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

so eager a desire, that I have no hesitation in

 urging you to devote your best thought and time and effort to a worthy

 achievement.

 

 But no work of the imagination has any value if it be not shaped and

 coloured from within. Every imaginative writer must take his offspring

 to the Fountain of Youth, and the only way is through the shadowy and

 silent avenues of one’s own heart. My advice to you, then, is, not to

 refrain from steeping your thought and imagination in what is near to

 your heart and dream, but to see that your vision is always your _own_

 vision, that your utterance is always your own utterance, and to be

 content with no beauty and no charm that are dependent on another’s

 vision of beauty and another’s secret of charm.

 

 Meanwhile, I can advise you no more surely than to say, write as simply,

 almost as baldly, above all as _naturally_ as possible. Sincerity, which

 is the last triumph of art, is also its foster-mother. You will do well,

 I feel sure: and among your readers you will have none more interested

 than

 

  Yours Sincerely,

  FIONA MACLEOD.

 

To another friend he wrote in answer to a question on ‘style’:

 

 “Rhythmic balance, fluidity, natural motion, spontaneity, controlled

 impetus, proportion, height and depth, shape and contour, colour and

 atmosphere, all these go to every _living_ sentence—but there, why

 should I weary you with uncertain words when you can have a certainty

 of instance almost any time where you are: you have hut to look at a

 wave to find your exemplar for the ideal sentence. All I have spoken of

 is there—and it is alive—and part of one flawless whole.”

 

From W. S. to Mrs. Janvier.

 

 

  TAORMINA,

  18th Feb., 1903.

 

 ... In fact, letters are now my worst evil to contend against—for,

 with this foreign life in a place like this, with so many people I

 know, it is almost impossible to get anything like adequate time for

 essential work—and still less for the imaginative leisure I need, and

 dreaming out my work—to say nothing of reading, etc. As you know, too,

 I have continually to put into each day the life of two persons—each

 with his or her own interests, preoccupations, work, thoughts, and

 correspondence. I have really, in a word, quite apart from my own

 temperament, to live at exactly double the rate in each day of the

 most active and preoccupied persons. No wonder, then, that I find the

 continuous correspondence of ‘two persons’ not only a growing weariness,

 but a terrible strain and indeed perilous handicap on time and energy

 for work....

 

A little later William Sharp started for a fortnight’s trip to Greece

by way of Calabria—Reggio, Crotona, Taranto, Brindisi to Corfù and

Athens, with a view of gathering impressions for the working out of his

projected book (by W. S.) to be called _Greek Backgrounds_.

 

_En route_ he wrote to me:

 

 

  23d Jan., 1903.

 

 “Where of all unlikely places do you think this is written from? Neither

 Corfù nor Samothrace nor Ithaka nor Zante, nor any Greek isle betwixt

 this and the Peloponnesus, but in Turkey!... i.e., in Turkish Albania,

 surrounded by turbaned Turks, fezzed Albanians, and picturesque kilted

 Epeirotes, amid some of the loveliest scenery in the world.

 

 You will have had my several cards en route and last from Târantô. The

 first of a series of four extraordinary pieces of almost uncanny good

 fortune befell me _en route_,—but it would take too long now to write in

 detail. Meanwhile I may say I met the first of three people to whom I

 already owe much—and who helped me thro’ every bother at Brindisi. (He

 is a foreign Consul in Greece.)

 

 (By the way, the engine from Târantô to Brindisi was called the

 _Agamemnon_ and the steamer to Greece the _Poseidon_—significant names,

 eh?)

 

 I had a delightful night’s rest in my comfortable cabin, and woke at

 dawn to find the _Poseidon_ close to the Albanian shore, and under the

 superb snow-crowned Acrokerannian Mountains. The scenery superb—with

 Samothrace, and the Isle of Ulysses, etc., etc., seaward, and the

 beautiful mountainous shores of Corfù (here called _Kepkuga_, Kêrkyra)

 on the S.W. and S. There was a special Consul-Deputation on board,

 to land two, and also to take off a number of Turks, Albanians, and

 Epeirotes for Constantinople. We put in after breakfast at Eavri

 Kagavri—a Greco-Albanian township of Turkey. The scattered oriental

 ‘town’ of the Forty Saints crowns a long ridge at a considerable

 height—the harbour-town is a cluster of Turkish houses beside an

 extraordinary absolutely deserted set of gaunt ruins. Hundreds of

 Albanians and Epeirotes, Moslem priests and two Greek _papas_ (or popes)

 were on the shore-roads, with several caravans each of from 20 to 50

 mules and horses. Costumes extraordinarily picturesque, especially the

 white-kilted or skirted Albanian mountaineers, and the Larissa Turks. We

 were 3 hours—and I the only ‘privileged’ person to get thro’ with the

 consul. We took many aboard—a wonderful crew, from a wonderful place,

 the fairyland of my Greek resident from Paris—who is on his way to spend

 a month with his mother in Athens, and has asked me to visit him at his

 house there....

 

 Well, the _Poseidon_ swung slowly out of the bay,—a lovely, exciting,

 strange, unforgettable morning—and down the lovely Albanian coast—now

 less wild, and wooded and craggy, something like the West Highlands at

 Loch Fyne, etc., but higher and wilder. When off a place on the Turkish

 Albanian coast called Pothlakov (Rothroukon) the shaft of the screw

 suddenly broke! The engineer told the captain it would be five hours at

 least before it could be mended—adding, a little later, that the harm

 could probably not be rectified here, and that we should have to ride

 at sea till a relief boat came from Corfù or Greece to take off the

 passengers, etc.

 

 As no one has a Turkish passport, no one can get ashore except lucky

 me, with my influential friend, in a Turkish steam-pinnacle! (It is so

 beautiful, so warm, and so comfortable on the _Poseidon_, that, in a

 sense, I’m indifferent—and would rather _not_ be relieved in a hurry.)

 

 (Later.) Late afternoon on board—still no sign of getting off. No Corfù

 to-day, now, though about only an hour’s sail from here! _Perhaps_

 tonight—or a relief steamer may come. I’ll leave this now, as I want to

 see all I can in the sundown light. It is all marvellously strange and

 lovely. _What_ a heavenly break-down! _What_ luck!

 

 Just had a talk with another passenger stamping with impatience. I

 didn’t soothe him by remarking I hoped we should adrift ashore and

 be taken prisoners by the Turks. He says he wants to get on. Absurd.

 “There’s more beauty here than one can take-in for days to come,” I

 said—“Damn it, sir, what have _I_ got to do with beauty,”—he asked

 indignantly. “Not much, certainly,” I answered drily, looking him over.

 An Italian _maestro_ is on board on his way to Athens—now playing

 delightfully in the salon. A Greek guitarist is going to play and sing

 at moonrise. No hills in the world more beautiful in shape and hue

 and endless contours—with gorgeous colours. Albania is lost Eden, I

 think. Just heard that a steamer is to come for us in a few hours, or

 less, from Corfù, and tow us into Kêrkyra (the town)—and that another

 Austro-Lloyd from Trieste or Brindisi will take us on to-morrow

 sometime from Corfù to Athens.... The only perfectly happy person on

 board.

 

  Yours,

  WILL.

 

 

  ATHENS, 29th Jan.

 

 ... This lovely place is wonderful. How I wish you were here to enjoy

 it too. I take you with me mentally wherever I go. It is a marvellous

 _home-coming_ feeling I have here. And I know a strange stirring, a kind

 of spiritual rebirth.

 

  ATHENS, Feb. 1st.

 

 ... Yesterday, a wonderful day at Eleusis. Towards sundown drove through

 the lovely hill-valley of Daphne, with its beautifully situated isolated

 ruin of the Temple of Aphrodîtê, a little to the north of the Sacred

 Way of the Dionysiac and other Processions from Aonai (Athenai) to the

 Great Fane of Eleusis. I have never anywhere seen such a marvellous

 splendour of living light as the sundown light, especially at the Temple

 of Aphrodîtê and later as we approached Athens and saw it lying between

 Lycabettos and the Acropolis, with Hymettos to the left and the sea to

 the far right and snowy Pentelicos behind. The most radiant wonder of

 light I have ever seen.

 

On his return to Taormina he received the following letter from Mr.

Hichens:

 

 

STEPHENS,

  CANTERBURY.

 

  MY DEAR SHARP,

 

 ... Lately I recommended a very clever man, half Spanish and half

 German, to read the work of Fiona Macleod. I wondered how it would

 strike one who had never been in our Northern regions, and he has just

 written to me, and says: “I am reading with intense delight Fiona

 Macleod’s books and thank you very much for telling me to get them.

 I ordered them all from London and cannot tell you how I admire the

 thoughts, the style, “toute la couleur locale.” They are books I shall

 keep by me and take about with me wherever I go.” I suppose he feels

 they are fine, as I feel Tourgeney’s studies of Russian character are

 fine, although I have never lived among Russians. I shall take _Anna

 Karénina_ to Italy with me and read it once more. At Marseilles I saw

 the “Resurrection” acted. It was very interesting and touching, though

 not really a very good play. It was too episodical. In London it is an

 immense success.

 

 Well, I hope you will really come to winter in Africa. You can stay at

 either the Oasis or the Royal and I think we should be very happy. We

 must often go out on donkey-back into the dunes and spend our day there

 far out in the desert. I know no physical pleasure,—apart from all the

 accompanying mental pleasure,—to be compared with that which comes from

 the sun and air of the Sahara and the enormous spaces. This year I was

 more enchanted than ever before. Even exquisite Taormina is hum-drum

 in comparison. I expect to go to Italy very early in May, and back

 to Africa quite at the beginning of November. Do try to come then as

 November is a magnificent month. Don’t reply. You are too busy. I often

 miss the walks, and your company, which wakes up my mind and puts the

 bellows to my spark of imagination.

 

  Ever yours,

  ROBERT HICHENS.

 

 I can’t help being rather sorry that you won’t go to Sicily again for a

 long while. I always feel as if we all had a sort of home there.

 

For, as Mr. Hichens wrote to me, “I still think Taormina the most

exquisite place in Europe. On a fine morning it is ineffably lovely.”

 

PART II  ( FIONA MACLEOD  ) CHAPTER XXIV ( WINTER IN ATHENS )

_Greek Backgrounds_

 

 

During the following summer William Sharp saw George Meredith for the

last time. Concerning that visit to Box Hill he wrote to a friend:

 

 

  Monday, June 22, 1903.

 

 ... I am so glad I went down to see George Meredith to-day. It was

 goodbye, I fear, though the end may not be for some time yet: not

 immediate, for he has recovered from his recent severe illness and

 painful accident, though still very weak, but able to be up, and to move

 about a little.

 

 At first I was told he could see no one, but when he heard who the

 caller was I was bidden enter, he gave me a sweet cordial welcome, but

 was frail and weak and fallen into the blind alleys that so often await

 the most strenuous and vivid lives. But, in himself, in his mind, there

 is no change. I felt it was goodbye, and when I went, I think he felt it

 so also. When he goes it will be the passing of the last of the great

 Victorians. I could have (selfishly) wished that he had known a certain

 secret: but it is better not, and now is in every way as undesirable

 as indeed impossible. If there is in truth, as I believe, and as he

 believes,