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

a life for us after this, he will know that his long-loving

 and admiring younger comrade has also striven towards the hard way that

 few can reach. What I _did_ tell him before has absolutely passed from

 his mind: had, indeed, never taken root, and perhaps I had nurtured

 rather than denied what _had_ taken root. If in some ways a little sad,

 I am glad otherwise. And I had one great reward, for at the end he spoke

 in a way he might not otherwise have done, and in words I shall never

 forget. I had risen, and was about to lean forward and take his hands in

 farewell, to prevent his half-rising, when suddenly he exclaimed “Tell

 me something of _her_—of Fiona. I call her so always, and think of her

 so, to myself. Is she well? Is she at work? Is she true to her work and

 her ideal? No, _that_ I know!”

 

 It was then he said the following words, which two minutes later, in

 the garden, I jotted down in pencil at once lest I should forget even

 a single word, or a single change in the sequence of words. “She is a

 woman of genius. That is rare ... so rare anywhere, anytime, in women

 or, in men. Some few women ‘have genius,’ but she is more than that.

 Yes, she is a woman of genius: the genius too, that is rarest, that

 drives deep thoughts before it. Tell her I think often of her, and of

 the deep thought in all she has written of late. Tell her I hope great

 things of her yet. And now ... we’ll go, since it must be so. Goodbye,

 my dear fellow, and God bless you.”

 

 Outside, the great green slope of Box Hill rose against a cloudless sky,

 filled with a flowing south wind. The swifts and swallows were flying

 high. In the beech courts thrush and blackbird called continually, along

 the hedgerows the wild-roses hung. But an infinite sadness was in it

 all. A prince among men had fallen into the lonely and dark way.

 

Goodbye it was in truth; but it was the older poet who recovered hold

on life and outlived the younger by four years.

 

[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH

 

From a photograph by F. Hollyer, about 1898]

 

A wet spring, and a still damper autumn affected my husband seriously;

and while we were visiting Mrs. Glassford Bell in Perthshire he became

so ill that we went to Llandrindod Wells for him to be under special

treatment. As he explained to Mr. Ernest Rhys:

 

  LLANDRINDOD WELLS,

  Sept., 1903.

 

  MY DEAR ERNEST,

 

 ... I know that you will be sorry to learn that things have not gone

 well with me. All this summer I have been feeling vaguely unwell and,

 latterly, losing strength steadily.... However, the rigorous treatment,

 the potent Saline and Sulphur waters and baths, the not less potent

 and marvellously pure and regenerative Llandrindod air—and my own

 exceptional vitality and recuperative powers—have combined to work a

 wonderful change for the better; which may prove to be more than “a

 splendid rally,” tho’ I know I must not be too sanguine. Fortunately,

 the eventuality does not much trouble me, either way: I have lived, and

 am content, and it is only for what I don’t want to leave undone that

 the sound of ‘Farewell’ has anything deeply perturbing.

 

S.

 

And later to Mrs. Janvier:

 

 

  LONDON, Sept. 30, 1903.

 

 Thanks for your loving note. But you are not to worry yourself about

I’m all right, and as cheerful as a lark—let us say as a lark

 with a rheumatic wheeze in its little song-box, or gout in its little

 off-claw.... Anyway, I’ll laugh and be glad and take life as I find it,

 till the end. The best prayer for me is that I may live vividly till

 “Finis,” and work up to the last hour....

 

 My love to you both, and know me ever your irrepressible,

 

  BILLY.

 

In a letter to Mr. Alden (Aug. 25th, 1903) he describes the work he had

on hand at the moment, and the book he had projected and hoped to write:

 

 “ ... in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ you may have noticed a series of

 topographical papers (with as much or more of anecdotal and reminiscent

 and critical) contributed, under the title of “Literary Geography,” by

 myself. The first three were commissioned by the editor to see how they

 ‘took.’ They were so widely liked, and those that followed, that this

 summer he commissioned me to write a fresh series, one each month till

 next March. Of these none has been more appreciated than the double

 article on the Literary Geography of the Lake of Geneva. Forthcoming

 issues are The English Lake Country, Meredith, Thackery, The Thames,

 etc. In the current issue I deal with Stevenson.

 

 ... About my projected Greek book, to comprise Magna Grecia as well,

e. Hellenic Calabria and Sicily, etc.... I want to make a book out

 of the material gathered, old and new, and to go freshly all over the

 ground.... I intend to call it _Greek Backgrounds_ and to deal with the

 ancient (recreated) and modern backgrounds of some of the greatest of

 the Greeks—as they were and are—as, for example, of Æschylus, Sophocles,

 Euripides, Empedocles, Theocritus, etc.—and of famous ancient cities,

 Sybaris, Corinth, etc.; and deal with the home or chief habitat or

 famous association. For instance:

 

  (1) Calabria (Crotan and Metapontum) with Pythagoras.

 

  (2) Eleusis in Greece,         }  with life and death of

  Syracuse and Gela in Sicily    }        Æschylus.

 

  (3) Colonos                             Sophocles.

 

  (4) Athens etc.                   with Euripides.

 

  (5) Syracuse                   }  with Pindar etc. etc.

  and Acragas (Girgente)         }

 

The two following letters were acknowledgments of birthday greetings.

In the first to Mr. Stedman our plans for that winter are described:

 

 

  THE GROSVENOR CLUB,

  Oct. 2, 1903.

 

  MY DEAR E. C. S.,

 

 Two days ago, on Wednesday’s mail, I posted a letter to reach you, I

 hope, on the morning of your birthday—and today, to my very real joy,

 I safely received your long and delightful letter. It has been a true

 medicine—for, as I told you, I’ve been gravely ill. And it came just at

 the right moment, and warmed my heart with its true affection.

 

 ... I know you’ll be truly glad to hear that the tidings about myself

 can be more and more modified by good news from my physician,—a man

 in whom I have the utmost confidence and who knows every weakness as

 well as every resource and reserve of strength in me, and understands

 my temperament and nature as few doctors do understand complex

 personalities.

 

 He said to me today “You look as if you were well contented with the

 world.” I answered “Yes, of course I am. In the first place I’m every

 day feeling stronger, and in the next, and for this particular day, I’ve

 just had a letter of eight written pages from a friend whom I have ever

 dearly loved and whom I admire not less than I love.” He knew you as a

 poet as well as the subtlest and finest interpreter of modern poetry—and

 indeed (tho’ I had forgotten) I had given him a favourite volume and

 also lent your Baltimore addresses.

 

 When I’m once more in the land of Theocritus (and oh how entrancing it

is) I’ll be quite strong and well again, he says. Indeed I’m already ‘a

 live miracle’! We sail by the Orient liner “Orizaba” on the 23rd; reach

 Naples (via Gibraltar and Marseilles) 9 to 10 days later; and leave by

 the local mail-boat same evening for Messina—arrive there about 8 on

 Monday morning—catch the Syracuse mail about 10, change at 12 at Giarre,

 and ascend Mt. Etna by the little circular line to Maletto about 3,000

high, and thence drive to the wonderful old Castle of Maniace to

 stay with our dear friend there, the Duke of Bronte—our third or fourth

 visit now. We’ll be there about a fortnight: then a week with friends at

 lovely and unique Taormina: and then sail once more, either from Messina

 or Naples direct to the Piræus, for Athens, where we hope to spend the

 winter and spring.

 

 How I wish you were to companion us. In Sicily, I often thought of you,

 far off Brother of Theocritus. You would so delight in it all, the

 Present that mirrors the magical Past; the Past that penetrates like

 stars the purple veils of the Present.

 

 Yes, I know well how sincere is all you say as to the loving friend

 awaiting me—awaiting _us_—if ever we cross the Atlantic: but it is

 gladsome to hear it all the same. All affectionate greetings to dear

 Mrs. Stedman, a true and dear friend.

 

  Ever, dear Stedman,

  Your loving friend,

  WILLIAM SHARP.

 

 

  13th Sept., 1903.

 

  DEAR MRS. GILCHRIST,

 

 It is at all times a great pleasure to hear from you, and that pleasure

 is enhanced by hearing from you on my birthday and by your kind

 remembrance of the occasion....

 

 We look forward to Athens greatly, though it is not (as in Elizabeth’s

 case) my first visit to that land of entrancing associations and still

 ever-present beauty. But as one grows older, one the more recognises

 that ‘climate’ and ‘country’ belong to the geography of the soul rather

 than to that secondary physical geography of which we hear so much. The

 winds of heaven, the dreary blast of the wilderness, the airs of hope

 and peace, the tragic storms and cold inclemencies—these are not the

 property of our North or South or East, but are of the climes self-made

 or inherited or in some strange way become our ‘atmosphere.’ And the

 country we dream of, that we long for, is not yet reached by Cook nor

 even chartered by Baedeker. You and yours are often in our thought. In

 true friendship, distance means no more than that the sweet low music is

 far off: but it is there.

 

  Your friend,

  WILLIAM SHARP.

 

We journeyed by sea to Naples. Our hopes of a chat with our friends

the Janviers at Marseilles were frustrated by a violent gale we

encountered. As my husband wrote to Mrs. Janvier while at sea:

 

 

  R.M.S. ORIZABA,

  Oct. 31, 1903.

 

 It seems strange to write to you on the Festival of Samhain—the Celtic

 Summer-end, our Scottish Hallowe’en—here on these stormy waters between

 Sardinia and Italy. It is so strong a gale, and the air is so inclement

 and damp that it is a little difficult to realise we are approaching the

 shores of Italy. But wild as the night is I want to send you a line on

 it, on this end of the old year, this night of powers and thoughts and

 spiritual dominion.

 

 It was a disappointment not to get ashore at Marseilles—but the fierce

 gale (a wild mistral) made it impossible. Indeed the steamer couldn’t

 approach: we lay-to for 3 or 4 hours behind a great headland some 4 or

 5 miles to S. W. of the city, and passengers and mails had to be driven

 along the shore and embarked from a small quarry pier.... We had a very

 stormy and disagreeable passage all the way from Plymouth and through

 the Bay. ... The first part of the voyage I was very unwell, partly from

 an annoying heart attack. You may be sure I am better again, or I could

 not have withstood the wild gale which met us far south in the Gulf of

 Lyons and became almost a hurricane near Marseilles. But I gloried in

 the superb magnificence of the lashed and tossed sport of the mistral,

 as we went before it like an arrow before a gigantic bow.

 

 It is now near sunset and I am writing under the shelter of a windsail

 on the upper deck, blowing ‘great guns’ though I don’t think we are in

 for more than a passing gale. But for every reason I shall be glad to

 get ashore, not that I want to be in Naples, which I like least of any

 place in Italy, but to get on to Maniace ... where I so much love to be,

 and where I can work and dream so well....

 

But the gale increased and became one of the wildest we had ever known,

as William reminded me later when he showed me an unrhymed poem he had

composed—exactly as it stands—in the middle of the night, and the next

day, in Naples, recalled it and wrote it down. It was his way of mental

escape from a physical condition which induced great nervous strain or

fatigue, to create imaginatively a contrary condition and environment,

and so to identify himself with it, that he could become oblivious to

surrounding actualities. This is the poem:

 

 

INVOCATION

 

  Play me a lulling tune, O Flute-Player of Sleep,

  Across the twilight bloom of thy purple havens,

  Far off a phantom stag on the moonyellow highlands

  Ceases; and as a shadow, wavers;