinarily primitive
mind. He was fond of speaking of himself as the representative of the
old bards,” and the Irish poet thought there was really something in
the claim. (In a letter Mr. Yeats had expressed his opinion that my
husband was imaginative in “the old and literal sense of image-making;
not like a man of this age at all.”) He continued that W. S. was the
most extraordinary psychic he had ever encountered. He really believed
that “Fiona Macleod was a secondary personality—as distinct a secondary
personality as those one reads about in books of psychical research.
At times he (W. S.) was really to all intents and purposes a different
being.” He would “come and sit down by my fireside and talk, and I
believe that when ‘Fiona Macleod’ left the house he would have no
recollection of what he had been saying to me.”
It is true, as I have said, that William Sharp seemed a different
person when the Fiona mood was on him; but that he had no recollection
of what he said in that mood was not the case. That he did not
understand it, is true. For that mood could not be commanded at will.
Different influences awakened it, and its duration depended largely on
environment. “W. S.” could set himself deliberately to work normally,
and was, so far, master of his mind. But for the expression of the “F.
M.” self he had to wait upon mood, or seek conditions to induce it.
But, as I have said, the psychic, visionary power belonged exclusively
to neither; it influenced both, and was dictated by laws he did not
fully understand. For instance, “Lilith,” “The Whisperer,” “Finis,” by
W. S. and “The Woman with the Net,” “The Last Supper,” “The Lynn of
Dreams” by F. M., were equally the result of direct vision.
I remember from early days how he would speak of the momentary curious
“dazzle in the brain” which preceded the falling away of all material
things and preluded some inner vision of Great Beauty, or Great
Presences, or of some symbolic import—that would pass as rapidly as it
came. I have been beside him when he has been in trance and I have felt
the room throb with heightened vibration. I regret now that I never
wrote down such experiences at the time. They were not infrequent, and
formed a definite feature in our life. There are, however, two or three
dream-visions belonging to his last summer that I recollect. Two he had
noted down in brief sentences for future use. One was:
“The Lily of the World, and its dark concave, dark with excess of light
and the stars falling like slow rain.”
The other is headed “Elemental Symbolism,” “I saw Self, or Life,
symbolised all about me as a limitless, fathomless and lonely sea. I
took a handful and threw it into the grey silence of ocean air, and it
returned at once as a swift and potent flame, a red fire crested with
blown sunrise, rushing from between the lips of sky and sea to the
sound as of innumerable trumpets.”
One morning he told me that during sleep he had visited a city of
psychic mechanism. In a huge building he had seen this silent mechanism
at work; he had watched a force plunge into molten metal and produce
a shaped vessel therefrom. He could see nothing that indicated by what
power the machinery was driven. He asked his guide for explanation, and
he was led along passages to a small room with many apertures in the
walls, like speaking tubes. In the centre was a table, on a chair sat
a man with his arm on the table, his head in his hand. Pointing to him
the guide said “His thought is the motive force.”
In another dream he visited a land where there was no more war, where
all men and women were equal; where humans, birds and beasts were no
longer at enmity, or preyed on one another. And he was told that the
young men of the land had to serve two years as missionaries to those
who lived at the uttermost boundaries. “To what end?” he asked. “To
cast out fear, our last enemy.” The dream is too long to quote in its
entirety, for it spread over two nights, but one thing impressed him
greatly. In the house of his host he was struck by the beauty of a
framed painting that seemed to vibrate with rich colour. “Who painted
that?” he asked. “His host smiled, “We have long ceased to use brushes
and paints. That is a thought projected from the artist’s brain, and
its duration will be proportionate with its truth.”
Once again he saw in waking vision those Divine Forges he had sought
in childhood. On the verge of the Great Immensity that is beyond the
confines of space, he saw Great Spirits of Fire standing at flaming
anvils. And they lifted up the flames and moulded them on the anvils
into shapes and semblances of men, and the Great Spirits took these
flaming shapes and cast them forth into space, so that they should
become the souls of men.
He was, as Mrs. Mona Caird has truly said of him, “almost encumbered
by the infinity of his perceptions; by the thronging interests,
intuitions, glimpses of wonders, beauties and mysteries which made
life for him a pageant and a splendour such as is only disclosed to
the soul that has to bear the torment and the revelations of genius.
He had much to suffer, but in spite of that—perhaps partly because of
that—he was able to bring to all a great sense of sunshine and boyish
freshness, of joy in life and nature and art, and in the adventure
and romance of it all, for those who knew how to dare enough to go
to meet it with open hands. He gave ever the sense of new power, new
thresholds, new realms. His friendship was a spiritual possession.”
And though indeed, as Mr. Frank Rinder has written “there may be
those inclined to censure William Sharp for his silence about Fiona
Macleod, yet, probably, had the world known, ‘she’—for in thought it
is always that—would have written no more. May we not remember Ossian
and others who shrank from revealing to all their secret?... I can
but bear testimony to the ever-ready and eager sympathy, to the sunny
winsomeness, to the nobility of the soul that has passed. William Sharp
was one of the most lovable, one of the most remarkable men of our
time.”
And, I would add,—to quote my husband’s own words—ever, below all the
stress and failure, below all the triumph of his toil, lay the beauty
of his dream.
_To live in beauty—which is to put into four words all the dream and
spiritual effort of the soul of man._
F. M.
INDEX
Alden, H. W., 217.
Allen, Grant, 311. _See_ Letters.
Visit to, 317.
Algiers, 208 et seq.
America, Visits to, 93, 149, 273, 393.
Art-Critic, W. S. as, 79.
Articles:
_By William Sharp_, In the Days of My Youth, 10;
Through Bush and Fern, 22;
Etrurian Cities, 93;
Victor Hugo, 58;
“Marius the Epicurean”, 104;
“Underwoods”, 138;
“In Hospital”, 139;
Balzac, 16;
“American Literature”, 165;
“D’Annunzio”, 165, 325;
Philip Marston, 198;
Mæterlinck, 198;
Thomas Hardy, 199;
March of Rome in North Africa, 208;
La Jeune Belgique, 216;
Hotel of the Beautiful Star, 240;
Christina Rossetti, 240;
The Impressionist, 326;
Contemporary Italian Poetry, 343;
Through Nelson’s Dutchy, 357, 358.
_By Fiona Macleod_, A Group of Celtic Writers, 304;
Celtic, 320;
Contemporary Breton Literature, 315;
The Gael and His Heritage, 325;
On W. B. Yeats, 345.
Athens, 375, 379.
Austin, Alfred, 119, 126.
Australia, 22.
_Alywin_, 105, 302.
Bank, City of Melbourne, 27, 53.
_Barbaric Tales_, 268.
Bax, Belford, 32.
Blind, Mathilde, 51. _See_ Letters.
Bordighera, 339.
Bourget, Paul, 95, 96.
Bronte, Duke of. _See_ Hon. Alex. N. Hood, C. V. O.
Brooke, Stopford A., 75.
“Brooks, William H.” 204.
Brown, Ford Madox, 51.
_Browning_, Monograph on, 161, 162, 163.
Browning, Robert, 51, 65, 158.
Buchanan, Robert, 26.
Caine, T. Hall, 40, 41.
Caird, Mrs. Mona, 26, 38;
On Marriage, 14, 21, 162;
Visit to, 168. _See_ Letters.
Canada, 150-153.
Carman, Bliss, 151.
Celtic Movement, The, 256 et seq. 277, 304, 305.
Chapbook, “Sharp Number”, 239.
_Children of Tomorrow, The_, 135 et seq.
Chorleywood, 311.
Civil Pension List and “Fiona Macleod”, 345-348.
Clodd, Edward, 246, 247.
Corbett, Julian, 181.
Cotterell, George, 215, 273.
Cotton, James, 104.
Courtney, W. L., 318.
Craik, Mrs., Author of _John Halifax_, 41.
_Credo_, 241.
Diaries, 160;
Life of Rossetti, 64, 78;
Florence, 79-81, 90;
Rome, 1890, 82-87;
The Severn Journals, 185;
Rome and Italy, 173;
_A Fellowe and His Wife_, 186 et seq.;
_The Pagan Review_, 102 et seq.;
_Pharais_, 221;
“F. M.”, 266;
Riviera, 324;
Taormina, 1903, 356;
Maniace, 416-418.
_Divine Adventure, The_, 19, 314 et seq.
_Dominion of Dreams, The_, 304 et seq.
Douglas, Sir George, 253.
Dowden, Edward, 73, 137.
Dramas: _A Fellowe and His Wife_, 186;
_The House of Usna_, 317;
_The Immortal Hour_, 317.
_Dramatic Interludes_, 190.
_Earth’s Voices_, 76, 97.
_Ecce Puella_, 242, 248, 251, 252.
Edinburgh, Summer Meeting, 249-250.
Elder, Adelaide, 25, 35.
Elder, Alexander, 27.
Elder, John, 29.
Emerson, Poem on the Death of, 76.
_Evergreen, The_, 268.
_Fair Women in Poetry and Painting_, 252.
Félibres, Les, 327.
_Fellowe and His Wife, A,_, 170 et seq.
“Fiona Macleod.” See _Macleod_.
_Flower o’ the Vine_, 205.
_Four Winds of the Spirit, The_, 9.
_From the Hills of Dream_, 259, 272, 279 et seq.;
American Edition, 333-334.
Francillon, 51.
Garnett, L.L.D., C.B., Richard, 140, 143, 376.
Geddes, Prof. Patrick, 248-250.
Goodchild, Doctor John, 339, 381. _See_ Letters.
Gilchrist, R. Murray, 240. _See_ Letters.
Gilchrist, Mrs. _See_ Letters.
_Gipsy Christ, The_, 240, 261.
_Glasgow Herald, The_, 79, 93.
_Great Oaks_, 166.
_Green Fire_, 14, 259, 266, et seq.
Hampstead, Residence in, 139, 141, 231.
Hardy, Arthur Sherburne, 261-262.
Harland, Henry, 160.
Hardy, Thomas. _See_ Letters;
Visit to, 324.
_Heine_, Monograph on, 142-145.
Henley, W. E. _See_ Letters.
Hichens, Robert, 353. _See_ Letters.
_Highland News, The_, 257, 261.
Hinkson, Mrs. K. Tynan, 238, 257.
Holroyd, Sir Charles, 176;
etched portrait by, 179.
Hood, C. V. O., Hon. Alex. Nelson, 331, 339, 345-346, 358. _See_ Letters.
Hopekirk, Mrs. Helen, 407.
_House of Usna, The_, performance of, 310, 317-318.
Howard, Blanche Willis, 170.
Howells, W. D., 92.
_Human Inheritance, The_, 72.
_Immortal Hour, The_, 310.
Iona, 236, 237.
James, Henry, quoted. 53, 338-339.
Janvier, Mrs. C. A. _See_ Letters.
Janvier, Thomas A. _See_ Letters.
_King’s Ring, The_, 356, 357.
_Laughter of Peterkin, The_, 279 et seq.
Le Braz, Anatole, 315.
Lectures at Edinburgh, 251.
LETTERS:
From William Sharp to
Alden H. M., 369.
Caird, Mrs. Mona, 38.
Clodd, Edward, 246.
Elder, Miss A. L., 35.
Elder, John, 29.
“F. M.”, 410.
Friend, to a: Algiers, 208 et seq.;
On Style, 361;
G. Meredith, 367, 382;
_The Winged Destiny_, 382;
Glastonbury, 385;
Maniace, 413-414.
Friends, To One or Two, 422.
Gilchrist, Mrs., 372.
Gilchrist, R. Murray;
_The Pagan Review_, 205;
Personal, 234, 260, 261;
“F. M.”, 312, 316;
Stage Society, 324.
Goodchild, Dr. John, 340, 403.
Hood, C. V. O., Hon. Alex. Nelson, Civil Reunion, 346;
Julian, 348;
Adria, 354, 371;
Shan Shan Bor, 355;
Athens, 375, 379;
Neuenahr, 399.
Janvier, Mrs. C. A., 170;
Arles, 182;
On Criticism, 185;
Stuttgart, 186, 193;
_Pharais_, 224, 226;
Greek War, 283-284;
New Birth, 292; Pettycur, 300;
Ireland, 311;
Taormina, 328, 342, 349,362;
Illness, 369;
at Sea, 372;
LePuy, 379.
Janvier, Thomas A., 159, 195.
Macleay, John, 314, 325.
Maesfield, John, 403.
Macleod, Fiona, 410.
Philpott, Mrs., Henry James, 338;
Taormina, 341;
Maniace, 374-375.
Rinder, Frank, _Dominion of Dreams_, 306;
_Divine Adventures_, 315.
Robertson, Rev. Eric S., 124.
Robertson, W. J., 395-396.
Rossetti, D. G., 38, 40, 43, 55.
Rossetti, W. M., 63.
Rhys, Ernest, 339, 368, 379.
Sharp, Elizabeth A., 25, 28, 46, 54;
on Rossetti, 59, 60, 61, 62;
on Poetry, 72;
Nature, 84;
From Italy, 82, 92;
Paris, 95, 96;
America, 152 et seq. 192;
London, 1891, 192;
W. Whitman, 193;
_Pharais_, 231;
Arran, 243;
F. M., 260, 262, 263;
The Archer, 266, 268, 274;
_Green Fire_, 275;
St. Remy, 282;
W. S. & F. M., 285;
The Way Farer, 286;
Ireland, 287;
Hastings, 290;
Personal Views, 294 et seq.;
Maniace, 352;
Albania, 362;
Lismore, 396;
Neuenahr, 400;
Doorn, 402;
Stedman, E. C, 154, 166, 370, 386.
Symonds, J. Addington, 113.
Walter, Karl, Criticism, 359.
Yeats, W. B., 307.
To W. S. from
Allen, Grant, 232.
Blind, Mathilde, _Sport of Chance_, 123;
_Shelley_, 134;
_Children of_
_Tomorrow_, 147;
_Sospiri di Roma_, 184.
Brooke, Stopford A., 75.
“Brooks, W. H.”, 206.
Browning, Robert, 64.
Clodd, Edward, 246-247.
Douglas, Sir George, 253.
Dowden, Prof. Edward, 74, 136.
Garnett, Richard, 143, 376.
Hardy, Thomas, 199.
Henley, W. E., 139.
Hichens, Robert, 352, 365, 412, 413.
Hood, C. V. O., Hon. Alex. Nelson, 346.
Janvier, Thomas A., 198; On F. M., 264.
Mabie, Hamilton W., 252.
Maesfield, John, 403.
Meredith, George, Sonnets, 114;
_Shelley_, 134;
Poems, 144;
_Heine_, 143;
Personal, 150, 156;
_Sospiri di Roma_, 184;
_Pharais_, 228.
Pater, Walter, 67, 69, 73;
Motherhood, 73;
_The Human Inheritance_, 72, 99;
_Marius the Epicurean_, 104;
_Shelley_, 133.
Rinder, Frank, 126.
Rossetti, Christina, 66, 100.
Rossetti, D. G., 41, 44.
Stedman, E. C, “Victorian Poets”, 129, 131, 150, 155;
_Chapbook_, 230;
Personal, 274, 323.
Stevenson, R. L., 116, 118, 138.
Stoddard, Richard H., 273.
Story, W. W., 169.
Swinburne, A. C., 336-337.
Symonds, J. Addington, 101, 111, 119.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 66.
Vere, Aubrey de, 113.
Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 106. 114;
Aylwin, 105;
Sonnets, 114, 115;
Poems, 128, 302.
Whiteing, Richard, 214.
Wilde, Oscar, 115.
Yeats, W. B., 269, 276.
FROM “FIONA MACLEOD” TO:
Allen, Grant, 229, 230.
Bartlett, Bridgman Mrs., 383.
Black, [Kenneth], 360.
Editor Pall Mall Magazine, 356.
Gilman, Lawrence, 390.
Goodchild, Dr. John, 316, 318, 337.
Henley, W. E., 268.
Hinkson, Mrs. K. Tynan, 238.
Hopekirk, Mrs. Helen, 407.
Le Braz, Anatole, 315.
Macleay, John, 307, 314.
Meredith, George, 245.
Mosher, Thomas, 330.
Noguchi, Yoni, 409.
Rhys, Ernest, 279, 298.
Sutherland, Duchess of, 406.
Unknown Correspondent, 331, 405.
W. S., 411.
Yeats, W. B., 270, 309, 334.
TO “FIONA MACLEOD” FROM:
Allen, Grant, 228, 230, 232.
Gilman, Lawrence, 391.
Goodchild, Dr. John, 319, 385.
MacDowell, Edward, 389.
Meredith, George, 245.
Rhys, Ernest, 299, 377.
Russell, George (“A. E.”), 277.
Yeats, W. B., Irish Theatre, 280;
F. M.;
Style, 334;
F. M. & W. S., 421.
“Lilith”, 176.
Lismore, 344.
Literature, Chair of University of London, 149.
_Literary Geography_, 381.
Loeffler, Music and “F. M.”, 390.
“Lover’s Tragedy, The”, 164.
Mabie, Hamilton W., 252.
Macleay, John. _See_ Letters.
Macleod, Fiona, Foreshadowings, of, V-VII, 5, 14, 19, 27, 52-53, 70,
97, 99, 106-109, 125, 126, 135; Adoption of Pseudonym, 222 et seq.;
Attempts at Identification, 230, 258, 305.
List of books: _Pharais_, 221;
_Mountain-Lovers_, 226, 242;
_Sin-Eater_, 252, 256 et seq.;
_Washer of the Ford_, 258;
_Green Fire_, 259;
_From the Hills of Dream_, 252, 272, 279;
_Dominion of Dreams_, 305;
_Laughter of Peterkin_, 279;
_The House of Usna_, 310;
_The Immortal Hour_, 310;
_The Divine Adventure_, 314;
_Where the Forest Murmurs_, 393;
_The Winged Destiny_, 287, 322, 381.
“Fiona Macleod” and “William Sharp”, compared, 52, 53, 97-98,
by Ernest Rhys, 106 et seq.:
Pharais, 222 et seq.
Macleod, Seumas, 12, 14, 52, 316.
_Madge o’ the Pool_, 261.
Maesfield, John, 403.
Mæterlinck, 190, 198.
_Magic Kingdoms, The_, 349, 350, 357. See _Winged Destiny_.
Maniace, 339, 413. [See also Hon. Alex. N. Hood.]
Marston, Philip Bourke, 39, 41, 42, 43, 70;
death, 75-77;
poems, 94, 127.
Martineau, Doctor, 39.
Meredith, George, visits to, 145 et seq.;
_Motherhood_, 73, 367, 368. _See_ Letters.
Morley, Henry, 149.
Morris, William, 151.
_Mountain Lovers, The_, 226, 242.
Munro, Niel, 326.
Murray, D. Christie, 42.
Negro, Abbate Cesareo di, 91.
Noguchi, Yoni, 409.
Odes, English and American, Great, 166.
Omar Khayyam Club, 246;
Poem for O. K. C., 312.
Orchardson, Monograph on, 286.
_Ordeal of Basil Hope, The_, 161, 162, 165.
Ouida, 81-82, 92.
_Pagan Review, The_, 192 et seq.;
Foreword, 201.
Paget, Lady [Arthur], 82.
Patmore, Coventry, 163, 164.
Paton, Sir Noel, 36, 41.
Pater, Walter, 67, 70, 119-120. _See_ Letters.
_Pharais_, 221, et seq.
Phenice Croft, 200, 267.
Philpott, Mrs. _See_ Letters.
Poems, books of: _The Human Inheritance_, 72;
_Earth’s Voices_, 76;
_Romantic Ballads_, 135;
_Sospiri di Roma_, 173 et seq.;
From the Hills of Dream, 259.
Poems, quoted: Amid the Uplands, 19;
The Gate of Death, 27;
Two Sonnets, 32;
Sleepy Hollow, 76;
Moonrise, 97;
To E. S. Robertson, 124;
Elegaic Poemito R. Browning, 163;
In Memoriam Walt Whitman, 194;
The White Peace, 236;
Buon Riposo, 340;
Invocation, 374;
“O Wind”, 407.
Projected and unfinished Books quoted: Upland, Woodland
and Cloudland, 19;
The Ordeal of Basil Hope, 161;
Nostalgia, 216;
The Woman of Thirty, 216;
Eve and I, 216;
The Comedy of Woman, 216;
Demogorgan, 216;
The Times of Youth, 217;
The Literary Ideal, 217;
The Brotherhood of Rest, 217;
The Late Mrs. Pygmalion, 217;
Epic of Youth, 289;
The Gipsy Trail, 14, 276, 326;
Greek Backgrounds, 415;
Persephonæia, 415;
Enchanted Valleys, 415;
Province, 326.
Pseudonyms of W. S.;
H. P. Siwaarmill, 201;
W. H. Brooks, 200, 204, 205. _See_ Pagan Review;
_see_ Macleod.
Rhys, Ernest, lecture on W. S., 106, 126. _See_ Letters.
Rinder, Frank. _See_ Letters.
Roberts, Charles [G. D.], 151.
Robertson, E. S., 124, 127.
_Romantic Ballads_, 135.
Rome, 173 et seq.
Ross, Charles, 181.
Rossetti, Christina, 51, 60, 67, 100.
Rossetti, D. G., first meeting, 35, 36, 37, 43, et seq.;
death, 58 et seq. _See_ Letters.
Rossetti, Wm., 39.
Rossetti, a Record and a Study, 63 et seq.
Ruskin, John, 169.
Russell (“A. E.”), 277, 287.
Schopenhauer, quoted, 2.
Scott, Robert Bell, 51.
Severn, Life and Letters of Joseph, 158, 186, 198.
Sharp, David Galbraith, 4, 15.
Sharp, Elizabeth A. _See_ William Sharp _and_ Letters.
Sharp, Mary, “F. M.’s” Secretary, 94, 356, 396, 416, 417.
Sharp, William, Childhood, 2 et seq.;
College, 13-15;
With the Gipsies, 13;
Lawyer’s Office, 14;
Betrothed, 17;
Australia, 15, 22 et seq.;
London, 18;
City of Melbourne Bank, 27, 53;
Rossetti, 35 _et passim_;
Rossetti a Record and a Study, 63, 69-70;
_The Human Inheritance_, 72;
First Visit to Italy, 78;
Art Critic, 79 et seq.;
_Earth’s Voices_, 97;
Marriage, 97;
_Sonnets of this Century_, 104;
_Sport of Chance_, 121 et seq.;
Illness, 125;
_Shelley_, 131;
_Romantic Ballads_, 135 et seq.;
_Heine_, 143;
_Children of Tomorrow_, 146;
Canada and New York, 149 et seq.;
_Browning_, 158 et seq.;
Winter in Rome, 168;
_Sospiri di Roma_, 173:
_A Fellowe and His Wife_, 189;
Walt Whitman, 192;
Phenice Croft, 200;
_The Pagan Review_, 200 et seq.;
_Vistas_, 208;
Algiers, 208-212;
Beginning of “Fiona Macleod” Writings, 221 et seq. (see Macleod);
Return to Hampstead, 235;
The Celtic Movement, 256, et seq.;
America, 273;
_Wives in Exile_, 262;
_Silence Farm_, 292;
_Madge o’ the Pool_, 261;
_The_
_Gipsy Christ_, 261;
_Art in the XIX Century_, 312;
Ireland, 287;
Sicily, 328;
Athens, 375;
_Literary Geography_, 381, 387-389;
_America_, 393;
Sicily, 422;
Death, 418-419.
_See also_ “F. M.” and W. S., compared;
also Poems;
also Dramas;
also Projected Books.
_Shelley, Monograph on_, 131.
Sicily, 328 et seq. See also Taormina and Maniace.
_Silence Farm_, 292.
_Sin-Eater, The_, 252, 256 et seq.
_Sport of Chance, The_, 121.
_Spiritual Tales_, 268.
_Sonnets, American_, 111, 137.
_Sonnets of this Century_, 104 et seq.
_Sospiri di Roma_, 195.
Stage Society, The, 324.
Stedman, E. C. _See_ Letters.
Stevenson, R. L. _See_ Letters.
Stoddard, R. H. _See_ Letters.
Storys, The [W. W.], 82.
Swinburne, A. C., 336-337.
Symonds, T. Addington, 92, 93.
Taormina, 328.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 66.
Thompson, James, 75, 144.
_To the Pine Belt_, 18.
_Tragic Romances_, 283.
_Upland, Woodland, Cloudland_, 19-20.
Vere, Aubrey de, 114, 149.
Visions, 289, 296, 397, 423-425.
_Vistas_, 208, 228.
_Washer of the Ford, The_, 258, _et passim_.
Watts-Dunton, Theodore. _See_ Letters.
_Where the Forest Murmurs_, 27, 293.
White, Maud Valerie, 339.
Whiteing, Richard, 204. _See_ Letters.
Whitman, Walt, 2, 93.
Wilde, Oscar, 115, 116.
“Wilfion”, 285, 286, 423.
_Winged Destiny, The_, 331 et seq.
_Wives in Exile_, 292.
Yeats, W. B., criticisms, 269, 280, 307, 334, 424. _See_ Letters.
_Young Folks Paper_ (W. S. Editor of Literary Olympic), 128;
Serial Stories by W. S.: “Under the Banner of St. James”, 129;
“Secret of the Seven Fountains”, 129, 146;
“Jack Noels’ Legacy”, 129;
“The Red Riders”, 129, 208;
“The Last of the Vikings”, 208.
Zola, Emile, 96.
BOOKS BY WILLIAM SHARP
=Romantic Ballads.= (Walter Scott & Co.)
=Vistas.= (Alfred Nutt.)
=Songs and Poems.= (Elliot Stock.)
=Ecce Puella.= (Elkin Matthews.)
=Madge o’ the Pool.= (Constables.)
=Monograph on Heine.= (Walter Scott & Co.)
=Monograph on Shelley.= (Walter Scott & Co.)
=Monograph on Browning.= (Walter Scott & Co.)
=Literary Geography.= (Newnes.)
=Art in the Century.= (Messrs. W. & R. Chambers.)
=Fair Women in Painting and Poetry.= (Seeley.)
=Uniform Edition of the Writings of “Fiona Macleod.”=
(William Heinemann, London; Messrs.
Duffield & Co., New York.)
=Little Book of Nature Thoughts=. SELECTED FROM
THE WRITINGS OF “FIONA MACLEOD.” (T. N.
Foulis, London; Thomas B. Mosher, Portland,
U. S. A.)
=The Garden of Letters.= PAPERS ON MEN AND MOVEMENTS.
Arranged by Mrs. Sharp. —[_Shortly._]
IN COLLABORATION WITH MRS. WILLIAM SHARP
=Lyra Celtica.= (Patrick Geddes & Colt, Edinburgh.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Thoreau and Hawthorne.
[2] D. G. Rossetti.
[3] The essay prefaces a selection of M. A.’s poems published in the
Canterbury Series (Walter Scott).
[4] The Divine Adventure.
[5] The little daughter of our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Tomson.