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

stupid and superfluous to write like

this; especially as I had meant to say nothing about it. But yours

of last night is so kind and pleasant that I think it best to write

what’s on my mind, or rather what _was_ on it when I read your article.

For the rest, it is good to hear that you’re re-reading, and are kind

of dissatisfied with your own first views. I shall look with great

interest for the new statement, and value it—whatever its conclusions—a

good deal. I have worked hard at the little book, and am disposed (as

you see) to take it more seriously than it deserves; and whatever is

said about it comes home to me.

 

  Always yours sincerely,

E. H.

 

_P. S._—I am glad you quoted “The King of Babylon.” It’s my own

favourite of all. I call it “a romance without adjectives” and the

phrase (which represents an ideal) says everything. I wish I could do

more of the same reach and tune.

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

At Wescam we enjoyed once more the pleasant ways of friendship that

had grown about us, and especially our Sunday informal evening

gatherings to which came all those with whom we were in sympathy.

Among the most frequent were Mrs. Mona Caird, the eager champion of

women long before the movement passed into the militant hands of the

suffragettes; Walter Pater, during his Oxford vacation; Dr. and Mrs.

Garnett; John M. Robertson, who was living the “simple life” of a

socialist in rooms close by; Richard Whiteing, then leader-writing

for _The Daily News_, and author of the beautiful idyll _The Island_.

Mathilde Blind—poetess novelist, who in youth had sat an eager disciple

at the feet of Mazzini, came frequently, Ernest Rhys was writing poems

and editing _The Camelot Classics_ from the heights of Hampstead, and

his wife, then Miss Grace Little, lived in the neighbourhood with her

sisters, the eldest of whom, Lizzie Little, was a writer of charming

verse. W. B. Yeats came in the intervals of wandering over Ireland

in search of Folk tales; John Davidson had recently come to London,

and was bitter over the hard struggle he was enduring; William Watson

was a rare visitor. Another frequent visitor was Arthur Tomson the

landscape painter, who came to us with an introduction from Mr. Andrew

Lang. A warm friendship grew up between Arthur and ourselves, which was

deepened by his second marriage with Miss Agnes Hastings, a girl-friend

of ours, and lasted till his death in 1905. Mr. and Mrs. John M. Swan

came occasionally, Mr. and Mrs. William Strang, we saw frequently, and

Theodore Roussell was an ever welcome guest. Sir George Douglas came

now and again from Kelso; Charles Mavor, editor of _The Art Review_,

ran down occasionally from Glasgow. Other frequenters of our Sunday

evenings were Richard Le Gallienne, whose _Book bills of Narcissus_ was

then recently published; Miss Alice Corkran, Mr. and Mrs. Todhunter,

Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Coleridge, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rinder, Mr. and Mrs.

Joseph Pennell. The Russian Nihilist Stepniak and his wife were a great

interest to us. I remember on one occasion they told us that Stepniak

intended to make a secret visit to Russia—as he had done before—that he

was starting the next morning, and though every care would be taken in

matter of disguise, the risks were so great that he and his wife always

said farewell to one another as though they never would meet again.

 

Mrs. Caird’s town house was close to us; and she, keenly interested—as

my husband and I also were—in the subject of the legal position of

women, had that spring written two articles on the Marriage question

which were accepted by and published in _The Westminster Review_ in

July. Twelve years ago the possibilities of a general discussion on

such subjects were very different to what exist now. The sensibilities

of both men and women—especially of those who had no adequate

knowledge of the legal inequalities of the Marriage laws nor of the

abuses which were and are in some cases still the direct outcome of

them—were disturbed and shocked by the plain statements put forward,

by the passionate plea for justice, for freedom from tyrannous legal

oppression, exercised consciously and unconsciously. Mrs. Caird’s

articles met with acute hostility of a kind difficult to understand

now, and much misunderstanding and unmerited abuse was meted out to

her. Nevertheless these brave articles, published in book form under

the title of _The Morality of Marriage_, and the novels written by the

same pen, have been potent in altering the attitude of the public mind

in its approach to and examination of such questions, in making private

discussion possible.

 

In the autumn of 1888 the monograph on Heine was published in the

_Great Writers Series_ (Walter Scott); and the author always regarded

it as the best piece of work of the kind he ever did. It seemed fitting

that the writer of a life of Shelley should write one of Heine, for

there is a kinship between the two poets. To their biographer Heine was

the strangest and most fascinating of all the poets not only of one

country and one century, but of all time and of all nations; he saw

in the wayward brilliant poet “one of those flowers which bloom more

rarely than the aloe—human flowers which unfold their petals but once,

it may be, in the whole slow growth of humanity.... At his best Heine

is a creature of controlled impulse; at his worst he is a creature of

impulse uncontrolled. Through extremes he gained the golden mean of

art: here is his _apologia_.”

 

The book is an endeavour to handle the subject in an impartial spirit,

to tell the story vividly, to give a definite impression of the

strange personality, and in the concluding pages to summarise Heine’s

genius. But, “do what we will we cannot affiliate, we cannot classify

Heine. When we would apprehend it his genius is as volatile as his

wit.... Of one thing only can we be sure: that he is of our time, of

our century. He is so absolutely and essentially modern that he is

often antique....

 

“As for his song-motive, I should say it was primarily his

_Lebenslust_, his delight in life: that love so intensely human that it

almost necessarily involved the ignoring of the divine. Rainbow-hued

as is his genius, he himself was a creature of earth. It was enough

to live.... He would cling to life, even though it were by a rotten

beam, he declared once in his extremity. And the poet of life he

unquestionably is. There is a pulse in everything he writes: his is no

galvanised existence. No parlour passions lead him into the quicksands

of oblivion....”

 

The author was gratified by appreciative letters from Dr. Richard

Garnett and Mr. George Meredith:

 

 

  3 ST. EDMUND’S TERRACE,

  Nov 11, 1888.

 

  MY DEAR SHARP,

 

I have now finished your Heine, and can congratulate you upon an

excellent piece of biographical work. You are throughout perfectly

clear and highly interesting, and, what is more difficult with your

subject, accurate and impartial. Or, if there is any partiality it is

such as it is becoming in one poet to enlist aid for another. With all

one’s worship of Heine’s genius, it must be allowed that he requires a

great deal of toleration. The best excuse to be made for him is that

his faults were largely faults of race—and just now I feel amiably

toward the Jews, for if you have seen the Athenæum you will have

observed that I have fallen into the hands of the Philistines. Almost

the only point in which I differ from you is as regards your too slight

mention of Platen, who seems to me not only a master of form but a true

though limited poet—a sort of German Matthew Arnold. Your kind notice

of my translation from the Romanzen did not escape me. Something,

perhaps, should have been said of James Thomson, the best English

translator.

 

  Believe me, my dear Sharp,

  Most sincerely yours,

GARNETT.

 

 

  BOX HILL, Dec. 10, 1887.

 

  DEAR MR. SHARP,

 

Your Heine gave me pleasure. I think it competently done; and coming

as a corrective to Stigund’s work, it brings the refreshment of the

antidote. When I have the pleasure of seeing you we will converse

upon Heine. Too much of his—almost all of the Love poems drew both

tenderness and tragic emotion from a form of sensualism, much of his

wit too was wilful—a trick of the mind. Always beware of the devilish

in wit: it has the obverse of an intellectual meaning, and it shows at

the best interpretation, a smallness of range. Macmillan says that if

they can bring out my book “Reading of Earth” on the 18th I may expect

Otherwise you will not receive a copy until after Christmas.

 

  Faithfully yours,

  GEORGE MEREDITH.

 

Mr. Meredith wrote again after the publication of his poems:

 

 

  BOX HILL, Feb. 15, 1888.

 

  DEAR MR. SHARP,

 

It is not common for me to be treated in a review with so much respect.

But your competency to speak on the art of verse gives the juster

critical tone.

 

Of course you have poor J. Thomson’s book. I have had pain in reading

Nature needs her resources, considering what is wasted of her

finest. That is to say, on this field—and for the moment I have eyes

on the narrow rather than the wider. It is our heart does us this

mischief. Philosophy can as little subject it as the Laws of men can

hunt Nature out of women—artificial though we force them to be in their

faces. But if I did not set Philosophy on high for worship, I should

be one of the weakest.

 

Let me know when you are back. If in this opening of the year we have

the South West, our country, even our cottage, may be agreeable to you.

All here will be glad to welcome you and your wife for some days.

 

  Yours very cordially,

  GEORGE MEREDITH.

 

It was the late spring before we could visit Mr. Meredith. The day

of our going was doubly memorable to me, because as we went along

the leafy road from Burford Bridge station we met Mr. and Mrs. Grant

Allen—my first meeting with them—whose home was at that time in

Dorking. Memorable, too, was the courteous genial greeting from our

host and his charming daughter; and the many delightful incidents of

that first week end visit. William and Mr. Meredith had long talks in

the garden chalet on the edge of the wood. And in the evenings the

novelist read aloud to us. On that occasion I think it was he read

some chapters from “One of our Conquerors” on which he was working;

another time it was from “The Amazing Marriage” and from “Lord Ormont

and his Aminta.” The reader’s enjoyment seemed as great as that of his

audience, and it interested me to hear how closely his own methods

of conversation resembled, in wittiness and brilliance, those of the

characters in his novels. Sometimes he turned a merciless play of wit

on his listener; but my husband, who was as deeply attached to the man

as he admired the writer, enjoyed these verbal duels in which he was

usually worsted. The incident of the visit that charmed me most arose

from my stating that I had never heard the nightingale. So on the

Sunday afternoon we were taken to a stretch of woodland, “my woods of

Westermain” the poet smilingly declared, and there, standing among the

tree-boles in the late afternoon sun-glow I listened for the bird-notes

as he described them to me until he was satisfied I heard aright.

 

The Xmas of 1888, and the following New Year’s day we passed at

Tunbridge Wells, with Mathilde Blind, in rooms overlooking the common.

Many delightful hours were spent together in the evenings listening to

one or other of the two poets reading aloud their verse, or parts of

the novels they had in process. Mathilde was writing her _Tarantella_;

my husband had recently finished a boys’ serial story for _Young

Folk’s Paper_, with a highly sensational plot entitled “The Secret of

Seven Fountains,” and was at work on a Romance of a very different

order in which he then was deeply interested, though in later life

he considered it immature in thought and expression. The boys’ story

was one of adventure, of life seen from a purely objective point of

view. _The Children of To-morrow_ was the author’s first endeavour to

give expression in prose to the more subjective side of his nature,

to thoughts, feelings, aspirations he had hitherto suppressed; it is

the direct forerunner of the series of romantic tales he afterward

wrote as Fiona Macleod; it was also the expression of his attitude

of revolt against the limitations of the accepted social system. The

writing of the Monograph on Shelley had rekindled many ideas and

beliefs he held in common with