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

of the Ford_ awaiting us. Two out of many letters concerning the book

that came to him from friends who were in the secret and watched the

development of the “F. M.” work, were a strong incentive to further

effort.

The first is from Mr. Frank Rinder:

 MY DEAR WILL,

 From my heart I thank you for the gift of this book. It adds to the sum

 of the precious, heaven-sent things in life. It will kindle the fire of

 hope, of aspiration and of high resolve in a thousand hearts. As one of

 those into whose life you have brought a more poignant craving for what

 is beautiful in word and action, I thank you for writing it.

  Your friend,

  FRANK.

The second was from Mr. Janvier:

  SAINT REMY DE PROVENCE,

  June 22, 1896.

  MY DEAR WILL,

 If _The Washer of the Ford_ were the first of Fiona’s books I am

 confident that the sex of its author would not pass unchallenged. A

 great part of it is essentially masculine—all the “Seanachas,” and

 “The Annir Choille,” and the opening of “The Washer”: not impossible

 for a woman to write, but unlikely. Nor would a woman have written

 “The Annir Choille,” I think, as it is written here. Fiona has shown

 her double sex in this story more completely, it seems to me, than in

 any other. It is written with a man’s sense of decency and a woman’s

 sense of delicacy—and the love of both man and woman is in it to a

 very extraordinary degree. The fighting stories seem to me to be pure

 man—though I suppose that there are Highland women (like Scott’s

 “Highland Widow”) capable of their stern savagery. But on these alone,

 Fiona’s sex scarcely could have been accepted unchallenged. But what

 seems to me to show plainest, in all the stories together, is not the

 trifle that they are by a man or by a woman but that they have come

 out of your inspired soul. They seem to be the result of some outside

 force constraining you to write them. And with their freshness they

 have a curious primordial flavour—that comes, I suppose, from the deep

 roots and full essences of life which are their substance of soul. Being

 basic, elementary, they are independent of time; or even race. In a

 literary—technically literary—way they seem to me to be quite your most

 perfect work. I am sensitive to word arrangement, and some of your work

 has made me rather disposed to swear at you for carelessness. You have

 not always taken the trouble to hunt for the word that you needed. But

 these stories are as nearly perfect in finish, I think, as literary

 endeavour can make them. And they have that effect of flow and ease that

 can only come—at least, I can imagine it only as arriving—from the most

 persistent and laborious care. In the detail of make-up, I am especially

 impressed by the insertion of the Shadow Seers just where the key is

 changed radically. They are at once your justifying pieces for what has

 gone before, and an orchestral interlude before the wholly different

 Seanachas begin. Of all in the book, my strongest affection is for “The

 Last Supper.” It seems to me to be the most purely beautiful, and the

 profoundest thing that you have done.

 I feel that some strong new current must have come into your life; or

 that the normal current has been in some way obstructed or diverted—for

 the animating spirit of these new books reflects a radical change

 in your own soul. The Pagan element is entirely subordinated to and

 controlled by the inner passions of the soul. In a word you have lifted

 your work from the flesh-level to the soul-level....

 What you say in your letter of worry and ill-health saddens me. It is

 unjust that your rare power of creation should be hampered in any way.

 But it seems to me that there must be great consolation in your certain

 knowledge that you have greatly created, in spite of all.

  Always affectionately yours,

_Green Fire_

During the most active years of the Fiona Macleod writings, the author

was usually in a highly wrought condition of mental and emotional

tension, which produced great restlessness, so that he could not long

remain contentedly anywhere. We spent the summer of 1896 moving about

from one place to another that had special interest for him. First we

went to Bamborough, for sea-bathing (he was a fine swimmer), and to

visit the little Holy Isle of the Eastern Shores, Lindisfarne, Iona’s

daughter. Thence to the Clyde to be near his mother and sisters. From

Inverness we went to the Falls of Lora, in Ossian’s country, and later

we moved to one of William’s favourite haunts, Loch Tarbert, off Loch

Fyne, where our friends Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rinder had taken a house

for the summer. There I left him with his secretary-sister, Mary, and

returned to London to recommence my work on _The Glasgow Herald_. The

two following letters to me told of the progress of his work:

  September 23d.

 I am now well in writing trim I am glad to say. Two days ago I wrote

 the long-awaited “Rune of the Passion of Woman” the companion piece in

 a sense to the ‘Chant of Woman’ in _Pharais_—and have also done the

 _Savoy_ story “The Archer” (about 4,500 words) and all but done “Ahez

 the Pale.” Today I hope to get on with the “Lily Leven.” ...

 I must make the most of this day of storm for writing. I had a splendid

 long sleep last night, and feel ‘spiff.’ ... I am not built for mixed

 companies, and like them less and less in proportion as the imperative

 need of F. M. and W. S. for greater isolation grows. I realise more and

 more the literal truth of what George Meredith told me—that renunciation

 of ordinary social pleasures (namely of the ordinary kind in the

 ordinary way) is a necessity to any worker on the high levels: and

 unless I work that way I shall not work at all.

  26th Sept.

 ... Yesterday turned out a splendid breezy day, despite its bad opening:

 one of the most beautiful we have had, altho’ too cold for bathing, and

 too rough for boating. I went off by myself for a long sail—and got

 back about 4. Later I went alone for an hour or so to revise what had

 stirred me so unspeakably, namely the third and concluding “Rune of the

 Sorrow of Women.” This last Rune tired me in preliminary excitement and

 in the strange semi-conscious fever of composition more than anything of

 the kind since I wrote the first of the three in _Pharais_ one night of

 storm when I was alone in Phenice Croft.

 I have given it to Mary to copy, so that I can send it to you at once.

 Tell me what you think and feel about it. In a vague way not only

 you, Mona, Edith and others swam into my brain, but I have never so

 absolutely felt the woman-soul within me: it was as though in some

 subtle way the soul of Woman breathed into my brain—and I feel vaguely

 as if I had given partial expression at least to the inarticulate voice

 of a myriad women who suffer in one or other of the triple ways of

 sorrow. For work, and rebuilding energy, I am thankful I came here. You

 were right: I was not really fit to go off to the Hebrides alone, at

 the present juncture, and might well have defeated my own end. Tomorrow

 morning I shall be writing—probably at From the Hills of Dream.

From Tighnabruaich Hotel, a lovely little village in the Kyles of Bute,

he wrote to me:

 I am glad to be here, for though the weather has changed for the

 worse I am so fond of the place and neighbourhood. But what I

 care for most is I am in a strong Fiona mood, though more of dream

 and reverie—creatively—than of actual writing: indeed it is likely

 all my work here, or nearly all shall be done through dream and

 mental-cartooning. I have written “The Snow Sleep of Angus Ogue” for the

 winter _Evergreen_, and am glad to know it is one of F. M.’s deepest and

 best utterances.

_The Evergreen_ was a Quarterly started by Prof. Geddes, of which W. S.

was Editor. Five numbers only were issued. During the autumn William

had prepared for publication by P. Geddes & Coll a re-issue of the

Tales contained in _The Sin-Eater_ and _The Washer of the Ford_, in the

form of a paper covered edition in three volumes, _Barbaric Tales_,

_Spiritual Tales_, _Tragic Romances_. Each volume contained a new tale.

Mr. W. B. Yeats considered that “Of the group of new voices none is

more typical than the curious mysterious voice that is revealed in

these stories of Miss Fiona Macleod.... She has become the voice (of

these primitive peoples and elemental things) not from mere observation

of their ways, but out of an absolute identity of nature.... Her

art belongs in kind, whatever be its excellence in its kind, to a

greater art, which is of revelation, and deals with invisible and

impalpable things. Its mission is to bring us near to those powers and

principalities, which we divine in mortal hopes and passions.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. W. E. Henley had shown considerable interest in the “F. M.” Tales,

and had written an appreciative letter to the author, who immediately

acknowledged it:

  1:4:97.

  DEAR MR. HENLEY,

 I thank you for your kind letter. Any work of recognition from you means

 much to me. Your advice is wise and sane, I am sure—and you may be

 certain that I shall bear it in mind. It will be difficult to follow—for

 absolute simplicity is the most difficult of all styles, being, as it

 must be, the expression of a mind at once so imaginative in itself, so

 lucid in its outlook, and so controlled in its expression, that only a

 very few rarely gifted individuals can hope to achieve the isolating

 ideal you indicate.

 The three latest things I have written are the long short-story “Morag

 of the Glen,” “The Melancholy of Ulad,” and “The Archer.” I would

 particularly like to know what you think of the style and method of

 “The Archer” (I mean, apart from the arbitrary fantasy of the short

 supplementary part—which affords the clue to the title)—as there I have

 written, or tried to write, with the accent of that life as I know it.

The central story of “The Archer” was one of the Tales which the author

valued most, and rewrote many times. In its final form—“Silas,” in

the Tauchnitz volume of F. M. Tales—it stands without the opening and

closing episodes. Concerning the “fantasy of the short supplementary

part” a curious coincidence happened. That arbitrary fantasy is the

record of a dream, or vision, which the author had at Tarbert. In a

letter from Mr. Yeats received shortly after, the Irish poet related a

similar experience which he had had—a vision of a woman shooting arrows

among the stars—a vision that appeared also the same night to Mr.

Arthur Symons. I remember the exchange of letters that passed between

the three writers; unfortunately Fiona’s letter to Mr. Symons, and

the latter’s answer, are not available. But I have two of the letters

on the subject which, through the courtesy of Mr. Yeats, I am able to

quote; both, unfortunately are undated. F. M. describes a second vision

which, however, had no connection with the coincidence.

Mr. Yeats wrote:

  TILLYRA CASTLE,

  MY DEAR SHARP,

 Many thanks for your letter. You must have written it the very morning I

 was writing to Miss Macleod. I have just returned from the Arran Islands

 where I had gone on a fishing boat, and where I go again at the end

 of this week. I am studying on the islands