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

to live, that there is no death, which is but as a

child’s dream in a weary night.

 

I am very tired. You will forgive more, my dearest friend.”

 

 

To Mr. W. M. Rossetti:

 

  13 THORNGATE ROAD,

  SUTHERLAND GARDENS, W.,

  15th April, 1883.

 

DEAR MR. ROSSETTI,

 

As your wife kindly expressed a wish that I would send you a copy of

the sonnet I left in your brother’s coffin along with the flowers, I

now do so. It must be judged not as a literary production, but as last

words straight from the heart of one who loved and revered your brother.

 

  Yours very sincerely,

  WILLIAM SHARP.

 

_To Dante Gabriel Rossetti_

 

AVE! MORS NON EST!

 

  True heart, great spirit, who hast sojourn’d here

    Till now the darkness rounds thee, and Death’s sea

    Hath surged and ebbed and carried suddenly

  Thy Soul far hence, as from a stony, drear,

  And weary coast the tide the wrack doth shear;

    Thou art gone hence, and though our sight may be

    Strained with a yearning gaze, the mystery

  Is mystic still to us: to thee, how clear!

 

  O loved great friend, at last the balm of sleep

    Hath soothed thee into silence: it is well

    After life’s long unrest to draw the breath

  No more on earth, but in a slumber deep,

    Or joyous hence afar, the miracle

    Await when dies at last imperious Death.

 

S.

 

Keenly desirous of offering some tribute to the memory of Rossetti,

whose friendship had meant so much to him during the years of struggle

in London, William Sharp eagerly accepted a proposal from Messrs.

Macmillan that he should write a biographical Record and appreciation

of the painter-poet, to be produced within the year. It was begun in

June, it was his first lengthy attempt in prose and attempted with

little knowledge of the art of writing; but it was written “red hot,”

as he used to say, inspired by deep affection and profound admiration

for his friend. He spared no pains to make his story as accurate as

practicable, and visited the chief owners of the pictures, photographs

of which Rossetti had given him. Several of the later paintings he had

seen and discussed many times in Rossetti’s studio.

 

The book divides itself naturally into two parts representing the man

in his dual capacity as painter and as poet, and the author selected as

frontispiece Rossetti’s most characteristic and symbolic design for his

sonnet on the sonnet.

 

In his Diary of 1890 the author refers to “my first serious effort in

prose, my honest and enthusiastic, and indeed serviceable, but badly

written ‘Life of Rossetti.’” And he tells that the first two thirds

were written at Clynder on the Gareloch (Argyll), “in a little cottage

where I stayed with my mother and sisters eight years ago”; and the

rest was written in London, and published in December.

 

“I remember that the book was finished one December day, and so great

was the pressure I was under, that, at the end, I wrote practically

without a break for thirty-six hours: i. e., I began immediately after

an early breakfast, wrote all day except half an hour for dinner, and

all evening with less than ten minutes for a slight meal of tea and

toast, and right through the night. About 4 or 5 A.M. my fire went out,

though I did not feel chilled till my landlady came with my breakfast.

By this time I was too excited to be tired, and had moreover to finish

the book that day. I was only a few minutes over breakfast, which I

snatched during perusal of some notes, and then buckled to again. I

wrote all day, eating nothing. When about 7 P.M. I came to ‘finis,’

I threw down the pen from my chilled and cramped fingers: walked or

rather staggered into the adjoining bedroom, but was asleep before I

could undress beyond removal of my coat and waistcoat. (What hundreds

of times I have been saved weariness and bad headaches, how often I

have been preserved from collapse of a more serious kind, by my rare

faculty of being able to sleep at will at any time, however busy, and

for even the briefest intervals—ten minutes or less.)

 

“For three weeks before this I had been overworking and I was quite

exhausted, partly from want of sufficient nourishment. It was the

saving of my brain, therefore, that I slept fourteen hours without a

break, and after a few hours of tired and dazed wakefulness again fell

into a prolonged slumber, from which I awoke fresh and vigorous in mind

and body.”

 

The most interesting letter which he received during the interval of

the writing was one from Robert Browning, in answer to an inquiry

concerning a letter written years earlier by Rossetti to Browning, to

know if the author of _Paracelsus_ was also the author of _Pauline_.

Rossetti once told William Sharp that it was “on the forenoon of the

day when the _Burden of Nineveh_ was begun, conceived rather,” that

he read this story (at the British Museum) “of a soul by the soul’s

ablest historian.” So delighted was Rossetti with it, and so strong his

opinion that _Pauline_ was by Browning, that he wrote to that poet,

then in Florence, for confirmation. Mr. Browning, in his reply—which

I quote from my husband’s monograph on Browning—gave the following

particulars of the incident:

 

 

PIERRE DE CHARTREUSE,

  Aug. 22, 1882.

 

DEAR MR. SHARP,

 

Rossetti’s _Pauline_ letter concerning which you inquire was addressed

to me at Florence, more than thirty years ago: I must have preserved

it, but, even were I at home, should be unable to find it without

troublesome searching. It was to the effect that the writer, personally

and altogether unknown to me, had come upon a poem in the British

Museum, which he copied the whole of, from its being not otherwise

procurable, that he judged it to be mine, but could not be sure,

and wished me to pronounce on the matter—which I did. A year or two

after, I had a visit in London from Mr. Allingham and a friend—who

proved to be Rossetti: when I heard he was a painter I insisted on

calling on him, though he declared he had nothing to show me—which

was far enough from the case. Subsequently on another of my returns

to London, he painted my portrait: not, I fancy, in oils but water

colours—and finished it in Paris shortly after: this must have been

in the year when Tennyson published “Maud,” unless I mistake: for I

remember Tennyson reading the poem one evening, while Rossetti made a

rapid pen-and-ink sketch of him, very good, from an unobserved corner

of vantage—which I still possess and duly value. This was before

Rossetti’s marriage.

 

I hope that these particulars may answer your purpose; and beg you to

believe me, dear Mr. Sharp,

 

  Yours very truly,

  ROBERT BROWNING.

 

 

The young biographer wrote to every one who he thought might possess

drawings or paintings by Rossetti—and among others he applied to

Tennyson. The Poet Laureate replied:

 

 

  ALDWORTH, HASLEMERE,

  Oct. 12, 1882.

 

DEAR SIR,

 

I have neither drawing nor painting by Rossetti. I am sorry for it,

for some of his work which I have seen elsewhere I have admired very

much; nor (as far as I know) have I any letter from him, nor have I the

slightest recollection of his being present when I was “reading the

proof sheets of Maud.”

 

My acquaintance with him was in fact but an acquaintance, not an

“intimacy,” though I would willingly have known something more of so

accomplished an artist.

 

Wishing all success to your Memorial of him,

 

  I am,

  Faithfully yours,

TENNYSON.

 

 

The book met with immediate success; it was recognised that the work

was “one of no ordinary difficulty,” that the author “brought fairness

and critical acumen to his task,” “truest enthusiasm and perseverance

that nothing can daunt; that by reason of his friendship he had

unusual insight into the history and work of Rossetti,” and “a critic

of Art and a writer of poems he is thus further to be respected in what

he has to say.” Only three letters are in my possession of the many he

received from friends of his own, or of the dead poet; two are from

Walter Pater with whom he had recently become acquainted: and the other

from Christina Rossetti:

 

 

  30 TORRINGTON SQUARE.

 

 DEAR MR. SHARP,

 

 Thank you with warm thanks from my Mother and myself for your precious

 gift. She has already and with true pleasure perused Chapter I. _I_ have

 but glanced here and there as yet but with an appetite for the feast

 to come. I shall be both fortunate and unfortunate if I find occasion

 for the marginal notes you want—fortunate if even thus I can be of use:

 but I will rather wish myself a very narrow field for strictures. Allow

 me to congratulate you on the binding of the well-known monogram and

 crest—a pretty point which catches and gratifies the eye at a first

 glance. I figure so amiably in connection with your frontispiece that

 I may reasonably regret having brought nothing to the transaction (in

 reality) beyond good will.

 

  Very truly yours,

  CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

 

 

This letter was received while the book was in preparation:

 

 

  2 BRADNOR ROAD, OXFORD,

  Nov. 4, 1882.

 

 MY DEAR SHARP,

 

 (I think we have known each other long enough to drop the “Mr.”) I read

 your letter with great pleasure, and thank you very much for it. Your

 friendly interest in my various essays I value highly. I have really

 worked hard for now many years at these prose essays, and it is a real

 encouragement to hear such good things said of them by one of the most

 original of young English poets. It will be a singular pleasure to me to

 be connected, in a sense, in your book on Rossetti, with one I admired

 so greatly. I wish the book all the success both the subject and the

 writer deserve. You encourage me to do what I have sometimes thought of

 doing, when I have got on a little further with the work I have actually

 on hand—viz. to complete the various series of which the papers I have

 printed in the _Fortnightly_ are parts. The list you sent me is complete

 with the exception of an article on Coleridge in the _Westminster_ of

 January, 1866, with much of which, both as to matter and manner, I

 should now be greatly dissatisfied. That article is concerned with S.

C.’s prose; but, corrected, might be put alongside of the criticism

 on his verse which I made for Ward’s “English Poets.” I can only say

 that should you finish the paper you speak of on these essays, your

 critical approval will be of great service to me with the reading

 public. I find I have by me a second copy of the paper on Giorgione,

 revised in print, which I send by this post, and hope you will kindly

 accept. It was reprinted some time ago when I thought of collecting that

 and other papers into a volume. I am pleased to hear that you remember

 with pleasure your flying visit to Oxford; and hope you will come for

 a longer stay in term time early next year. At the end of this month I

 hope to leave for seven weeks in Italy, chiefly at Rome, where I have

 never yet been. We went to Cornwall for our summer holiday, but though

 that country is certainly very singular and beautiful, I found there

 not a tithe of the stimulus to one’s imagination which I have sometimes

 experienced in quite unrenowned places abroad.

 

 I should be delighted with a copy of the Rossetti volume from yourself;

 but it is a volume I should have in any case purchased, and I hope it

 may appear in time to be my companion on my contemplated journey.

 

  Very sincerely yours,

  WALTER H. PATER.

 

 

  2 BRADNOR ROAD,

  Jan. 15, 1883.

 

MY DEAR SHARP,

 

Thank you very sincerely for the copy of your book, with the fine

impression of the beautiful frontispiece, which reached me yesterday.

One copy of the book I had already obtained through a bookseller in

Rome, and read it there with much admiration of its wealth of ideas and

expression, and its abundance of interesting information. Thank you

also sincerely, for the pleasant things you have said about myself;

all the pleasanter for being said in connection with the subject of

Rossetti, whose genius and work I esteemed so greatly. I am glad to

hear that the book is having the large sale it deserves. Your letter of

December 24th, was forwarded to me at Rome, with the kind invitation I

should have been delighted to accept had it been possible, and which I

hope you will let me profit by some other time. Then, I heard from my

sisters, of your search for me in London, and was very