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

  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:

  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.

 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