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

and so both the nights and the morrows go

 to become thistles in the Valley of Oblivion. But with the advancing

 Spring I am regathering somewhat of lost energy, and if only I were back

 in Scotland I believe I should be hard at work! Well, I shall be there

 soon, though I may be away again, in the remote isles or in Scandinavia

 for the late spring and summer....

 

M.

 

 

PART II  ( FIONA MACLEOD  ) CHAPTER XXVI (  1905  )

 

 “_There is a great serenity in the thought of death, when it is known to

 be the Gate of Life._”

 

  FIONA MACLEOD.

 

 

April my husband spent in the West of Scotland, for which he pined; and

on his way North broke his journey in Edinburgh whence he wrote to Mr.

J. Robertson, the translator into English verse of _A Century of the

French poets of the XIX Century_:

 

 

  April, 1905.

 

  DEAR MR. ROBERTSON,

 

 After our most pleasant evening à deux I had a comfortable journey

 north: and last night luxuriated in getting to bed early (a rare thing

 for me) with the sure and certain knowledge there would be no glorious

 resurrection therefrom at any untimely hour. So after sleeping the sleep

 of the true Gael—who is said to put 85 to the poor Sassenach 40 winks—I

 woke in peace. I was thereafter having a cigarette over the _Scotsman_

 when my youngest (and secretary) sister brought me my letters, papers,

 etc. and with them a long narrow box which I soon discovered to be your

 generous gift of 100 of these delectable Indian cigars. It is very

 good of you indeed, and I am grateful, and may the ancient Gaelic God

 Dia-Cheo, God of Smoke, grant you remission of all your philological

 sins and derivative ‘howlers’—and the more so as there is no authority

 for any such god, and the name would signify hill-mist instead of

 pipe-smoke! And may I have a himdred ‘rèves de Notre Dame de Nicotine!’

 I couldn’t resist trying one. Wholly excellent. And in the meditative

 fumes I arrived through intuition at the following derivation which I

 hope will find a place in your book:

 

  Roab ancient Celtic for a Good Fellow

 

  H’Errt  ”       ”     ”   Smoke-Maker or Smoke-Bestower

 

  _’s_ contraction for _Agus_ ‘and’,

 

  _Onn_ ancient Celtic for ‘May Heaven Bless’

 

  _W. J._ ancient Celtic Tribal tattoo——

 

 which, assisted in dreams by the spirits of Windisch, D’Arbois de

 Jubainville, Loth, Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer, I take to be _W. J.

 Roab-H’Errt-S-onn_—i. e. _Bill-Jack_, or in mod. English ‘William John’

 of the Clan of Heaven-Blessed Friendly Smokers—i. e. William John of the

 Roaberrtsson, or Robertson Clan. This of course disposes of Donnachie

 once and for all.

 

  Ever sincerely yours

  WILLIAM SHARP.

 

From Edinburgh he and his secretary-sister Mary went to Lismore, so

that he might “feel the dear West once more.” From Oban he reported

to Mr. W. J. Robertson on a post card addressed to “Ri Willeam Iain

MacRiobeart mhic Donnach aidh”——

 

“Awful accident in a lonely Isle of the West.

 

A distinguished stranger was observing the vasty deep, and had laid a

flask-filled cup on a rock beside him when a tamned gull upset it and

at same time carried off a valuable Indian cheroot. Deep sympathy is

everywhere expressed, for the distinguished stranger, the lost cheroot,

and above all for the spilt cup and abruptly emptied flask. A gloom has

been cast over the whole island.

 

  _Verb_: _Sap_:”

 

From Lismore he wrote to me:

 

 “_April 19._ It was sweet to fall asleep last night to the sound of the

 hill-wind and the swift troubled waters. We had a lovely walk in the

 late afternoon, and again in the sombre moonlit night. It came on too

 stormy for me to go round to the Cavern later, however. I’ll try again.

 I was there about first dusk, with Mary. To my chagrin there was neither

 sound nor sight of the sea-woman, but she must be there for MacC. has

 _twice_ heard her sobbing and crying out at him when he passed close in

 the black darkness. There was only a lapwing wailing near by, but both

 Mary and I heard a singular furtive sound like something in a trailing

 silk dress whispering to itself as it slid past in the dusk—but this, I

 _think_, was a curious echo of what’s called ‘a sobbing wave’ in some

 narrow columnar hidden hollow opening from the sea. Mary got the creeps,

 and loathed a story I told her about a _midianmara_ that sang lovely

 songs but only so as to drown the listener and suck the white warm

 marrow out of his spine.

 

 Later I joined MacC. for a bit over the flickering fireflaucht. I got

 him to tell me all over again and more fully about the Maighdeann Mhara.

 The first time he heard ‘something’ was before his fright last November.

 ‘There was _cèol_ then’ he said....

 

 I asked in Gaelic ‘were songs sung?’ He said ‘Yes, at times.’ Mrs. MacC.

 was angry at him he said, and said he hadn’t the common-sense of a

 jenny-cluckett (a clucking hen)—_but_ (and there’s a world of difference

 in that) _she hadn’t heard what he had heard_. So to cheer him up I

 told him a story about a crab that fed on the brains of a drowned man,

 and grew with such awful and horrible wisdom that it climbed up the

 stairway of the seaweed and on to a big rock and waved its claws at the

 moon and cursed God and the world, and then died raving mad. Seeing how

 it worked upon him, I said I would tell him another, and worse, about a

 lobster—but he was just as bad as Mary, and said he would wait for the

 lobster till the morning, and seemed so absurdly eager to get safely to

 bed that the pleasant chat had to be abruptly broken off....

 

S. The cold is very great, and it is a damp cold, you couldn’t stand When I got up my breath _swarmed_ about the room like a clutch of

 phantom peewits. No wonder I had a dream I was a seal with my feet

 clemmed on to an iceberg. A duck went past a little ago seemingly

 with one feather and that blown athwart its beak, so strong was the

 north-wind blowing from that snowy mass that Ben Nevis wears like a

 delicate veil. Cruachan has covered herself with a pall of snow mist.

 

 _April 20_.... Fiona Macleod has just been made an honorary member of a

 French League of writers devoted to the rarer and subtler use of Prose

 and Verse, a charming letter from Paul Fort acting for his colleagues

 Maeterlinck, Henri de Roquier, Jean Moréas, Emile Verhacren, Comte

 Antoine de la Rochefoucault, Duchesse de la Roche-Guyon, Richeguin,

 Sully Prudhomme, Henri Le Sidaner, Jules Claretie, etc. etc.

 

 We’re glad, aren’t we, you and I? She’s our daughter, isn’t she?

 

 _23d April_.... You will have got my note of yesterday telling you that

 I have reluctantly had to relinquish Iona. The primary reason is its

 isolation at present....

 

 But from something I heard from old Mr. C. I fancy it’s as well for

 me not to visit there just now, where I’d be the only stranger, and

 every one would know of it—and where a look out for F. M. or W. S. is

 kept! And, too, anything heard there and afterwards utilised would be

 as easily traced to me.... After Tiree and Iona and Coll, and Arran in

 the South, I don’t care just now for anywhere else—nearer: as for Eigg,

 which I loved so much of old, Rum or Canna and the Outer Isles, they

 are too inaccessible just now and Skye is too remote and too wet and

 cold. However, it is isolation plus ‘atmosphere’ I want most of all—and

 I doubt if there is any place just now I could get so much good from as

 Lismore. I love that quiet isolated house on the rocks facing the Firth

 of Lorne, all Appin to Ben Naomhir, and the great mountains of Morven.

 

 It was on the sandy bindweed-held slope of the little bay near the

 house, facing Eilean-nan-Coarach, that F. wrote the prelude to _The

 Winged Destiny_—and also the first piece, the “Treud-nan-Ron,” which

 describes that region, with Mr. MacC.’s seal legend, and the dear

 little island in the Sound of Morvern (do you remember our row to it

 one day?) There one could be quiet and given over to dreams and to the

 endless fascination of outer nature.... And I have got much of what I

 want—the _in-touch_ above all, the atmosphere: enough to strike the

 keynote throughout the coming year and more, for I absorb through the

 very pores of both mind and body like a veritable sponge. Wild-life and

 plant-life too extremely interesting here. There does seem some mystery

 about that cave tho’ I cannot fathom it.

 

 I’ve all but finished the preparation of the new Tauchnitz vol. (The

 Sunset of Old Tales) and expect to complete it (for May) tonight.

 

 _24th April_.... Yes, I was sorry to leave Lismore. It may be my last

 time in the Gaelic west. (I don’t say this “down-ly”—but because I think

 it likely). There is much I want to do, and now as much by W. S. as by

M. and that I realise must be done abroad where alone can I keep well

 and mentally even more than physically. (_How_ I hope Fontainebleau may

 some day suit us.) Dear MacC. was sorry to part too. He shook hands

 (with both his) and when I said in Gaelic “Goodbye, and Farewell upon

 that, my friend” he said “No—no”—and then suddenly said “My blessing on

 you—and goodbye now!” and turned away and went down the pier-side and

 hoisted the brown sail and went away across the water, waving a last

 farewell.

 

The cold proved so disastrous that my husband was ordered to Neuenahr

for special treatment. Thence he wrote to the Hon. A. Nelson Hood:

 

 

  June, 1905.

 

  MY DEAR JULIAN,

 

 Just a brief line, for I am still very restricted in permission as to

 writing, as so much depends on the rest-cure which is no small factor in

 my redemption here....

 

 It has been ‘a narrow squeak.’ Briefly, after a hard tussle at the brink

 of ‘Cape Fatal’ and a stumble across ‘Swamp Perilous’ I got into the

 merely “dangerous condition” stage—and now at last that’s left behind,

 and I’ll soon be as well in body as I’m happy and serene in mind.

 

 It is at best, however, a _reprieve_, not a lifetime-discharge.

 _N’importe_. Much can be done with a reprieve, and who is to know how

 long the furlough may be extended to. At any rate, I am well content.”

 

To me he wrote—for I was unable to accompany him:

 

 

  NEUENAHR,

  16th June, 1905.

 

 ... Here, at the Villa Usner, it is deliciously quiet and reposeful. I

 had not realised to the full how much nervous harm I’ve had for long. To

 live near trees is alone a joy and a restorative. The heat is very great

 but to me most welcome and strengthening.... In my room or in the garden

 I hear no noise, no sounds save the susurrus of leaves and the sweet

 monotony of the rushing Ahr, and the cries and broken songs of birds....

 

 I could see that Dr. G. can’t understand why I am not more depressed or,

 rather, more anxious. I explained to him that these physical troubles

 meant little to me, and that they were largely the bodily effect of

 other things, and might be healed far more by spiritual well-being

 than by anything else: also that nature and fresh air and serenity and

 light and warmth and nervous rest were worth far more to me than all

 else. “But don’t you know how serious your condition may become at any

 moment, if you got a bad chill or setback, or don’t soon get better?”

 “Certainly,” I said; “but what then? Why would I bother about either

 living or dying? I shall not die before the hour of my unloosening

 comes.”

 

 I want to be helped all I may