WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP by ELIZABETH A. SHARP (mobi ebook reader txt) 📕
by a number of friends for twelve years—was finally made known, much
speculation arose as to the nature of the dual element that had found
expression in the collective work of William Sharp. Many suggestions,
wide of the mark, were advanced; among others, that the writer had
assumed the pseudonym as a joke, and having assumed it found himself
constrained to continue its use. A few of the critics understood. Prof.
Patrick Geddes realised that the discussion was productive of further
misunderstanding, and wrote to me: “Should you not explain that F. M.
was not simply W. S., but that W. S. in his deepest moods became F. M.,
a sort of dual personality in short, not a mere nom-de-guerre?” It was
not expedient for me at that moment to do so. I preferred to wait till
I could prepare as adequate an explanation as possible. My chief aim,
therefore, in writing about my husband and in giving a sketch of his
life, has been to indicate, to the best of my ability, the growth and
development in his work of the dual literary expression of himself.
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in deep depression; his persistent appeals to the Railway Company
were unavailing. As the autumn advanced his old enemy rheumatism took
hold of him, and he was laid low again with rheumatic fever, which
this time attacked his heart mainly. His sister Mary came up to town
and she and I nursed him. The best tonic however toward recovery was
the reappearance of the lost portmanteau with its much mourned over
contents in a soaked and sodden condition, but still legible and
serviceable.
In the Introduction to a selection of Philip Marston’s Poems my husband
relates that:
“During the spring months of 1884 I was residing at Dover, and in
April Marston came down from London to spend a week or so with me. The
weather was perfect, and our walks by shore and cliff were full of
delight to us both. Once or twice we crossed to Calais for the sake of
the sail, and spent a few hours in the old French port, and returned
by the afternoon boat. In the evenings, after dinner, we invariably
adjourned to the beach, either under the eastern bluffs, or along the
base of Shakespeare’s Cliff, for the music of the sea, in calm or tidal
turbulence or tempest, had an unfailing fascination for him.
“He took keen pleasure in learning how to distinguish the songs of the
different birds, and all spring’s sounds and scents were sources of
exquisite pleasure. How well I remember the rapt expression of puzzled
delight which animated his face, as one day we crossed some downs to
the westward of Folkestone. ‘Oh, what is that?’ he cried eagerly; and
to my surprise I found that what had so excited him was the crying of
the young lambs as they stumbled or frisked about their mothers. He had
so seldom been out of London in early spring that so common an incident
as this had all the charm of newness to him.
“A frisky youngster was eagerly enticed alongside, and the blind poet’s
almost childlike happiness in playing with the woolly little creature
was something delightful to witness. A little later I espied one which
had only been a few hours in the world, and speedily placed it in
his arms. He would fain have carried it away with him: in his tender
solicitude for it he was like a mother over her first-born.
“As we turned to walk homeward we met a boy holding a young starling
in his hand. Its feeble strident cries, its funny little beak closing
upon his finger under the impression it was a gigantic worm, delighted
him almost as much as the lambkin. ‘A day of days!’ was his expressive
commentary, as tired and hungry we reached home and sat down to dinner,
with the deep boom of the sea clearly audible through the open window.”
From Dover W. S. went to Paris for the first time in his capacity as
Art Critic, and thoroughly enjoyed himself as this letter to me shows:
PARIS, 10th April, 1884.
What remains of me after to-day’s heat now writes to you. This morning
I spent half an hour or so in M. Bourget’s study—and was flattered
to find a well-read copy of my _Rossetti_ there. He had a delightful
library of books, and, for a Frenchman, quite a respectable number by
English writers: amongst other things, I was most interested in seeing
a shelf of about 30 volumes with letters or inscriptions inside from
the corresponding contemporary critics, philosophists, etc. M. Bourget
is fortunate in his friends.
I then went to breakfast with him at a famous Café, frequented chiefly
by _hommes de lettres_. At our table we were soon joined by Hennequin
and two others. After breakfast (a most serious matter!) I adjourned
with Bourget to his club, La Société Historique, Cercle St. Simon, and
while there was introduced to one or two people, and made an honorary
member with full privileges. I daresay Bourget’s name is better known
to you as a poet, but generally his name is more familiar as the author
of “Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine”—an admirable series of studies
on the works and genius of Baudelaire, Renan, Gustave Flaubert, Taine,
and Stendhal. He very kindly gave me a copy (which I am glad to have
from him, though I knew the book already) and in it he wrote
À William Sharp
de son confrère
Paul Bourget.
After leaving him I recrossed the Champs Elysées—perspired so freely
that the Seine perceptibly rose—sank exhausted on a seat at the Café de
la Paix—dwelt in ecstasy while absorbing a _glace aux pistaches_—then
went back to the Grand Hotel—and to my room, where after a bit I set to
and finished my concluding Grosvenor Gallery Notice.
On Sunday, if I can manage it, I will go to Mdme. Blavatsky.
On Monday Bourget comes here for me at twelve, and we breakfast
together (he with me this time)—and I then go to M. Lucien Mariex, who
is to take and introduce me to M. Muntz, the writer of the best of the
many books on Raphael and an influential person in the Bibliothèque
Nationale. Somebody else is to take me to look at some of the private
treasures in the École des Beaux Arts. In the course of the week I
am to see Alphonse Daudet, and Bourget is going to introduce me to
Émile Zola. As early as practicable I hope to get to Neuilly to see M.
Milsand, but don’t know when. If practicable I am also to meet François
Coppée (the chief living French poet after Victor Hugo)—also M. M.
Richepin, F. Mistral (author of _Miréio_), and one or two others.
Amongst artists I am looking forward to meeting Bouguereau, Cormin,
Puvis de Chavannes, and Jules Breton. As much as any one else, I look
forward to making the acquaintance of Guizot to whose house I am going
shortly with M. Bourget. There is really a delightful fraternity here
amongst the literary and artistic world. And every one seems to want to
do something for me, and I feel as much flattered as I am pleased. Of
course my introductions have paved the way, and, besides, Bourget has
said a great deal about me as a writer—too much, I know.”
* * * * *
The two important events of 1884 were the publication of a second
volume of Poems, and our marriage.
In June _Earth’s Voices_ (Elliot Stock) was issued and was well
received at home and in America. In an article on William Sharp and
Fiona Macleod written for _The Century_ in 1906 Mr. Ernest Rhys wrote
of this volume:
“There was an impassioned delight in nature—in nature at large, that
is—in her seas and skies, or in her scenery subjectively coloured by
lyric emotion to be found in these early books.
“Perhaps one of his Northern poems may best serve to illustrate his
faculty; and there is one that is particularly to the purpose, since it
sketches ‘Moonrise’ from the very spot—Iona—with which so many of the
‘Fiona’ tales and fantasies were to be connected afterward.
Here where in dim forgotten days,
A savage people chanted lays
To long since perished gods, I stand:
The sea breaks in, runs up the sand,
Retreats as with a long-drawn sigh,
Sweeps in again, again leaves dry
The ancient beach, so old and yet
So new that as the strong tides fret
The island barriers in their flow
The ebb hours of each day can know
A surface change. The day is dead,
The Sun is set, and overhead
The white north stars set keen and bright;
The wind upon the sea is light
And just enough to stir the deep
With phosphorescent gleams and sweep
The spray from salt waves as they rise.
“Sharp’s early work is more like that of a lyric improvisator than of a
critical modern poet. At this period he cared more for the free colours
of verse than for exact felicity of phrase. His writings betrayed a
constant quest after those hardly realisable regions of thought, and
those keener lyric emotions, which, since Shelley wrote and Rossetti
wrote and painted, have so often occupied the interpreters of the
vision and spectacle of nature.
“One may find this variously attempted or half expressed in several
of the poems of his second book. In one called ‘A Record’ (to which a
special inscription drew attention in the copy he sent me), he treats
very fancifully the mystery of transmigration. He pictures himself
sitting in his room, and there he resumes the lives, and states of
being, of many savage types of man and beast viewed in passion and
action—the tiger, the eagle, and the primitive man who lighted the fire
that consumed the dry scrub and his fellow-tribesmen:
He looks around to see some god,
And far upon the fire-scorched sod
He sees his brown-burnt tribesmen lie,
And thinks their voices fill the sky,
And dreads some unseen sudden blow—
And even as I watch him, lo,
My savage-self I seem to know.
“Or again he reincarnates the Druid:
And dreaming so I dream my dream:
I see a flood of moonlight gleam
Between vast ancient oaks, and round
A rough-hewn altar on the ground
Weird Druid priests are gathered
While through their midst a man is led
With face that seems already dead.
“And again the type is changed into a Shelleyan recluse, a hermit who
had had retreated to his cave, and that hermit
Was even that soul mine eyes have traced
Through brute and savage steadily,
That he even now is part of me
Just as a wave is of the sea.
“If there are traces of Shelley in this poem, Rossetti and Swinburne
have also their echo in some of its rhapsodic, highly figurative
stanzas. There are unmistakable germs in it, too, of some of the
supernatural ideas that afterward received a much more vital expression
in ‘Fiona Macleod’s’ work.”
The volume was dedicated to his friend Walter Pater and from him and
other writers and friends he received many interesting letters, and
from them I select the following:
2 BRADMORE ROAD, May 28th.
MY DEAR SHARP,
I was just thinking of sending off my long-delayed acknowledgment
of your charming volume, with its friendly dedication (which I take
as a great compliment, and sincerely thank you for) when your post
card arrived. These new poems must, I feel sure, add much to your
poetic reputation. I have just finished my first reading of them; but
feel that I shall have to go back many times to appreciate all their
complex harmonies of sense and rhythm. On a first superficial reading,
I incline to think that the marks of power cluster most about the
poem of _Sospitra_. Also, I prefer the _Transcripts from Nature_, to
the various poems included in _Earth’s Voices_, admirable as I think
many of the latter to be, e. g., The Song of the Flowers, The Field
Mouse, The Song of the Thrush, The Cry of the Tiger, The Chant of the
Lion, The Hymn of the Autumn. This looks shamefully matter-of-fact.
But then, you asked me to tell you precisely which I preferred. _The
Shadowed Souls_, among the short pieces, I find very beautiful. The
whole volume seems to me distinguishable among latter-day poetry for
its cheerfulness and animation, and of course the Australian pieces are
delightfully novel and fresh. Many thanks, again, from
Yours very sincerely,
WALTER H. PATER.
In an article on Christina Rossetti, William Sharp relates:
“In the beginning of May, 1884, I called to see Miss Rossetti and to
leave with her a copy of a just-published volume of verse, but failed
to find her at home. The poem I cared most for was the epilogue,
_Madonna Natura_, but instinct told me Miss Rossetti would neither like
nor approve so pagan an utterance, and the surmise was correct:
30 TORRINGTON SQUARE, W. C.,
May 3, 1884.
DEAR MR. SHARP,
I might say “Why do you call just when we are out?” only that you might
retort “Why are you out just when I call?”
Thank you very much for your new volume and yet more for the kindness
which enriches the gift. Be sure my Mother and I retain you in friendly
remembrance.
An imperfect acquaintance with your text inclines me for the present to
prefer “the Thames” amongst rivers, and the “West” among winds, and the
“Thrush” among song-birds. So also “Deserts” to “Cornfields.”
Of course all the pieces which memorialise our dear Gabriel interest us.
And “Ah Sin” I like and sympathise with: and I fear it is only too
lifelike. Shall I or shall I not say anything about “Madre Natura”? I
dare say without my taking the liberty of expressing myself you can (if
you think it worth while) put my regret into words.
Very truly yours,
CHRISTINA G.
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