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

incessantly to experiment; restless and never satisfied (I do

not mean dissatisfied) he constantly desired new fields for this

experimentation. Therefore, happy though he had been at Wescam,

successful as that experiment had proved, he felt it had served its

turn and he longed for different circumstances, different environment,

new possibilities in which to attempt to give fuller expression of

himself. He realised that nothing more would happen under the then

existing conditions, satisfactory though they seemed externally; that

indeed the satisfactoriness was a chain that was winding round him and

fettering him to a form of life that was becoming rigid and monotonous,

and, therefore, paralysing to all those inner impulses. His visit to

America had re-awakened the desire to wander. So we gave up our house,

stored our furniture, and planned to go abroad for the first winter

and leave the future “in the lap of the Gods”; for was he not “of the

unnumbered clan that know a longing that is unquiet as the restless

wave ...” the “deep hunger for experience, even if it be bitter, the

longing for things known to be unattainable, the remembrance that

strives for rebirth.” That summer he wrote to Mr. Stedman:

 

“ ... You will ere this have received the copy of the little book of

_Great Odes: English and American_ which I sent to you. I think I told

you that your own beautiful ‘Ode to Pastoral Romance’ has appealed to

many people, and will, I hope and believe, send new readers to you,

among the new generation, as a poet. Well, we are breaking up our home,

and are going to leave London for a long time—probably for ever as

a fixed ‘residentz platz.’ Most of my acquaintances think I am very

foolish thus to withdraw from the ‘thick of the fight’ just when things

are going so well with me, and when I am making a good and rapidly

increasing income—for I am giving up nearly every appointment I hold,

and am going abroad, having burned my ships behind me, and determined

to begin literary life anew. But, truly enough, wisdom does not lie in

money making—not for the artist who cares for his work at any rate. I

am tired of so much pot-boiling, such increasing bartering of literary

merchandise: and wish to devote myself entirely—or as closely as the

fates will permit—to work in which my heart is. I am buoyant with the

belief that it is in me to do something both in prose and verse far

beyond any hitherto accomplishment of mine: but to stay here longer,

and let the net close more and more round me, would be fatal. Of course

I go away at a heavy loss. My income will at once drop to zero, and

even after six months or so will scarce have risen a few degrees above

that awkward limit—though ultimately things may readjust themselves.

Yet I would rather—I am ready—I should say _we_ are ready—to live in

the utmost economy if need be. We shall be none the less happy: for

my wife, with her usual loving unselfishness and belief in me, is as

eager as I am for the change, despite all the risks. Among the younger

writers few have the surely not very high courage necessary to give

up something of material welfare for the sake of art. As for us, we

are both at heart Bohemians—and are well content if we can have good

shelter, enough to eat, books, music, friends, sunshine and free

nature—all of which we can have with the scantiest of purses. Perhaps I

should be less light-hearted in the matter if I thought that our coming

Bohemian life might involve my wife in hard poverty when my hour comes,

but fortunately her future is assured. So henceforth, in a word, I am

going to take down the board

 

  WILLIAM SHARP

  Literary Manufacturer

  (All kinds of jobs undertaken)

 

and substitute:

 

  WILLIAM SHARP

  Given up Business: Moved to Bohemia.

  Publishers and Editors Need not Apply.

  Friends can write to W. S. % “Drama” “Fiction” or “Poetry,”

  Live-as-you-will Quarter, Bohemia.

 

This day week we leave our house for good. My wife and I then go into

Hampshire to breathe the hay and the roses for a week at a friend’s

place, 7 miles across the Downs north of Winchester: then back to

London to stay with our friend, Mrs. Mona Caird, till about the 20th

of July. About that date we go to Scotland, to my joy, till close on

the end of September. Thereafter we return to London for a week or so,

and then go abroad. We are bound first for the lower Rhineland, and

intend to stay at Heidelberg (being cheap, pretty, thoroughly German,

with good music and a good theatre) for about two months. Then, about

the beginning of December, we go to Rome, where we intend to settle:

climatic, financial, and other considerations will decide whether we

remain there longer than six months, but six ideal months at least we

hope for. _Mihi sex menses satis sunt vitæ septimum Orco spondeo._

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

That summer we went to Clynder on the Gareloch, Argyll, in order to be

near my husband’s old friend, Dr. Donald Macleod, who, as he records

in his diary “sang to me with joyous abandonment a Neapolitan song,

and asked me to send him a MS. from Italy for _Good Words_.” While we

were in the West we made acquaintance with the poet-editor of _The

Yorkshire Herald_, George Cotterell, who became a dear and valued

friend. I cannot recall if it were in the early summer of 1889 or 1890

that my husband was first approached on the subject of the _Joseph

Severn Memoirs_, but I remember the circumstance. We spent a week-end

in Surrey with some old friends of my mother, Sir Walter and Lady

Hughes, and one morning Mr. Walter Severn, the painter, walked over

to luncheon. He spoke about my husband’s _Life of Rossetti_, then of

the quantity of unpublished MSS. he and his family had written by and

relating to his father, Joseph Severn, “the friend of Keats.” Finally

he proposed that his listener should take over the MSS., put them in

form and write a Life of Severn, with, as the special point of literary

interest, his father’s devoted friendship with and care of the dying

poet. After considerable deliberation, W. S. agreed to undertake the

work, and arrangements were made with Messrs. Samson Low to publish it.

The preparing of this Memoir brought him into pleasant relationship

not only with Mr. Walter Severn, and with Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn,

but also with Ruskin, who he visited later at Coniston, where he was

delighted, among other things, with the fine collection of minerals and

stones that was one of Ruskin’s hobbies.

 

The preparation of _The Joseph Severn Memoirs_ necessarily entailed

correspondence with members and friends of that family, among others

with W. W. Story, the sculptor, who sent him the following information:

 

“I knew Mr. Severn at Rome and frequently met and saw him but I can

recall nothing which would be of value to you. He was, as you know, a

most pleasant man—and in the minds of all is associated with the memory

of Keats by whose side he lies in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome. When

the bodies were removed, as they were several years ago, and laid side

by side, there was a little funeral ceremony and I made an address on

the occasion in honour and commemoration of the two friends. I remember

we then had hoped that Lord Houghton would have been able to be present

as he had promised. But he was taken ill in the East, where he was then

journeying, and I had to express the fear lest the ceremony might be a

commemoration not only of two but of the three friends so intimately

associated together. However, Houghton did recover from the attack and

came afterward to Rome, sadly broken.”

 

Early in October my husband and I crossed to Antwerp and stopped at

Bonn. The Rhine disappointed William’s expectations. He wrote to a

friend: “The real charm of the Rhine, beyond the fascination that all

rivers and riverine scenery have for most people, is that of literary

and historical romance. The Rhine is in this respect the Nile of

Europe: though probably none but Germans feel thus strongly. For myself

I cannot but think it ought not to be a wholly German river, but from

every point of view be the Franco-German boundary.... Germany has much

to gain from a true communion with its more charming neighbour. The

world would jog on just the same if Germany were annihilated by France,

Russia and Italy: but the disappearance of brilliant, vivacious,

intellectual France would be almost as serious a loss to intellectual

Europe, as would be to the people at large the disappearance of the

Moon.”

 

From Rome he wrote to Mrs. Janvier:

 

 

  Dec., 1890.

 

“ ... Well, we were glad to leave Germany. Broadly, it is a joyless

place for Bohemians. It is all beer, coarse jokes, coarse living,

and domestic tyranny on the man’s part, subjection on the woman’s—on

the one side: pedantic learning, scientific pedagogism, and mental

_ennui_; on the other: with, of course, a fine leavening _somewhere_

of the salt of life. However, it is only fair to say that we were not

there at the best season in which to see the blither side of Germans

and German life. I saw a good deal of the southern principalities and

kingdoms—the Rhine provinces, Baden, Würtemberg, and Bavaria. Of course

Heidelberg, where we stayed six wet weeks, is the most picturesque of

the residential places (towns like Frankfort-am-Main and Mannheim are

only for merchants and traders, though they have music “galore”), but

I would rather stay at Stuttgart than any I saw. It is wonderfully

animated and pleasing for a German town, and has a charming double

attraction both as a mediæval city and as a modern capital. There,

too, I have a friend: the American novelist, Blanche Willis Howard

(author of _Guenn_, _The Open Door_, etc.), who is now the wife of the

Court-Physician to the King of Würtemberg and rejoices in the title

“Frau Hof-Arzt von Teuffel.” Dr. von Teuffel himself is one of the few

Germans who seem to regard women as equals.

 

“But what a relief it was to be in Italy again, though not just at

first, for the weather at Verona was atrocious, and snow lay thick past

Mantua to Bologna. But once the summit of the Apennines was reached,

and the magnificent and unique prospect of Florentine Tuscany lay

below, flooded in sunshine and glowing colour (though it was in the

second week of December) we realised that at last we were in Italy....

When we came to Rome we had at first some difficulty in getting rooms

which at once suited our tastes and our pockets. But now we are settled

in an “apartment” of 3-1/2 rooms, within a yard or so of the summit of

the Quirinal Hill. The 1/2 is a small furnished corridor or ante-room:

the comfortable _salotto_, is at once our study, drawing-room, and

parlour.

 

“We have our coffee and our fruit in the morning: and when we are in

for lunch our old landlady gives us delightful colazioni of maccaroni

and tomatoes, or spinach and lentils, or eggs and something else, with

roasted chestnuts and light wine and bread. We have our dinner sent in

from a trattoria.

 

“In a sense, I have been indolent of late: but I have been thinking

much, and am now, directly or indirectly, occupied with several

ambitious undertakings. Fiction, other imaginative prose, and the drama

(poetic and prose), besides a lyrical drama, and poetry generally,

would fain claim my pen all day long. As for my lyrical drama—which is

the only poetic work not immediately modern in theme—which is called

‘Bacchus in India’; my idea is to deal in a new and I hope poetic way

with Dionysos as the Joy-Bringer, the God of Joyousness. In the first

part there is the union of all the links between Man and the World he

inhabits: Bacchus goes forth in joy, to give his serene message to

all the world. The second part, ‘The Return,’ is wild disaster, and

the bitterness of shame: though even there, and in the Epilogue, will

sound the clarion of a fresh Return to Joy. I transcribe and enclose

the opening scene for you—as it at present stands, unrevised. The ‘lost

God’ referred to in the latter part is really that deep corrosive

Melancholy whom so many poets and artists—from Dante and Durer to our

own time—have dimly descried as a terrible Power.

 

“At the moment I am most of all interested in my blank-verse tragedy.

It deals with a most terrible modern instance of the scriptural warming

as to the sins of the father being visited upon his children: an

instance