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

di Roma_ he wrote to Mrs.

Janvier:

 

 

  1st May, 1891.

 

... Whether coming with praise or with blame and cast me to the

perdition of the unrighteous, the critics all seem unable to take the

true standpoint—namely, that of the poet. What has he attempted, and

how far has he succeeded or failed? That is what should concern them.

It is no good to any one or to me to say that I am a Pagan—that I am

“an artist beyond doubt, but one without heed to the cravings of the

human heart: a worshipper of the Beautiful, but without religion,

without an ethical message, with nothing but a vain cry for the return,

or it may be the advent, of an impossible ideal.” Equally absurd to

complain that in these “impressions” I give no direct “blood and

bones” for the mind to gnaw at and worry over. Cannot they see that

all I attempt to do is to fashion anew something of the lovely vision

I have seen, and that I would as soon commit forgery (as I told some

one recently) as add an unnecessary line, or “play” to this or that

taste, this or that critical opinion. The chief paper here in Scotland

shakes its head over “the nude sensuousness of ‘The Swimmer of Nemi,’

‘The Naked Rider,’ ‘The Bather,’ ‘Fior di Memoria,’ ‘The Wild Mare’

(whose ‘fiery and almost savage realism!’ it depreciates—tho’ this is

the poem which Meredith says is ‘bound to live’) and evidently thinks

artists and poets who see beautiful things and try to fashion them

anew beautifully, should be stamped out, or at any rate left severely

alone....

 

In work, creative work above all, is the sovereign remedy for all that

ill which no physician can cure: and there is a joy in it which is

unique and invaluable.

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

For a time, however, creative work had to be put aside. The preparation

of _The Life and Letters of Joseph Severn_ was a hard grind that lasted

till mid-August. At Whitby, on the 13th, according to his diary he

“wrote 25 pp. digest of Severn’s novel and worked at other things.

Later I wrote the concluding pages, finishing the book at 2 A.M. I can

hardly believe that this long delayed task is now accomplished. But _at

last_ “Severn” is done!”

 

The final revision occupied him till the 28th August, and in order

to finish it before we went abroad on the 27th he wrote “all morning

till 1 P.M.; again from 9 P.M. all night unbrokenly till 7 A.M. Then

read a little to rest my brain and wrote four letters. Had a bath and

breakfast and felt all right.”

 

The 24th has the interesting entry: “Met old Charles Severn at the

Italian Restaurant near Portland Road Station and had a long talk with

him. He confirmed his previous statement (end of September last year)

about Keats having written “The Ode to the Nightingale” under “The

Spaniards on Hampstead Heath.”

 

September found us in Stuttgart in order that my husband should

collaborate with the American novelist Blanche Willis Howard. The first

days were spent in wandering about the lovely hillsides around the

town, which he described to Mrs. Janvier:

 

 

  JOHANNES STRASSE 33,

  3: 9: 91.

 

... I know that you would revel in this glowing golden heat, and in

the beautiful vinelands of the South. Southern Germany in the vintage

season is something to remember with joy all one’s life. Yesterday it

seemed as if the world above were one vast sea of deep blue wherever

a great glowing wave of light straight from the heart of the sun was

flowing joyously. I revel in this summer gorgeousness, and drink in the

hot breath of the earth as though it were the breath of life. Words are

useless to depict the splendour of colour everywhere—the glimmer of

the golden-green of the vines, the immeasurable sunfilled flowers, the

masses of ripening fruit of all kinds, the hues on the hill-slopes and

in the valleys, on the houses and the quaint little vineyard-cots with

their slanting red roofs. In the early afternoon I went up through the

orchards and vineyards on the shoulder of the Hasenberg. It was a glory

of colour. Nor have I ever seen such a lovely purple bloom among the

green branches—like the sky of faerieland—as in the dark-plum orchards.

There was one heavily laden tree which was superb in its massy richness

of fruit: it was like a lovely vision of those thunder-clouds which

come and go in July dawns. The bloom on the fruit was as though the

west wind had been unable to go further and had let its velvety breath

and wings fade away in a soft visible death or sleep. The only sounds

were from the myriad bees and wasps and butterflies: some peasants

singing in the valley as they trimmed the vines: and the just audible

sussurrus of the wind among the highest pines on the Hasenberg. There

was the fragrance of a myriad odours from fruit and flower and blossom

and plant and tree and fructifying soil—with below all that strange

smell as of the very body of the living breathing world. The festival

of colour was everywhere. As I passed a cottar’s sloping bit of ground

within his vineyards, I saw some cabbages high up among some trailing

beans, which were of the purest and most delicate blue, lying there

like azure wafts from the morning sky. Altogether I felt electrified

in mind and body. The sunflood intoxicated me. But the beauty of the

world is always bracing—all beauty is. I seemed to inhale it—to drink

it in—to absorb it at every pore—to become _it_—to become the heart

and soul within it. And then in the midst of it all came my old savage

longing for a vagrant life: for freedom from the bondage we have

involved ourselves in. I suppose I was a gipsy once—and before that “a

wild man o’ the woods.”

 

A terrific thunderstorm has broken since I wrote the above. I have

rarely if ever seen such continuous lightning. As it cleared, I saw a

remarkably beautiful sight. In front of my window rose a low rainbow,

and suddenly from the right there was slung a bright steel-blue bolt,

seemingly hurled with intent right through the arch. The next moment

the rainbow collapsed in a ruin of fading splendours....

 

I have had a very varied, and, to use a much abused word, a very

romantic life in its external as well as in its internal aspects. Life

is so unutterably precious that I cannot but rejoice daily that I am

alive: and yet I have no fear of, or even regret at the thought of

death.... There are many things far worse than death. When it comes, it

comes. But meanwhile we are alive. The Death of the power to live is

the only death to be dreaded....

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

His Diary also testifies to his exultant mood:

 

_Wednesday, 2:9:1891._—Another glorious day. This flood of sunshine is

like new life: it _is_ new life. I rejoice in the heat and splendour of

It seems to get into the heart and brain, and it intoxicates with

a strange kind of rapture.... How intensely one lives sometimes, even

when there is little apparently to call forth quintessential emotion.

This afternoon was a holiday of the soul. And yet how absolutely on

such a day one realises the savage in one. I suppose I was a gipsy

once: a ‘wild man’ before: a wilder beast of prey before that. We all

hark back strangely at times. To-day I seemed to remember much.... What

a year this has been for me: the richest and most wonderful I have

known. Were I as superstitious as Polycrates I should surely sacrifice

some precious thing lest the vengeful gods should say “Thou hast lived

too fully: Come!...”

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

The following extracts from William’s Diary indicate the method of the

collaboration used by the two authors:

 

_Sunday 6th. Sept. 1891._—Blanche Willis Howard, or rather, the Frau

Hof-Arzt Von Teuffel, arrived last night. She sent round word that

she could conveniently receive me in the afternoon, but as it was not

to have our first talk-over about our long projected joint novel,

Elizabeth came with me so as to make Frau Von T.’s acquaintanceship....

She is a charming woman, and I like her better than ever. As I am here

to write a novel in collaboration with her, and not to fall in love, I

must be on guard against my too susceptible self....

 

_Monday 7th._—At 3 o’clock I went to Frau Von Teuffel’s, and stayed

till 5.45. We had a long talk, and skirmished admirably—sometimes

“fluking” but ever and again taking our man: in other words, we gained

what we were after, to some extent—indirectly as well as directly. She

agrees to my proposal that we call the book _A Fellowe and His Wife_.

The two chief personages are to be Germans of rank, from the Rügen

seaboard. I am to be the “faire wife,” and have decided to live at

Rome, and to be a sculptor in ivory, and to have rooms in the Palazzo

Malaspina. Have not yet decided about my name. My favourite German name

is Hedwig, but Frau Von T. objected that English and American readers

would pronounce it ‘Hed-wig.’ She suggested Edla: but that doesn’t

‘fetch’ me. I think Freyda (or perhaps Olga) would suit.

 

_Tuesday, 8th._—This morning I began our novel _A Fellowe and His

Wife_. I wrote some nine pages of MS. being the whole of the first

letter written by Freia (or Ilse) from Rome.

 

_Thursday, 10th._—In the evening I went round to Môrike Strasse. We had

a long talk about the book and its evolution, and ultimately decided to

attempt the still more difficult task of telling the whole story in the

letters of Odo and Ilse only. Of course this is much more difficult:

but if we can do it, so much the more credit to our artistic skill

and imaginative insight.... (It was also decided that Frau v. Teuffel

should write Odo’s letters, and her collaborator, Ilse’s. In addition

to the novel W. S. dramatised the story in a five-act play.)

 

_1st October, 1891._—Wrote to-day the long first scene of Act III.

of _A Fellowe_. In afternoon E. and I went out in the town. I bought

Maurice Maeterlinck’s _La Princesse Maleine_ and _Les Aveugles_, and

in the late afternoon read right thro’ the latter and skimmed the

former. Some one has been writing about him recently and comparing him

to Webster. In method greatly, and in manner, and even in conceptive

imagination, he differs from Webster: but he is his Cousin-German.

It is certainly hopelessly uncritical to say as Octave Mirbeau did

last year in a French paper or magazine that Maeterlinck is another

Shakespeare. He is not even remotely Shakespearian. He is a writer

of singular genius; and I shall send for everything he has written.

Reading these things of his excited me to a high degree. It was the

electric touch I needed to produce my _Dramatic Interludes_ over which

I have been brooding. I believe that much of the imaginative writing of

the future will be in dramatic prose of a special kind....

 

_Friday, 2nd._—I went to bed last night haunted by my story “The

Summons.” To-day at 10.30 or nearer 11 I began to write it, and wrote

without a break till 5.30, by which time “A Northern Night,” as I now

call it, was entirely finished, ‘asides’ and all. Both there and when I

issue the _Dramatic Interludes_ (five in all) I shall send them forth

under my anagram, H. P. Siwäarmill. The volume will be a small one. The

longest pieces will be the “Northern Night,” and “The Experiment of

Melchior van Hoëk”: the others will be “The Confessor,” “The Birth of a

Soul” and “The Black Madonna.”

 

_Saturday 3rd._—... This late afternoon wrote the Dramatic Study, “The

Birth of a Soul.” Though not ‘picturesque’ it touches a deeper note

than “A Northern Night,” and so is really the more impressive.

 

_Tuesday, 6th._—... P. S. After writing this Entry for Tuesday, shortly

before 12, I began to write the opening particulars of Scene II. of Act

IV., and went on till I finished the whole scene, shortly before 2 A.M.

 

_Wednesday, 7th._ Finished before 1 A.M. my Play, _A Fellowe_, by

writing the longish Scene III. of Act IV. Went out with Lill in the

afternoon. The town all draped in black for the death of the King of

Saxony. Wrote to Frank Harris (from here, as H. P. Siwäarmill) with

“The Birth of a Soul.” ...

 

_Friday, 9th._—In late evening thought out (but only so far as leading

lines and general drift) the drama “The Gipsy-Christ.” (Being The

Passion of Manuel van Hoëk)....