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

an arrangement which made it possible for that particular Colleague

to publish three of his “F. M.” books under his immediate supervision

and from what was then one of the centres of the Celtic movement.

This post, naturally, necessitated frequent visits to Edinburgh. For

the month of August 1895 we took a flat in the neighbourhood of the

University settlement so that we might share actively in the Summer

Session.

It was an interesting experience. The students came from England,

Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany; among the lecturers in addition

to Professors Geddes and Arthur Thomson were Elisée Réclus the

geographer and his brother Elie Réclus, Edmond Demolins and Abbé Klein.

work led him to plan them as though he were drafting out twelve books,

with far more material than he could possibly use in the time at his

disposal. His subject was “Art and Life” divided into ten lectures:

  III. The Return to Nature: In Art, in Literature. The

  Literary Outlook in England & America.

  The Ancient Celtic Writers.

  School of Celtic Ornament.

  not. The Critical Ideal.

  VII. Ernest Hello.

  VIII. The Drama of Life, and Dramatists.

  Ideal.

One lecture only was delivered; for during it he was seized with a

severe heart attack and all his notes fell to the ground. It was with

the greatest effort that he was able to bring the lecture to a close:

and he realised that he must not attempt to continue the course; the

risk was too great. Therefore, while I remained in Edinburgh to keep

open house for the entertainment of the students, he went to the little

Pettycur Inn at Kinghorn, on the north side of The Firth of Forth, till

I was able to join him at Tighnabruaich in the Kyles of Bute where we

had taken a cottage with his mother and sisters for September.

Two volumes of short stories were published in the late Autumn. It

was the writer’s great desire that work should be issued by W. S.

and by F. M. about the same time; in part to sustain what reputation

belonged to his older Literary self, and in part to help to preserve

the younger literary self’s incognito. _Ecce Puella_ published by Mr.

Elkin Matthew for W. S. was a collection of stories &c. that had

been written at different times and issued in various magazines, and

prefaced by a revised and shortened version of the Monograph on “Fair

Women in Painting and Poetry.” It contained among other short stories

one entitled “The Sister of Compassion,” dedicated “to that Sister

of compassion for all suffering animals, Mrs. Mona Caird,” our dear

friend. The other volume contained the first series of barbaric tales

and myths of old Celtic days, “recaptured in dreams,” that followed in

quick succession from the pen of Fiona Macleod. _The Sin-Eater_ was

the first of the three F. M. books published by the new Scoto-Celtic

publishers. The Author was gratified by favourable reviews from

important journals, and by letters, from which I select two.

The first is from Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie:

  THE OUTLOOK,

  13 ASTOR PLACE,

  May 23d, 1897.

  MY DEAR FRIEND,

 _The Sin-Eater_ came in holiday week and was one of my most welcome

 remembrances. I have read it with deep pleasure, almost with envy; so

 full is it of the stuff which makes literature. It has the vitality and

 beauty of a rich and living imagination. The secrets of the spirit are

 in it, and that fellowship with the profounder experiences which gets

 at the heart of a race. I have not forgotten your kind words about my

 own work; words which gave me new heart and hope. For you are the very

 type of man to whose mind I should like to appeal. The judgment of Mrs.

 Sharp, which you quote, gave me sincere pleasure. To get the attention

 of the few for whose opinion one cares most is a piece of great good

 fortune; to really find one’s way to their hearts is best of all. I

 am looking forward to a good long talk with you. I wish you were here

 today. This is a divine May; balmy, fragrant, fresh; as if it had never

 been here before. There is enough _soul_ in Miss Macleod’s stories to

 set up a generation of average novelists. The work of the real writer

 seems to me a miracle; something from the sources of our life. I have

 found, however, so few among all my good literary friends who feel about

 literature as I do that I have felt at times as if I had no power of

 putting into words what lies in my heart. This does not mean that I have

 missed appreciation; on the contrary, I have had more than I deserve.

 But most of the younger men here regard literature so exclusively as

 a craft and so little as a revelation that I have often missed the

 kind of fellowship which you gave me. The deeper feeling is, however,

 coming back to us in the work of some of the newest men—Bliss Carman for

 instance. There is below such a book as “Vistas” a depth and richness of

 imagination which have rarely been disclosed here. I hope you will find

 time to send me an occasional letter. You will do me a real service. I

 am now at work on a book which I hope will be deeper and stronger than

 anything I have done yet. There is the stir of a new life here, although

 it may be long in getting itself adequately expressed.

  Yours fraternally,

  HAMILTON W. MABIE.

The second is from Sir George Douglas, poet, scholar, and keen critic:

  SPRINGWOOD PARK, KELSO,

  23:12:95.

  MY DEAR SHARP,

 Many thanks for your interesting letter and enclosures. I am very glad

 to find that you think I have understood Miss Macleod’s work, and I

 think it very good of her to have taken my out-spoken criticisms in

 such good part. Certainly if she thinks I can be of any use to her

 in reading over the proofs of “The Washer of the Ford,” it will be a

 great pleasure to me. I shall probably be in Italy by the time she

 names—the end of Feb. but in these days of swift posts I hope that need

 not matter. What you tell me of Fiona’s admirer is very interesting,

 and from my recollection of the way in which books and the fancied

 personality of their authors possessed my mind when I was a youth, I can

 well enter into his infatuation. Fortunately there were no women among

 my “influences,” or I might have been in as bad a case as he! Would not

 this be a case for telling the secret, under pledges of course, if it

 were only to prevent mischief? By the way the whole incident seems to me

 to afford excellent material for literary treatment—not by you perhaps,

 nor yet by me (for the literary element in the material puts it outside

 your province, and makes it not quite the theme I like for my own use

 either) but say, for W.

  Yours ever sincerely,

  GEORGE DOUGLAS.

I do not quite agree with you as to the inception of Miss Macleod,

and possibly this is a matter in which you are not the best possible

judge. At any rate, without going into the matter, I fancy that I could

establish the existence in works earlier than the Poems of Phantasy of

a certain mystical tendency, (German perhaps rather than Celtic in its

colouring at that time) but none the less akin to the mysticisms of F.

M.

But I may be mistaken....

       *       *       *       *       *

Our friend, Sir George Douglas, had followed the literary career of

William Sharp with careful interest, and gave the same heed to the

writings of “Fiona Macleod.” After perusal of _The Sin-Eater_ he made

a careful study of the two methods of work, and wrote to the author to

tell him he was finally convinced from internal evidence that William

Sharp was the author of these books under discussion. He did not

ask for confirmation but wished the author to know his conclusions.

The latter, who valued not only the friendship but the critical

appreciation of his correspondent, made no denial, but begged that the

secret might be guarded. In Sir George Douglas’ answer is a reference

to a curious incident which had happened while we were at Rudgwick.

A letter came from an unknown correspondence containing a proposal

of marriage to Fiona Macleod. Whether it was intended as a “draw” or

not we could not decide. The proposal was apparently written in all

seriousness. Similarities of taste, details of position, profession

etc., were carefully given. Acceptance was urged with all appearance of

seriousness; therefore the refusal was worded with gravity befitting

the occasion.

Owing to the publication of _The Sin-Eater_ by a firm identified with

the Scoto-Celtic movement the book attracted immediate attention. Dr.

Douglas Hyde voiced the Irish feeling when he wrote to my husband:

“I think Fiona Macleod’s books the most interesting thing in the new

Scoto-Celtic movement, which I hope will march side by side with our

own.” This movement was according to William Sharp “fundamentally

the outcome of Ossian, and immediately of the rising of the sap in

the Irish nation.” Following on the incentive given by such scholars

as Windische, Whitly Stokes, Kuno Meyer, and the various Folklore

societies, a Gaelic League had been formed by enthusiasts in Ireland,

and in Scotland, for the preservation and teaching of the old Celtic

tongue; for the study of the old literatures of which priceless

treasures lay untouched in both countries, and for the encouragement

of natural racial talent. Wales had succeeded in recovering the use of

her Cymric tongue; and the expression in music of racial sentiment had

become widespread throughout that country. Ireland and the Highlands

looked forward to attaining to a similar result; and efforts to

that end were set agoing in schools, in classes, by means of such

organisations as the Irish Feis Ceoil Committee, the Irish Literary

Society and the Irish National Theatre. Their aim was to preserve some

utterance of the national life, to mould some new kind of romance, some

new element of thought, out of Irish life and traditions. Among the

most eager workers were Dr. Douglas Hyde, Mr. W. B. Yeats, Mr. Standish

O’Grady, Mr. George Russell (A.E.), Dr. George Sigerson, and Lady

Gregory.

In Scotland much valuable work had been done by such men as Campbell

of Islay, Cameron of Brodick, Mr. Alexander Carmichael; by the Gaelic

League and the Highland Mod and its yearly gatherings. There were

writers and poets also who used the old language and were consequently

known within only a small area. No conspicuous modern Celtic work had

hitherto been written in the English tongue until the appearance of the

writings of Fiona Macleod, and later of Mr. Neil Munro. _The Sin-Eater_

was therefore warmly welcomed on both sides of the Irish Channel, and

Fiona Macleod, acclaimed as the leading representative of the Highland

Gael, “our one and only Highland novelist.” _The Irish Independent_

pronounced her to be “the poet born,” “her work is pure romance—and she

strikes a strange note in modern literature, but it has the spirit of

the Celt, and is another triumph for the Celtic genius.”

In consequence of this reception, and of a special article in _The

Bookman_, speculations began to be made concerning the unknown and

unseen authoress. _The Highland News_ in pursuance of its desire to

awake in the Highlands of Scotland an active sympathy with the growing

Scoto-Celtic movement, was anxious to give some details concerning the

new writer. To that end Mr. John Macleay wrote to William Sharp to ask

if “considering