WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP - ELIZABETH A. SHARP (phonics reader TXT) 📗
- Author: ELIZABETH A. SHARP
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Janvier:
1st May, 1891.
... Whether coming with praise or with blame and cast me to the
perdition of the unrighteous, the critics all seem unable to take the
true standpoint—namely, that of the poet. What has he attempted, and
how far has he succeeded or failed? That is what should concern them.
It is no good to any one or to me to say that I am a Pagan—that I am
“an artist beyond doubt, but one without heed to the cravings of the
human heart: a worshipper of the Beautiful, but without religion,
without an ethical message, with nothing but a vain cry for the return,
or it may be the advent, of an impossible ideal.” Equally absurd to
complain that in these “impressions” I give no direct “blood and
bones” for the mind to gnaw at and worry over. Cannot they see that
all I attempt to do is to fashion anew something of the lovely vision
I have seen, and that I would as soon commit forgery (as I told some
one recently) as add an unnecessary line, or “play” to this or that
taste, this or that critical opinion. The chief paper here in Scotland
shakes its head over “the nude sensuousness of ‘The Swimmer of Nemi,’
‘The Naked Rider,’ ‘The Bather,’ ‘Fior di Memoria,’ ‘The Wild Mare’
(whose ‘fiery and almost savage realism!’ it depreciates—tho’ this is
the poem which Meredith says is ‘bound to live’) and evidently thinks
artists and poets who see beautiful things and try to fashion them
anew beautifully, should be stamped out, or at any rate left severely
alone....
In work, creative work above all, is the sovereign remedy for all that
ill which no physician can cure: and there is a joy in it which is
unique and invaluable.
* * * * *
For a time, however, creative work had to be put aside. The preparation
of _The Life and Letters of Joseph Severn_ was a hard grind that lasted
till mid-August. At Whitby, on the 13th, according to his diary he
“wrote 25 pp. digest of Severn’s novel and worked at other things.
Later I wrote the concluding pages, finishing the book at 2 A.M. I can
hardly believe that this long delayed task is now accomplished. But _at
last_ “Severn” is done!”
The final revision occupied him till the 28th August, and in order
to finish it before we went abroad on the 27th he wrote “all morning
till 1 P.M.; again from 9 P.M. all night unbrokenly till 7 A.M. Then
read a little to rest my brain and wrote four letters. Had a bath and
breakfast and felt all right.”
The 24th has the interesting entry: “Met old Charles Severn at the
Italian Restaurant near Portland Road Station and had a long talk with
him. He confirmed his previous statement (end of September last year)
about Keats having written “The Ode to the Nightingale” under “The
Spaniards on Hampstead Heath.”
September found us in Stuttgart in order that my husband should
collaborate with the American novelist Blanche Willis Howard. The first
days were spent in wandering about the lovely hillsides around the
town, which he described to Mrs. Janvier:
JOHANNES STRASSE 33,
3: 9: 91.
... I know that you would revel in this glowing golden heat, and in
the beautiful vinelands of the South. Southern Germany in the vintage
season is something to remember with joy all one’s life. Yesterday it
seemed as if the world above were one vast sea of deep blue wherever
a great glowing wave of light straight from the heart of the sun was
flowing joyously. I revel in this summer gorgeousness, and drink in the
hot breath of the earth as though it were the breath of life. Words are
useless to depict the splendour of colour everywhere—the glimmer of
the golden-green of the vines, the immeasurable sunfilled flowers, the
masses of ripening fruit of all kinds, the hues on the hill-slopes and
in the valleys, on the houses and the quaint little vineyard-cots with
their slanting red roofs. In the early afternoon I went up through the
orchards and vineyards on the shoulder of the Hasenberg. It was a glory
of colour. Nor have I ever seen such a lovely purple bloom among the
green branches—like the sky of faerieland—as in the dark-plum orchards.
There was one heavily laden tree which was superb in its massy richness
of fruit: it was like a lovely vision of those thunder-clouds which
come and go in July dawns. The bloom on the fruit was as though the
west wind had been unable to go further and had let its velvety breath
and wings fade away in a soft visible death or sleep. The only sounds
were from the myriad bees and wasps and butterflies: some peasants
singing in the valley as they trimmed the vines: and the just audible
sussurrus of the wind among the highest pines on the Hasenberg. There
was the fragrance of a myriad odours from fruit and flower and blossom
and plant and tree and fructifying soil—with below all that strange
smell as of the very body of the living breathing world. The festival
of colour was everywhere. As I passed a cottar’s sloping bit of ground
within his vineyards, I saw some cabbages high up among some trailing
beans, which were of the purest and most delicate blue, lying there
like azure wafts from the morning sky. Altogether I felt electrified
in mind and body. The sunflood intoxicated me. But the beauty of the
world is always bracing—all beauty is. I seemed to inhale it—to drink
it in—to absorb it at every pore—to become _it_—to become the heart
and soul within it. And then in the midst of it all came my old savage
longing for a vagrant life: for freedom from the bondage we have
involved ourselves in. I suppose I was a gipsy once—and before that “a
wild man o’ the woods.”
A terrific thunderstorm has broken since I wrote the above. I have
rarely if ever seen such continuous lightning. As it cleared, I saw a
remarkably beautiful sight. In front of my window rose a low rainbow,
and suddenly from the right there was slung a bright steel-blue bolt,
seemingly hurled with intent right through the arch. The next moment
the rainbow collapsed in a ruin of fading splendours....
I have had a very varied, and, to use a much abused word, a very
romantic life in its external as well as in its internal aspects. Life
is so unutterably precious that I cannot but rejoice daily that I am
alive: and yet I have no fear of, or even regret at the thought of
death.... There are many things far worse than death. When it comes, it
comes. But meanwhile we are alive. The Death of the power to live is
the only death to be dreaded....
* * * * *
His Diary also testifies to his exultant mood:
_Wednesday, 2:9:1891._—Another glorious day. This flood of sunshine is
like new life: it _is_ new life. I rejoice in the heat and splendour of
It seems to get into the heart and brain, and it intoxicates witha strange kind of rapture.... How intensely one lives sometimes, even
when there is little apparently to call forth quintessential emotion.
This afternoon was a holiday of the soul. And yet how absolutely on
such a day one realises the savage in one. I suppose I was a gipsy
once: a ‘wild man’ before: a wilder beast of prey before that. We all
hark back strangely at times. To-day I seemed to remember much.... What
a year this has been for me: the richest and most wonderful I have
known. Were I as superstitious as Polycrates I should surely sacrifice
some precious thing lest the vengeful gods should say “Thou hast lived
too fully: Come!...”
* * * * *
The following extracts from William’s Diary indicate the method of the
collaboration used by the two authors:
_Sunday 6th. Sept. 1891._—Blanche Willis Howard, or rather, the Frau
Hof-Arzt Von Teuffel, arrived last night. She sent round word that
she could conveniently receive me in the afternoon, but as it was not
to have our first talk-over about our long projected joint novel,
Elizabeth came with me so as to make Frau Von T.’s acquaintanceship....
She is a charming woman, and I like her better than ever. As I am here
to write a novel in collaboration with her, and not to fall in love, I
must be on guard against my too susceptible self....
_Monday 7th._—At 3 o’clock I went to Frau Von Teuffel’s, and stayed
till 5.45. We had a long talk, and skirmished admirably—sometimes
“fluking” but ever and again taking our man: in other words, we gained
what we were after, to some extent—indirectly as well as directly. She
agrees to my proposal that we call the book _A Fellowe and His Wife_.
The two chief personages are to be Germans of rank, from the Rügen
seaboard. I am to be the “faire wife,” and have decided to live at
Rome, and to be a sculptor in ivory, and to have rooms in the Palazzo
Malaspina. Have not yet decided about my name. My favourite German name
is Hedwig, but Frau Von T. objected that English and American readers
would pronounce it ‘Hed-wig.’ She suggested Edla: but that doesn’t
‘fetch’ me. I think Freyda (or perhaps Olga) would suit.
_Tuesday, 8th._—This morning I began our novel _A Fellowe and His
Wife_. I wrote some nine pages of MS. being the whole of the first
letter written by Freia (or Ilse) from Rome.
_Thursday, 10th._—In the evening I went round to Môrike Strasse. We had
a long talk about the book and its evolution, and ultimately decided to
attempt the still more difficult task of telling the whole story in the
letters of Odo and Ilse only. Of course this is much more difficult:
but if we can do it, so much the more credit to our artistic skill
and imaginative insight.... (It was also decided that Frau v. Teuffel
should write Odo’s letters, and her collaborator, Ilse’s. In addition
to the novel W. S. dramatised the story in a five-act play.)
_1st October, 1891._—Wrote to-day the long first scene of Act III.
of _A Fellowe_. In afternoon E. and I went out in the town. I bought
Maurice Maeterlinck’s _La Princesse Maleine_ and _Les Aveugles_, and
in the late afternoon read right thro’ the latter and skimmed the
former. Some one has been writing about him recently and comparing him
to Webster. In method greatly, and in manner, and even in conceptive
imagination, he differs from Webster: but he is his Cousin-German.
It is certainly hopelessly uncritical to say as Octave Mirbeau did
last year in a French paper or magazine that Maeterlinck is another
Shakespeare. He is not even remotely Shakespearian. He is a writer
of singular genius; and I shall send for everything he has written.
Reading these things of his excited me to a high degree. It was the
electric touch I needed to produce my _Dramatic Interludes_ over which
I have been brooding. I believe that much of the imaginative writing of
the future will be in dramatic prose of a special kind....
_Friday, 2nd._—I went to bed last night haunted by my story “The
Summons.” To-day at 10.30 or nearer 11 I began to write it, and wrote
without a break till 5.30, by which time “A Northern Night,” as I now
call it, was entirely finished, ‘asides’ and all. Both there and when I
issue the _Dramatic Interludes_ (five in all) I shall send them forth
under my anagram, H. P. Siwäarmill. The volume will be a small one. The
longest pieces will be the “Northern Night,” and “The Experiment of
Melchior van Hoëk”: the others will be “The Confessor,” “The Birth of a
Soul” and “The Black Madonna.”
_Saturday 3rd._—... This late afternoon wrote the Dramatic Study, “The
Birth of a Soul.” Though not ‘picturesque’ it touches a deeper note
than “A Northern Night,” and so is really the more impressive.
_Tuesday, 6th._—... P. S. After writing this Entry for Tuesday, shortly
before 12, I began to write the opening particulars of Scene II. of Act
IV., and went on till I finished the whole scene, shortly before 2 A.M.
_Wednesday, 7th._ Finished before 1 A.M. my Play, _A Fellowe_, by
writing the longish Scene III. of Act IV. Went out with Lill in the
afternoon. The town all draped in black for the death of the King of
Saxony. Wrote to Frank Harris (from here, as H. P. Siwäarmill) with
“The Birth of a Soul.” ...
_Friday, 9th._—In late evening thought out (but only so far as leading
lines and general drift) the drama “The Gipsy-Christ.” (Being The
Passion of Manuel van Hoëk)....
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