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

PART I  (WILLIAM SHARP) CHAPTER XII ( WALT WHITMAN )

_The Pagan Review_

 

 

The brilliant summer was followed by a damp and foggy autumn. My

husband’s depression increased with the varying of the year. While I

was on a visit to my mother he wrote to me, after seeing me in the

morning:

 

 

  GROSVENOR CLUB, Nov. 9th, 1891.

 

“ ... I have been here all day and have enjoyed the bodily rest, the

inner quietude, and, latterly, a certain mental uplifting. But at

first I was deep down in the blues. Anything like the appalling gloom

between two and three-thirty! I could scarcely read, or do anything

but watch it with a kind of fascinated horror. It is going down to the

grave indeed to be submerged in that hideous pall.... As soon as I

can make enough by fiction or the drama to depend thereon we’ll leave

this atmosphere of fog and this environment of deadening, crushing,

paralysing, death-in-life respectability. Circumstances make London

thus for us: for me at least—for of course we carry our true atmosphere

in ourselves—and places and towns are, in a general sense, mere

accidents....

 

I have read to-day Edmond Schérer’s _Essais_ on Eng. Literature: very

able though not brilliant—reread the best portions of Jules Breton’s

delightful autobiography, which I liked so much last year ... all

George Moore’s New Novel, _Vain Fortune_.

 

I had also a pleasant hour or so dipping into Ben Jonson, Beaumont

and Fletcher, and other old dramatists: refreshed my forgotten

acquaintanceship with that silly drama “Firmilian”: and, generally,

enjoyed an irresponsible ramble thro’ whatever came to hand. I am now

all right again and send you this little breath, this little ‘Sospiro

di Guglielmo,’ to give you, if perchance you need it, a tonic stimulus.

No, you don’t need it!”

 

       *       *       *       *       *

 

His health was so seriously affected by the fogs that it became

imperative that he should get into purer air so he decided to fulfil

his intention of going to New York even though he had been forced

to relinquish all ideas of lecturing. There were various publishing

matters to attend to, and many friends to visit. In a letter to Mrs.

Janvier, announcing his projected visit, he tells her of the particular

work he had on hand:

 

“You will be the first to hear my new imaginative work. Although in a

new method, it is inherently more akin to “Romantic Ballads” than to

“Sospiri,” but it is intense dramatic prose. There is one in particular

I wish to read to you—three weeks from now.” And he adds, “Do you not

long for the warm days—for the beautiful living pulsing South? This

fierce cold and gloom is mentally benumbing.... Yes you are right:

there are few women and perhaps fewer men who have the passion of

Beauty—of the thrilling ecstasy of life.”

 

During his short stay in New York he was made the welcome guest of

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Stedman; and he delighted in this opportunity

of again meeting his good friends Mr. and Mrs. Richard Stoddart, Mr.

Alden, Mr. Howells, etc. But his chief interest was a memorable visit

to Walt Whitman, in whose fearless independent, mental outlook, and joy

in life, in whose vigorous individual verse, he had found incentive and

refreshment. Armed with an introduction from Mr. Stedman he pilgrimaged

to Camden, New Jersey, on January 23rd, and found the veteran poet in

bed propped up with pillows, very feeble, but bright-eyed and mentally

alert. William described the visit in a letter to me:

 

“During a memorable talk on the literature of the two countries past

and to come, the conversation turned upon a vivid episode. ‘That was

when you were young?’ I asked. The patriarchal old poet—who lay in

his narrow bed, with his white beard, white locks, and ashy-grey face

in vague relief, in the afternoon light, against the white pillows and

coverlet—looked at me before he answered, with that half audacious,

wholly winsome glance so characteristic of him, ‘Now, just you tell me

when you think that was!’

 

“Then, with sudden energy, and without waiting for a reply, he added,

‘Young? I’m as young now as I was then! What’s this grey tangle’ (and

as he spoke he gave his straggling beard an impatient toss),’and this

decrepit old body got to do with that, eh? I never felt younger, and

I’m glad of it—against what’s coming along. _That’s_ the best way to

shift camp, eh? That’s what I call Youth!’”

 

When the younger man bade him farewell Whitman gave him a message to

take back with him across the seas. “He said to me with halting breath:

‘William Sharp when you go back to England, tell those friends of whom

you have been speaking, and all others whom you may know and I do not

that words fail me to express my deep gratitude to them for sympathy

and aid truly enough beyond acknowledgment. Good-bye to you and to

them—the last greetings of a tired old poet.’”

 

The impression made on my husband, by the fearless serene attitude of

the great poet found expression in the few lines that flashed into his

mind, when on March 29th he read in a London evening paper of the death

of Walt Whitman:

 

IN MEMORIAM

 

  He laughed at Life’s Sunset-Gates

    With vanishing breath,

  Glad soul, who went with the sun

    To the Sunrise of death.

 

While William was in New York Mr. Stedman was asked by Mr. J. W. Young

to approach his guest with a request that he should “lecture” at

Harvard upon a subject of contemporary Literature. “Quite a number of

Harvard men are anxious to see and hear Mr. Sharp if he will consent to

come to Cambridge.”

 

It was with genuine regret that, owing to his doctor’s strict

prohibition, William felt himself obliged to refuse this flattering

request. He had also been asked by Mr. Palmer “the leading theatrical

Boss in the States to sell to him the rights of my play on ‘A Fellowe

and his Wife,’” a proposal which he declined.

 

On his return to England he wrote to Mr. Janvier:

 

 

“DEAR OLD MAN,

 

“I have read your stories (as I wrote the other day) with particular

pleasure, apart from personal associations. You have a delicate and

delightful touch that is quite your own, and all in all I for my part

fully endorse what Mr. Howells wrote about you recently in Harpers’ and

said as emphatically in private. So—amico caro—“go in and win!”

 

I am settling down in London for a time, and am more content to abide

awhile now that the writing mood is at last upon me again—and strong at

that!

 

I have not yet put my hand to any of the commissioned stories I must

soon turn to—but tell _la sposa_ that I have finished my “Dramatic

Vistas” (two or three of which I read to her), and even venture to

look with a certain half-content upon the last of the series—“The

Lute-Player”—which has been haunting me steadily since last October,

but which I could not express aright till the other day....”

 

 

The immediate outcome of his visit to America was the publication, by

Messrs. Chas. Webster & Co., of his _Romantic Ballads_ and _Sospiri di

Roma_ in one volume entitled _Flower O’ the Vine_. It was prefaced by

a flattering Introduction by Mr. Janvier, to whom the author wrote in

acknowledgment:

 

 

  PARIS, 23d April, 1892.

 

... Many thanks for your letter, my dear fellow, and for the

“Introduction,” which I have just read. I thank you most heartily for

what you say there, which seems to me, moreover, if I may say so,

at once generous, fittingly reserved, and likely to win attention.

You yourself occupy such a high place in Letters oversea that such a

recommendation of my verse cannot but result to my weal. I have been

so deep in work and engagements, that I have been unable to attend

to any correspondence of late—and have, I fear, behaved somewhat

churlishly to friends across the water, and particularly to my dear

friends at 27th Avenue. But now the _pressure_ of work is over for the

moment: my London engagements or their ghosts are vainly calling to me

d’Outre-Manche: I am keeping down my too cosmopolitan acquaintanceship

in Paris to the narrowest limit: and on and after the second of May am

going to reform and remain reformed. If you don’t object to a little

“roughing,” you would enjoy being with me and _mes camarades_ this

coming week. We like extremes, so after a week or so of the somewhat

feverish Bohemianism of literary and artistic Paris, we shall be happy

at our ‘gipsy’ encampment in the Forest of Fontainebleau (at a remote

and rarely-visited but lovely and romantic spot between the Gorge de

Franchard and the Gorge d’Apremont). Spring is now here in all her

beauty: and there is a divine shimmer of green everywhere. Paris itself

is _en fête_ with her vividly emerald limes and sycamores, and the

white and red spires of the chestnuts must make the soul of the west

wind that is now blowing rejoice with gladness. The Seine itself is

of a paler green than usual, and is suggestive of those apple-hued

canals and conduits of Flanders and by the ‘dead cities’ of north-east

Holland. I forget if you know Paris—but there is one of its many

fountains that has an endless charm for me: that across the Seine,

between the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Bld. St. Germain—the

Fontaine St. Michel—I stood watching the foaming surge and splash of

it for some time yesterday, and the pearl-grey and purple-hued doves

that flew this way and that through the sunlit spray. It brought, as

it always does, many memories of beloved Rome and Italy back to me.

I turned—and saw Paul Verlaine beside me: and I was in Paris again,

the Paris of Paris, the Aspasia of the cities of the World, the only

city whom one loves and worships (and is betrayed by) as a woman.

Then I went round to Leon Vanier’s, where there were many of _les

Jeunes_—Jean Moréas, Maurice Barrès, Cazals, Renard, Eugène Holland,

and others (including your namesake, Janvier). To-night I _ought_ to go

to the weekly gathering of a large number of _les Jeunes_ at the Café

du Soleil d’Or, that favourite meeting place now of _les décadents_,

_les symbolistes_, and les everything else. But I can’t withstand

this flooding sunshine, and sweet wind, and spraying of waters, and

toss-toss and shimmer-shimmer of blossoms and leaves; so I’ll probably

be off. _This_ won’t be off if I don’t shut up in a double sense.

 

My love to ‘Kathia’ and to you, dear fellow Pagans.

 

  Ever yours rejoicingly,

  WILLIAM SHARP.

 

Tell K. that when I have ‘reformed’ I’ll write to her. Don’t let her

be impertinent, and say that this promise will be fulfilled _ad Græcas

Kalendas_!

 

S. Here are my proposed ‘coming-movements.’

 

(1) Lill joins me in Paris about 10 days hence, and remains to see the

two Salons, etc.

 

(2) From the middle of May till the middle (14th) of July we shall be

in London.

 

(3) Then Lill goes with friends to Germany, to Bayreuth (for Wagnerian

joys) and I go afoot and aboat among the lochs and isles and hills of

the western Scottish Highlands.

 

(4) We meet again in Stirling or Edinburgh, early in August—and then,

having purchased or hired a serviceable if not a prancing steed, we go

off for three weeks vagabondage. The steed is for Lill and our small

baggage and a little tent. We’ll sometimes sleep out: sometimes at

inns, or in the fern in Highlander’s cottages. Thereafter I shall again

go off by myself to the extreme west “where joy and melancholy are one,

and where youth and age are twins” as the Gaelic poet says.

 

(5) The rest of September visiting in Scotland.

 

(6) Part of October in London then (O Glad Tidings)

 

(7) Off for 6 months to the South: first to the Greek side of Sicily:

then to Rome (about Xmas) for the Spring. Finally: a Poor-house in

London.

 

 

The reply came swiftly:

 

  NEW YORK, 6: 5: 92.

 

  MY DEAR SHARP,

 

Your letter of April 3rd is like a stirring fresh wind. The vigour of

it is delightful, and a little surprising, considering what you had

been