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

the day in wandering about the latter, and watching the sunset over

the far-stretching Umbrian country. I made the acquaintance of some

nice people at the Hotel, and we agreed to share a carriage for a

day—so early on Friday morning we started in a carriage and pair for

Assisi. About 3 miles from Perugia we came to the Etruscan tombs, which

we spent a considerable time in exploring: I was much struck with the

symbolism and beauty of the ornamental portions, Death evidently to

the ancient Etrurians being but a departure elsewhere. The comparative

joyousness (exultation, as in the symbol of the rising sun over the

chief entrance) of the Etruscans contrasts greatly with the joylessness

of the Christians, who have done their best to make death repellant in

its features and horrible in its significance, its possibilities.

 

_Only a Renaissance of belief in the Beautiful being the only sure

guide can save modern nations from further spiritual degradation_—and

not till the gloomy precepts of Christianity yield to something more

akin to the Greek sense of beauty will life appear to the majority

lovely and wonderful, alike in the present and in the future.

 

After leaving the Tombs of the Volumnii we drove along through a most

interesting country, beautiful everywhere owing to Spring’s feet having

passed thereover, till we came to the Church of Sta. Maria degli

Angeli—on the plain just below Assisi. We went over this, and then

drove up the winding road to the gray old town itself, visiting, before

ascending to the ruined citadel at the top of the hill, the Chiesa di

Santa Chiara. Lying on the grass on the very summit of the hill, we

had lunch, and then lay looking at the scenery all round us, north,

south, east, and west. Barren and desolate and colourless, with neither

shade of tree nor coolness of water, these dreary Assisi hills have

nothing of the grandeur and beauty of the barrenness and desolation of

the north—they are simply hideous to the eye, inexpressibly dreary,

dead, and accursed. I shall never now hear Assisi mentioned without

a shudder, for picturesque as the old town is, beautiful as are the

Monastery, the Upper Church, the paintings and the frescoes—they are

overweighted in my memory with the _hideousness_ of the immediate

hill-surroundings. It made me feel almost sick and ill, looking from

the ruined citadel out upon these stony, dreary, lifeless, hopeless

hills—and I had again and again to find relief in the beauty of more

immediate surroundings—the long grasses waving in the buttresses of

the citadel, the beautiful yellow (absolutely stainless in colour)

wallflowers sprouting from every chink and cranny, and the green and

gray lizards darting everywhere and shining in the sunlight. Here

at least was life, not death: and to me human death is less painful

than that of nature, for in the former I see but change, but in the

latter—annihilation. These poor mountains!—once, long ago, bright and

joyous with colour and sound and winds and waters and birds—and now

without a tree to give shadow where grass will never again grow, save

here and there a stunted and withered olive, like some plague-stricken

wretch still lingering amongst the decayed desolation of his

birthplace—without the music and light of running water, save, perhaps

twice amidst their parched and serried flanks a crawling, muddy,

hideous _liquid_; and without sound, save the blast of the winter-wind

and the rattle of dislodged stones.

 

Yet the day was perfect—one of those flawless days combining the

laughter of Spring and the breath of ardent Summer: but perhaps this

very perfection accentuates the desert wretchedness behind the old town

of St. Francis. Yet the very day before I went I was told that the view

from the citadel was lovely (and this not with reference to the Umbrian

prospect in _front_ of Assisi, which is fine though to my mind it has

been enormously exaggerated)—lovely! As well might a person ask me to

look at the divine beauty of the Belvedere Apollo, and then say to me

that lovely also was yon maimed and hideous beggar, stricken with the

foulness of leprosy.

 

The hills about Assisi beautiful! Oh Pan, Pan, indeed your music passed

long, long ago out of men’s hearing....”

 

 

  FLORENCE, 7th May.

 

“On either Wednesday or Thursday last we started early for Monte

Oliveto, and after a long and interesting drive we came to a rugged and

wild country, and at last, by the side of a deep gorge to the famous

Convent itself. The scenery all round made a great impression on me—it

was as wild, almost as desolate as the hills behind Assisi—but there

was nothing repellant, i. e., stagnant, about it. While we were having

something to eat outside the convent (a huge building) the abbé came

out and received us most kindly, and brought us further refreshment in

the way of hard bread and wine and cheese—their mode of life being too

simple to have anything else to offer.

 

Owing to the great heat and perhaps over-exposure while toiling up some

of the barren scorched roads, where they became too hilly or rough for

the horses—I had succumbed to an agonising nervous headache, and could

do nothing for a while but crouch in a corner of the wall in the shade

and keep wet handkerchiefs constantly over my forehead and head. In

the meantime the others had gone inside, and as Mrs. S. had told the

abbé I was suffering from a bad headache he came out to see me and at

once said I had had a slight touch of the sun—a frequent thing in these

scorched and barren solitudes. He took me into a private room and made

me lie down on a bed—and in a short time brought me two cups of strong

black coffee, with probably something in it—for in less than twenty

minutes I could bear the light in my eyes and in a few minutes more I

had only an ordinary headache. He was exceedingly kind altogether, and

I shall never think of Monte Oliveto without calling to remembrance the

Abbé Cesareo di Negro. I then spent about three hours over the famous

35 noble frescoes by Sodoma and Signorelli, illustrating the life

of Saint Benedict, the founder of the convent. They are exceedingly

beautiful—and one can learn more from this consecutive series than can

well be imagined. While taking my notes and wondering how I was to

find time (without staying for a couple of days or so) to take down

all particulars—I saw the abbé crossing the cloisters in my direction,

and when he joined me he said, “la Signora” had told him I was a

poet and writer, and that I thought more of Sodoma than any of his

contemporaries, and so he begged me to accept from him a small work

in French on the history of the convent including a fairly complete

account of each fresco. A glance at this showed that it would be of

great service to me, and save much in the way of note-taking—and I was

moreover glad of this memento; he inscribed his name in it....

 

The more I see of Sodoma’s work the more I see what a great artist he

was—and how enormously underrated he is in comparison with many others

better known or more talked about. After having done as much as I could

take in, I went with the abbé over other interesting parts and saw

some paintings of great repute, but to me unutterably wearisome and

empty—and then to the library—and finally through the wood to a little

chapel with some interesting frescoes. I felt quite sorry to leave the

good abbé. I promised to send him a copy of whatever I wrote about

the Sodomas—and he said that whenever I came to Italy again I was to

come and stay there for a few days, or longer if I liked—and he hoped

I would not forget but take him at his word. Thinking of you, I said

I supposed ladies could not stay at the Convent—but he said they were

not so rigorous now, and he would be glad to see the wife of the young

English poet with him, if she could put up with plain fare and simple

lodging. Altogether, Monte Oliveto made such an impression on me that

I won’t be content till I take you there for a visit of a few days....”

 

 

VENEZIA, 10th May.

 

“ ... I came here one day earlier than I anticipated. What can I

say! I have no words to express my delight as to Venice and its

surroundings—it makes up an hundredfold for my deep disappointment

as to Rome. I am in sympathy with everything here—the art, the

architecture, the beauty of the city, everything connected with it,

the climate, the brightness and joyousness, and most of all perhaps

the glorious presence of the sea.... From the first moment, I fell

passionately and irretrievably in love with Venice: I should rather be

a week here than a month in Rome or even Florence: the noble city is

the crown of Italy, and fit to be empress of all cities.

 

All yesterday afternoon and evening (save an hour on the Piazza and

neighbourhood) I spent in a gondola—enjoying it immensely: and after

dinner I went out till late at night, listening to the music on the

canals. Curiously, after the canals were almost deserted—and I was

drifting slowly in a broad stream of moonlight—a casement opened

and a woman sang with as divine a voice as in my poem of _The Tides

of Venice_: she was also such a woman as there imagined—and I felt

that the poem was a true forecast. Early this morning I went to the

magnificent St. Mark’s (not only infinitely nobler than St. Peter’s,

but to me more impressive than all the Churches in Rome taken

together). I then went to the Lido, and had a glorious swim in the

heavy sea that was rolling in. On my return I found that Addington

Symonds had called on me—and I am expecting W. D. Howells. I had also a

kind note from Ouida.

 

Life, joyousness, brightness everywhere—oh, I am so happy! I wish I

were a bird, so that I could sing out the joy and delight in my heart.

After the oppression of Rome, the ghastliness of Assisi, the heat and

dust of Florence—Venice is like Paradise. Summer is everywhere here—on

the Lido there were hundreds of butterflies, lizards, bees, birds, and

some heavenly larks—a perfect glow and tumult of life—and I shivered

with happiness. The cool fresh joyous wind blew across the waves white

with foam and gay with the bronze-sailed fisher-boats—the long wavy

grass was sweet-scented and delicious—the acacias were in blossom

of white—life—dear, wonderful, changeful, passionate, joyous life

everywhere! I shall never forget this day—never, never. Don’t despise

me when I tell you that once it overcame me, quite; but the tears were

only from excess of happiness, from the passionate delight of getting

back again to the Mother whom I love in Nature, with her wind-caresses

and her magic breath.”

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

The weeks in Venice gave my correspondent the crowning pleasure of his

Italian sojourn; Venetian art appealed to him beyond that of any other

school. The frequent companionship of John Addington Symonds, the long

hours in the gondola, in the near and distant lagoons were a perpetual

joy to him. June he spent in the Ardennes with my mother and me—at

Dinant, at Anseremme and at La Roche. They were happy days which we

spent chiefly in a little boat sailing up the Lesse, dragging it over

the shallows, or resting in the green shade of oak and beech trees.

 

In July he was once more in London and hard at work. Among other things

he had contributed a series of articles on the Etrurian Cities to the

_Glasgow Herald_, and followed them with letters descriptive of the

Ardennes, then relatively little known. In August he packed all his

Italian notes, and joined his mother and sisters at Innellan on the

Clyde, and later he visited Sir Noel Paton in Arran, whence he wandered

over many of his old loved haunts in Loch Fyne, in Mull and in Iona.

 

On his way back to London—where he was to take up his work as Art

Critic to the _Glasgow Herald_—a serious misadventure befell him. His

portmanteau with all his precious Italian photographs, notes and other

MSS. was lost. Nowhere could he trace it, and he had to return without

He was in despair; for it meant not only the loss of material for

future commissions, but the loss of work already finished, and in

process.

 

It was a wet August; and his search through the various places he

had passed on the Clyde was made in pouring rain. Again and again on

the steamers and on the piers he was soaked during those miserable

days. He settled in London at