WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP - ELIZABETH A. SHARP (phonics reader TXT) 📗
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weed upon the shore. The touch of dream was upon everything, from the
silent hills to the brooding herons by the shore.
After a cup of tea, I wandered up the heights behind. In these vast
solitudes peace and joy came hand in hand to meet me. The extreme
loneliness, especially when I was out of sight of the sea at last, and
could hear no more the calling of the tide, and only the sough of the
wind, was like balm. Ah, those eloquent silences: the deep pain-joy
of utter isolation: the shadowy glooms and darkness and mystery of
night-fall among the mountains.
In that exquisite solitude I felt a deep exaltation grow. The flowing of
the air of the hills laved the parched shores of my heart....
There is something of a strange excitement in the knowledge that two
people are here: so intimate and yet so far-off. For it is with me as
though Fiona were asleep in another room. I catch myself listening for
her step sometimes, for the sudden opening of a door. It is unawaredly
that she whispers to me. I am eager to see what she will do—particularly
in _The Mountain Lovers_. It seems passing strange to be here with her
alone at last....”
_The Mountain Lovers_ was published in the summer of 1895 by Mr. John
Lane. A copy of it was sent to Mr. George Meredith with the following
letter:
9 UPPER COLTBRIDGE TERRACE,
MURRAYFIELD.
DEAR SIR,
Will you gratify one of your most loyal readers by the acceptance of the
accompanying book? Nothing helped
me so much, or gave me so much enduring pleasure, as your generous
message to me about my first book, _Pharais_, which you sent through my
cousin, Mr. William Sharp.
[Illustration: HANDWRITING
Fac-simile of an autograph “Fiona Macleod” poem by William Sharp
The Legions of the time
In the silences of the woods
I have heard all day and all night
The moving multitudes
Of the birds in flight.
He is named Myriad:
And I am sad
Often, and often, I am glad,
But oftener I am white
With fear of the dim broods
That are his multitudes.
Fiona Macleod
]
Naturally, I was eager it should appeal to you—not only because I have
long taken keener delight in your writings than in those of any living
author, but also because you are Prince of Celtland....
I hope you will be able to read, and perhaps care for, _The Mountain
Lovers_. It is not a story of the Isles, like _Pharais_, but of the
remote hill-country in the far northwest. I know how busy you are: so do
not consider it necessary to acknowledge either the book or this letter.
Still, if some happy spirit move you, I need not say that even the
briefest line from you would be a deep pleasure to
Yours, with gratitude and homage,
FIONA MACLEOD.
Acknowledgment came swiftly:
BOX HILL, July 13, 1895.
DEAR MADAM,
If I could have written on any matter out of my press of work when I
received your _Pharais_, there would have been no delay with me to thank
you for such a gift to our literature. This book on the “Mountains”
promises as richly. Whether it touches equally deep, I cannot yet say. I
find the same thrill in it, as of the bard on the three-stringed harp,
and the wild western colour over sea and isles; true spirit of the
mountains. How rare this is! I do not know it elsewhere. Be sure that
I am among those readers of yours whom you kindle. I could write more,
but I have not recovered from the malady of the _degoût de la plume_,
consequent on excess—and I pray that it may never fall on you. For
though it is wisdom at my age to cease to write, it is not well to be
taught to cease by distaste. That is a giving of oneself to the enemy.
I have to be what I am, and I disclose it to win your pardon for my
inexpressiveness when I am warmly sensible of a generous compliment.
I am, Yours most faithful
GEORGE MEREDITH.
It was in 1895 that the Omar Khayyam Club under the Presidentship of
Mr. Edward Clodd, who was an old personal friend of Mr. Meredith,
elected to hold its summer dinner at the Burford Bridge Hotel. Mr.
Thomas Hardy, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. George Gissing and William Sharp
were among the guests. Mr. Clodd knew that it would be difficult to
persuade Mr. Meredith to be present at the dinner. Nevertheless he
lured him to the Hotel, and when coffee was served, (I quote from
a contemporary account) “the beautiful face of the great novelist
appeared within the doorway, and he was welcomed with enthusiasm by
all present. The president extended to Mr. Meredith the right hand of
fellowship on behalf of the Club, in a charming and eloquent speech not
devoid of pathos. Mr. Meredith in his reply declared that Mr. Clodd
was the most amiable of Chairmen but the most dastardly of deceivers.
Never before, he added, had he been on his legs to make a speech in
public, now before he knew it he was bustled over the first fence, and
found himself overrunning the hounds. ‘I have my hands on the fellow
at this moment’ he continued laughingly ‘and I could turn on him and
rend him, but I spare him.’ After a few graceful and characteristic
sentences concerning the Club and its object, and Omar, and expressing
his appreciation of his reception Mr. Meredith said in conclusion: ‘I
thank you from my heart, everyone of you.’”
Much to William Sharp’s satisfaction he was elected member of the
Omar Khayyam Club in the autumn of the same year. On receipt of the
announcement of the fact the new member wrote to the President:
RUTLAND HOUSE,
2d Nov., 1895.
DEAR BROTHER-IN-OMAR,
On my return from Scotland the other day I found a note informing
me that I had been elected an Omarian on the nomination of your
distinguished self.
My thanks, cher confrère. ‘A drop of my special grape to you,’ as Omar
might say, if he were now among us with a Hibernian accent! Herewith I
post to you another babe, born into this ungrateful world so recently
as yesterday.... Such as it is, I hope you may like it. “Ecce Puella”
itself was written at white heat—and ran in ripples off the brain: and
so is probably readable.
“Fragments from The Lost Journals of Piero di Cosimo” when they
appeared (some few years ago) won the high praise of Pater—but perhaps
their best distinction is that they took in the cocksure and levelled
the Omniscient. One critical wight complained that I was not literal
(probably from the lack of knowledge of medieval Italian), which
he clinched by the remark that he had compared my version with the
original! I see that Silas Hocking has just published a book called “All
men are liars.” I would fain send a copy to that critic, even now. By
the way, my cousin Miss Fiona Macleod wrote to me the other day for your
address. I understand she wanted to send you a copy of her new book. If
you get it, you should, as a folk-lorist, read the titular story, _The
Sin-Eater_.
My wife joins with me in cordial regards, and I am
Sincerely yours,
WILLIAM SHARP.
The President replied:
19 CARLETON ROAD,
TUFNELL PARK
5th Nov.
MY DEAR SHARP,
It is an addition to the pleasant memories of my year of office to
know that you are of the elect. You come in with Lang and Gissing. By
the way, the next dinner is fixed for the sixth proximo. And it is an
addition to a burden of obligation willingly borne which your kind gift
imposes. For work such as yours has unending charm for me, because while
Science was my first love and is still my dear mistress, I love her more
for what she suggests than what she reveals. Facts, unrelated, bore me:
only in their significance does one get abiding interest. That is why
your ‘Vistas’ and such like delicate, throbbing things attract me. Some
of these were especially welcome on a recent dull Sunday by our ‘cold
restless sea,’ on which in bright days you promise to come with Allen to
look at it from my window. Your delicious story of the critic sent me
straight to the Journal of di Cosimo. How well you produce the archaic
flavour: the style has a Celtic ring about it. As for ‘Ecce Puella’ I
await the hearing of it from the voice of a ‘puella’ who likes your
work. I was at Meredith’s on Sunday week: he keeps wonderfully well for
him: his talk is bright as his face is beautiful. He has his fling at
me over the Burford Bridge deception, and says that my duplicity cost
you all a fine speech. I tell him that the speech we had was good enough
for ‘the likes of us.’ So Fiona Macleod is your cousin! She is of the
‘elect.’ I take it as most kind of her to send me her new book, which I
have as yet but partly read, and am about to acknowledge. She holds a
weird, strong pen, and will help the Celt to make further conquest of
the dullard Saxons. Meredith and I talked about her “_Mountain Lovers_”
when I was with him in August.
Kindest regards to Mrs. Sharp and yourself.
Yours sincerely,
EDWARD CLODD.
In the Autumn of 1894 we had come in touch with Professor and Mrs.
Patrick Geddes of Edinburgh, and a friendship with far reaching results
for “Fiona Macleod” arose between the two men. Both were idealists,
keen students of life and nature; cosmopolitan in outlook and interest,
they were also ardent Celts who believed in the necessity of preserving
the finer subtle qualities and the spiritual heritage of their race
against the encroaching predominance of materialistic ideas and aims of
the day.
It was the desire and dream of such idealists and thinkers as Professor
Geddes, and those associated with him, to preserve and nurture what
is of value and of spiritual beauty in the race, so that it should
fuse into and work with, or become part of, the great acquisitions and
marvellous discoveries of modern thought. To hold to the essential
beauty and thought of the past, while going forward eagerly to meet the
new and ever increasing knowledge, was the desire of both men. In their
aims they were in sympathy with one another; their manner of approach
and methods of work were different. Patrick Geddes—biologist—was
concerned primarily with the practical and scientific expression of his
ideals; William Sharp was concerned primarily with expression through
the art of words. Mutually sympathetic, they were eager to find some
way of collaboration.
It was the dream of Professor Geddes to restore to Scotland something
of its older pre-eminence in the world of thought, to recreate in
Edinburgh an active centre and so arrest the tremendous centralising
power of the metropolis of London; to replace the stereotyped methods
of education by a more vital and synthetic form; and to encourage
national art and literature. Towards the carrying out of these aims
he had built a University Hall and Settlement for students, artists,
etc. Perhaps the most important of his schemes, certainly the most
important from the modern scientific point of view was the planning
of the Outlook Tower—once an observatory—now an educational museum
on the Castle Rock commanding a magnificent view of the city, of the
surrounding country, of sea and sky; “an institution that is designed
to be a method of viewing the problems of the science of life.”
According to Professor Geddes “Our little scholastic colony in the
heart of Edinburgh symbolises a movement which while national to the
core, is really cosmopolitan in its intellectual reach.”
Grouped with this scientific effort, was the aim to revive the Celtic
influence in art and literature; and the little colony contained a
number of men and women who were working to that end; notably among
the painters were James Cadenhead, Charles Mackie, Robert Burns,
John Duncan, also Pittendrigh MacGillivray the sculptor; and among
the writers Professor Arthur Thomson, Dr. Douglas Hyde, Nora Hopper,
Rosa Mulholland, A. Percival Graves, S. R. Crockett, Elisée Réclus,
Alexander Carmichael, Victor Branford, Professor Patrick Geddes, F. M.
and W. S.
Into that eager and sympathetic atmosphere of linked thought and aim
my husband and I were speedily drawn; and before long a Publishing
Firm was established for the issuing of Celtic Literature and Works
on Science. To Mr. and Mrs. Geddes was confided the important secret
relating to the personality of “Fiona Macleod,” to the thoughts and
ideals that unlay ‘her’ projected work. It was arranged that William
Sharp should be the Manager in the Firm of Patrick Geddes & Colleagues
(which post he very soon relinquished for that
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