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

the gintry had given me up entoirely”—and he

 was as good as his word! The night was dark, and the roads near Athenry

 awful after the recent gale and rains—and it was no joke to hold on to

 the car. Whenever we came to a particularly bad bit (and I declared

 afterwards that he took some of the stone dykes at a leap) he cried—“Now

 thin yer honour, whin I cry _Whiroo!_ you hould on an’ trust to God”—and

 then came his wild _Whiroo!_ and the horse seemed to spring from the

 car, and the jarvey and I to be flying alongside, and my rope-bound

 luggage to be kicking against the stars—and then we came down with a

 thud, and when I had a gasp of refound breath I asked if the road was as

 smooth and easy all the way, whereat my friend laughed genially and said

 “Be aisy at that now—shure we’re coming to the bad bit soon!” ...

 

 Not far from here is a fairy-doctor, I am going to see him some day. It

 is strange that when one day Lady Gregory took one of Russell’s mystical

 drawings (I think of the Mōr Reega) and showed it to an old woman, she

 at once exclaimed that that was the “photograph” of the fairy queen she

 had often seen, only that the strange girdle of fan-flame was round her

 waist and not on her head as in the drawing. An old man here also has

 often met “the secret people,” and when asked to describe one strange

 “fairy lord” he has encountered more than once, it was so like G. R’s

 drawing that that was shown him among several others, and he at once

 picked it out!

 

 It is a haunted land.

 

  In haste (and hunger),

 

  WILF.

 

S. I have been thinking much over my long-projected consecutive work

 (i. e. as W. S.)—in five sequel books—on the drama of life as seen in

 the evolution of the dreams of youth—begun, indeed, over ten years ago

 in Paris—but presciently foregone till ten maturing years should pass.

 

 But now the time has come when I may, and should, and indeed, now,

 _must_, write this _Epic of Youth_. That will be its general collective

 name—and it will interest you to know the now definitely fixt names of

 these five (and all very long) books; each to be distinct and complete

 in itself, yet all sequently connected: and organic and in the true

 sense dramatic evolution of some seven central types of men and women

 from youth to maturity and climax, along the high and low, levels.

 

  Name: _The Epic of Youth._

The Hunters of Wisdom. The Tyranny of Dreams.

  III. The Star of Fortune.

The Daughters of Vengeance. The Iron Gates.

 

 This will take five years to do—so it is a big task to set, before the

 end of 1902!—especially as I have other work to do, and F. M.’s, herself

 as ambitious. But method, and maturer power and thought, can accomplish

 with far less nervous output, what otherwise was impossible, and only at

 a killing or at least perilous strain.

 

 So wish me well!

 

But the pressure of health, of the needs of daily livelihood, and of

the more dominating ambitions of F. M. prevented the fulfilment of this

scheme.

 

Many times he talked of it, drafted out portions of it—but it remained

unaccomplished, and all that exists of it is the beginning chapters

of the first book written in Paris ten years before, and then called

_Cæsar of France_.

 

London proved to be impossible to him owing to the excitable condition

of his brain. Therefore he took rooms in Hastings whence he wrote to me:

 

 

  Nov. 21, 1897.

 

 I am so glad to be here, in this sunlight by the sea. Light and

 motion—what a joy these are. The eyes become devitalised in the pall of

 London gloom....

 

 There is a glorious amplitude of light. The mind bathes in these

 illimitable vistas. Wind and Wave and Sun: how regenerative these elder

 brothers are.

 

 Solomon says there is no delight like wisdom, and that wisdom is the

 heritage of age: but there is a divine unwisdom which is the heritage

 of youth—and I would rather be young for a year than wise for a cycle.

 There are some who live without the pulse of youth in the mind: on the

 day, in the hour, I no longer feel that quick pulse, I will go out like

 a blown flame. To be young; to keep young: that is the story and despair

 of life....

 

Among the Christmas publications of 1897 appeared _The Laughter of

Peterkin_ by Fiona Macleod. This book, issued by Messrs. Archibald

Constable and illustrated by Mr. Sunderland Rollinson, was a new

departure for the author, an interlude in the midst of more strenuous

original work, for it was the re-telling of three old tales of Celtic

Wonderland: “The Four White Swans,” or “The Children of Lir,” “The

Fate of the Sons of Turenn,” and “Darthool and the Sons of Usna.”

 

Some years later, after the publication of Lady Gregory’s “Gods and

Fighting Men,” Mr. Alfred Nutt wrote to F. M. and suggested that she

should again turn her attention to the re-telling of some of the

beautiful old Celtic tales and legends. My husband, however, realised

that he had far more dreams haunting the chambers of his mind than he

could have time to give expression to. Therefore, very regretfully, he

felt constrained to forego what otherwise would have been a work of

love.

 

 

PART II  ( FIONA MACLEOD  ) CHAPTER XIX ( WIVES IN EXILE )

_Silence Farm_

 

 

The production of the Fiona Macleod work was accomplished at a heavy

cost to the author as that side of his nature deepened and became

dominant. The strain upon his energies was excessive: not only from

the necessity of giving expression to the two sides of his nature;

but because of his desire, that, while under the cloak of secrecy F.

should develop and grow, the reputation of William Sharp should

at the same time be maintained. Moreover each of the two natures had

its own needs and desires, interests and friends. The needs of each

were not always harmonious one with the other, but created a complex

condition that led to a severe nervous collapse. The immediate result

of the illness was to cause an acute depression and restlessness that

necessitated a continual change of environment. In the early part

of 1898 he went in turn to Dover, to Bournemouth, Brighton, and St.

Margaret’s Bay. He was much alone, except for the occasional visit of

an intimate friend; for I could go to him at the week-ends only, as I

had the work in London to attend to. The sea, and solitude, however,

proved his best allies.

 

To Mrs. Janvier he wrote:

 

 ... I am skirting the wood of shadows. I am filled with vague fears—and

 yet a clear triumphant laughter goes through it, though whether of life

 or death no one knows. I am also in a duel with other forces than those

 of human wills—and I need all my courage and strength. At the moment I

 have recovered my physic control over certain media. It cannot last more

 than a few days at most a few weeks at a time: but in that time _I am

 myself_....

 

 Let there be peace in your heart: peace and hope transmuted into joy: in

 your mind, the dusking of no shadow, the menace of no gloom, but light,

 energy, full life: and to you in your whole being, the pulse of youth,

 the flame of green fire....

 

At the end of April he wrote to R. Murray Gilchrist from St. Margaret’s

Bay:

 

 

 MY DEAR FRIEND,

 

 I know you will have been sorry to hear that I have been ill—and had to

 leave work, and home. The immediate cause was a severe and sudden attack

 of influenza which went to membranes of the head and brain, and all but

 resulted in brain fever. This evil was averted—but it and the possible

 collapse of your friend Will were at one time, and for some days, an

 imminent probability.

 

 I have now been a fortnight in this quiet sea-haven, and am practically

 myself again. Part of my work is now too hopelessly in arrears ever to

 catch up. Fortunately, our friend Miss F. M. practically finished her

 book just before she got ill too—and there is a likelihood that _There

 is But One Love_ [published in the following year under the title of

 _The Dominion of Dreams_] will come out this Spring. A few days will

 decide....

 

  Your friend and Sunlover,

  (in the deep sense you know I mean—for I

  have suffered much, but am now again fronting

  life gravely and with laughing eyes),

 

  WILL.

 

and again after his return to London:

 

 

  RUTLAND HOUSE.

 

  MY DEAR ROBERT,

 

 ... After months of sickness, at one time at the gates of death, I am

 whirled back from the Iron Gates and am in the maelstrom again—fighting

 with mind and soul and body for that inevitable losing game which we

 call victory. Well, the hour waits: and for good or ill I put forth that

 which is in me. The Utmost for the Highest. There is that motto for all

 faithful failures....

 

 I am busy of course. And so, too, our friend F. M.—with an elixir of

 too potent life. The flame is best: and the keener, the less obscured

 of smoke. So I believe: upon this I build. _Cosmopolis_ will ere long

 have “The Wayfarer” of hers—_Good Words_ “The Wells of Peace”—_Harpers_,

 something—_Literature_ a spiritual ballad—and so forth. But her life

 thought is in another and stranger thing than she has done yet.[4] ...

 Your friend W. S. is busy too, with new and deeper and stronger work.

 The fugitive powers impel. I look eagerly to new work of yours: above

 all to what you colour with yourself. I care little for anything that

 is not quick with that volatile part of one which is the effluence of

 the spirit within. Write to me soon: by return best of all. You can help

 me—as I, I hope, can help _you_.

 

 It is only the fullest and richest lives that know what the _heart_ of

 loneliness is.

 

 You are my comrade, and have my love,

 

 WILL.

 

Two, among the many letters he wrote to me during that Spring—so full

of suffering for him and anxiety for me—are, I think, very indicative

of the two phases of his nature. The first relates to views we held in

common; the second gives an insight into the primitive elemental soul

that so often swayed him, and his work.

 

 

  March 29, 1898.

 

 ... Yes, in essentials, we are all at one. We have both learned

 and unlearned so much, and we have come to see that we are wrought

 mysteriously by forces beyond ourselves, but in so seeing we know that

 there is a great and deep love that conquers even disillusion and

 disappointment....

 

 Not all the wishing, not all the dreaming, not all the will and hope

 and prayer we summon can alter that within us which is stronger than

 ourselves. This is a hard lesson to learn for all of us, and most for

 a woman. We are brought up within such an atmosphere of conventional

 untruth to life that most people never even perceive the hopeless

 futility in the arbitrary ideals which are imposed upon us—and the

 result for the deeper natures, endless tragic miscarriage of love,

 peace, and hope. But, fortunately, those of us who to our own suffering

 _do_ see only too clearly, can still strike out a nobler ideal—one

 that does not shrink from the deepest responsibilities and yet can so

 widen and deepen the heart and spirit with love that what else would be

 irremediable pain can be transmuted into hope, into peace, and even into

 joy.

 

 People talk much of this and that frailty or this or that circumstance

 as being among the commonest disintegrants of happiness. But far more

 fatal for many of us is that supreme disintegrant, the Tyranny of

 Love—the love which is forever demanding _as its due_ that which is

 wholly independent of bonds, which is as the wind which bloweth