WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP by ELIZABETH A. SHARP (mobi ebook reader txt) 📕

me which may be of good service—one to Lady Paget, wife of the British

Ambassador, one to the Storys, and one to Tilton, the sculptor....

Yesterday I perhaps enjoyed more than I have done since I came to

Italy. In the morning Arthur Lemon, the artist, called for me, and

being joined by two others (Lomax, an artist, and his brother) we had a

boat carried over the weir and we got into it at the Cascine and rowed

down stream past the junction of the Mugnone and Arno, till Florence

and Fiesole were shut from view, and the hills all round took on extra

beauty—Monte Beni on the right and Monte Morello on the left glowing

with a haze of heat, and beyond all, the steeps of Vallombrosa in

white—and Carrara’s crags also snow-covered behind us. We passed the

quaint old church and village of San Stefano and swung in-shore to get

some wine....

We rowed on and in due course came in sight of Signa. We put on a

spurt (the four of us were rowing) and as we swept at a swift rate

below the old bridge it seemed as if half the population came out to

see the unusual sight of _gentili signorini_ exerting themselves so

madly when they might be doing nothing. We got out and said farewell

to the picturesque-looking fellow who had steered us down—had some

breakfast at a Trattoria, where we had small fish half-raw and steeped

in oil (but not at all bad)—kid’s flesh, and delicious sheep’s-milk

cheese, bread, and light, red, Chianti wine. We then spent some two

or three hours roaming about Signa, which is a beautifully situated

dreamy sleepy old place—with beautiful “bits” for artists every here

and there—old walls with lizards basking on them in numbers—and lovely

views.

We came back by Lastia, a fine ancient walled town, and arrived in

Florence by open tramcar in the evening, finally I had a delicious

cold bath. The whole day was heavenly. If the river has not sunk too

low when I return from Rome, Arthur Lemon and some other artists and

myself are going on a sketching trip down the Arno amongst the old

villages—the length of Pisa—taking about two days.”

  ROME.

“ ... It is too soon to give you my impressions of Rome, but I may say

that they partly savour of disappointment.... Of one thing however,

I have already seen enough to convince me—and that is that Rome is

not for a moment to be compared to Florence in beauty—neither in its

environs, its situation, its streets, nor its rivers. Its palaces

may be grander, the interiors of its churches more magnificent, its

treasures of art more wonderful, but in beauty it is as far short as

London is of Edinburgh. But it has one great loveliness which can never

tire and which charms immeasurably—the fountains which continually and

every here and there splash all day and night in the sunlight or in

green grottoes in the courts of villas and palaces. I am certain that I

should _hate_ to live here—I believe it would kill me—for Rome is too

old to be alive—unless indeed a new Rome entirely overshadows the past.

I don’t suppose you will quite understand, and I cannot explain just

now—but so I feel. Florence (after the cold has gone) is divine—air,

atmosphere, situation, memory of the past, a still virile present—but

Rome is an anomaly, for what is predominant here is that evil mediæval

Rome whose eyes were blind with blood and lust and hate. Ancient Rome

is magnificent—but so little remains of it that one can no more

live in it than in Karnak or Thebes: as for modern Rome, everything

seems out of keeping—so that one has either to weary with the dull

Metropolitanism of the capital of Italy or else to enter into the life

of the mediæval ages....

I expect and believe that I shall find Rome beautiful in many things,

even as she is already majestic and wonderful—and that the more one

becomes acquainted with the Eternal City the more one loves or at least

reverences and delights in it.

Meanwhile, however, with me, it is more a sense of oppression that I

experience—a feeling as if life would become intolerable unless all

sense of the past were put away. I hate death, and all that puts one

in mind of death—and after all Rome is only a gigantic and richly

ornamented tomb....

How I hate large cities! Even Florence is almost too large, but there

at least one can always escape into open space and air and light and

freedom at will—and the mountains are close, and the country round on

all sides is fair, and the river is beautiful. Do not be provoked with

me when I say that Signa, for instance, is more beautiful to me than

Rome—and that the flashing of sunlight in the waters of the fountains,

the green of Spring in the flowered fields and amongst the trees, and

the songs of birds and the little happy-eyed children, mean infinitely

more to me than the grandest sculptures, the noblest frescoes,

the finest paintings. This is my drawback I am afraid, and not my

praise—for where such hundreds are intensely interested I am often but

slightly so. Again and again when I find myself wearied to death with

sight-seeing I call to mind some loch with the glory of morning on it,

some mountain-side flecked with trailing clouds and thrilling me with

the bleating of distant sheep, the cries of the cliff hawks, and the

wavering echoes of waterfalls: or, if the mood, I recall some happy and

indolent forenoon in the Cascine or Monte Oliveto or in the country

paths leading from Bellosguardo, where I watched the shadows playing

amongst the olives and the dear little green and grey lizards running

endlessly hither and thither—and thinking of these or such as these

I grow comforted. And often when walking in the Cascine by myself at

sunset I have heard a thrush or blackbird call to its mate through the

gloom of the trees, or when looking toward Morello and the Appenine

chain and seeing them aglow with wonderful softness, or, on the Arno’s

banks I have seen the river washing in silver ripples and rosy light

to the distant crags of Carrara where the sun sank above the Pisan

sea—often at such times my thrill of passionate and sometimes painful

delight is followed by the irrepressible conviction that such things

are to me more beautiful, more worthy of worship, more full of meaning,

more significant of life, more excelling in all manner of loveliness,

than all the treasures of the Uffizi and the Pitti, the Vatican and the

Louvre put together. But whenever I have expressed such a conviction I

have been told that the works of man are after all nobler, in the truer

sense lovelier, and more spiritually refreshing and helpful—and though

I do not find them so, I must believe that to most people such is the

case, perhaps to the infinite majority.

And, after all, why am I to be considered inferior to my fellows

because I love passionately in her every manifestation the mother who

has borne us all, and to whom much that is noblest in art is due!...

Yet I would not be otherwise after all. I know some things which few

know, some secrets of beauty in cloud, and sea and earth—have an inner

communion with all that meets my eyes in what we call nature, and am

rich with a wealth which I would not part with for all the palaces in

Rome. Do you understand me, Lill, in this?... Poor dear! I had meant

to have told her all about my visit to Orvieto (alone worth coming to

Italy for—if only to behold the magnificent Cathedral) but instead I

have only relieved my mind in a kind of grumbling....

What fascinates me most in Rome is the sculpture. Well as I knew all

the famous statues, from copies and casts, some of them were almost

like new revelations—especially the Faun of Praxiteles, of which I had

never seen a really good copy. Can’t say, however, I felt enthusiastic

about the Capitoline Venus.”

  ROME, 16th April, 1883.

“ ... I have just come in from the Campagna where I have spent some of

the happiest hours I have yet had in Rome. I went for some three miles

across the glorious open reaches of tall grass, literally dense with

myriads of flowers—not a vestige of a house to be seen, not a hint

of Rome, nothing but miles upon miles of rolling grassy slopes till

they broke like a green sea against the blue-purple hills, which were

inexpressibly beautiful with their cloud-shadows athwart their sides

and the lingering snows upon their heights. There was not a sound to

be heard save those dear sounds of solitary places, the endless hum of

insects, the cries of birds, the songs of many larks, the scream of an

occasional hawk, the splash of a stream that will soon be dried up, and

the exquisite, delicious, heavenly music of the wind upon the grass and

in the infrequent trees.... And a good fairy watched over me to-day,

for I was peculiarly fortunate in seeing one or two picturesque things

I might have missed. First, as I was listening to what a dear spark

of a lintie was whistling to its mate, I heard a dull heavy trampling

sound, and on going to a neighbouring rise I saw two wild bulls

fighting. I never realised before the immense weight and strength these

animals have. Soon after, a herd of them came over the slope, their

huge horns tossing in the sunlight and often goring at each other. I

was just beginning to fancy that I had seen my last of Rome (for I had

been warned against these wild cattle especially at this season) when

some picturesquely-attired horsemen on shaggy little steeds came up at

full speed, and with dogs and long spears or poles and frantic cries

urged the already half furious, half terrified animals forward. It

was delightful to witness, and if I were a painter I would be glad to

paint such a scene. I then went across a brook and up some slopes (half

buried in flowers and grasses) till I came to a few blackthorn trees

and an old stone-pine, and from there I had a divine view. The heat

was very great, but I lay in a pleasant dreamy state with my umbrella

stuck tentwise, and I there began the first chapter of the novel I told

you before I left that I intended writing. I had been thinking over

it often, and so at last began it: and certainly few romances have

been begun in lovelier places. Suddenly, through one eye, as it were,

I caught sight of a broad moving shadow on the slope beyond me, and

looking up I was electrified with delight to see a large eagle shining

gold-bronze in the sun. I had no idea (though I knew they preyed on the

lambs, etc., further on the Campagna and in the Maremma) that they ever

came so near the haunts of men. It gave one loud harsh scream, a swoop

of its broad wings, and then sailed away out of sight into the blue

haze beyond the farthest reaches I could see. Away to the right I saw a

ruined arch, formerly some triumphal record no doubt, and near it was a

shepherd, clad in skins, tending his goats. No other human sign—oh, it

was delicious and has made me in love with the very name of Rome. Such

swarms of lizards there were, and so tame, especially the green ones,

which knew I wouldn’t hurt them and so ran on to my hands. The funniest

fly too I ever saw buzzed up, and sat on a spray of blackthorn blossom

and looked at me: I burst out laughing at it, and it really seemed to

look reproachfully at me—and for a moment I felt sorry at being so

rude. I could have lain there all day, so delicious was the silence

save for these natural sounds—and all these dear little birds and

insects. What surprised me so much about the flowers was not only their

immense quantity, but also their astounding variety. At last I had to

leave, as it is not safe to lie long on the Campagna if one is tired

or hungry. So I strolled along through the deep grasses and over slope

after slope till at last I saw the clump of stone pines which were my

landmark, and then I soon joined the road....”

  SIENA, 30th April, 1883.

“You will see by the above address that I have arrived in this

beautiful old city.

I left Rome and arrived in Perugia on Thursday last—spending the rest

of