WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP - ELIZABETH A. SHARP (phonics reader TXT) 📗

only an author whose writings have a constant

 charm for me, but as from a Celtic comrade and spiritual brother who is

 also the foremost living exponent of the Breton genius. It may interest

 you to know that I am preparing an _étude_ on Contemporary Breton (i. e.

 Franco-Breton) Literature; which, however, will be largely occupied with

 consideration of your own high achievement in prose and verse.

 

 It gives me sincere pleasure to send to you by this post a copy of the

 ‘popular’ edition of Adamnan’s _Life of St. Colum_—which please me by

 accepting. You will find, below these primitive and often credulous

 legends of Iona a beauty of thought and a certain poignant exquisiteness

 of sentiment that cannot but appeal to you, a Breton of the Bretons....

 

 It seems to me that in writing the spiritual history of Iona I am

 writing the spiritual history of the Gael, of all our Celtic race. The

 lovely wonderful little island sometimes appears to me as a wistful

 mortal, in his eyes the pathos of infinite desires and inalienable

 ideals—sometimes as a woman, beautiful, wild, sacred, inviolate, clad in

 rags, but aureoled with the Rainbows of the west.

 

 “Tell the story of Iona, and you go back to God, and end in God.” (The

 first words of my ‘spiritual history’)....

 

 But you will have already wearied of so long a letter. My excuse is ...

 that you are Anatole Le Braz, and I am your far-away but true comrade,

 

  FIONA MACLEOD.

 

On the 30th Dec. W. S. wrote to Mr. Frank Rinder:

 

 

 Just a line, dear Frank, both as dear friend and literary comrade, to

 greet you on New Year’s morning, and to wish you health and prosperity

 in 1900. I would like you very much to read some of this new Fiona work,

 especially the opening pages of “Iona,” for they contain a very deep and

 potent spiritual faith and hope, that has been with me ever since, as

 there told, as a child of seven, old Seumas Macleod (who taught me so

 much—was indeed the _father_ of Fiona)—took me on his knees one sundown

 on the island of Eigg, and made me pray to “Her.” I have never written

 anything mentally so spiritually autobiographical. Strange as it may

 seem it is almost all literal reproduction of actuality with only some

 dates and names altered.

 

 But enough about that troublesome F. M.!...

 

And to Mr. Gilchrist, “It was written _de profundis_, partly because of

a compelling spirit, partly to help others passionately eager to obtain

some light on this most complex and intimate spiritual destiny.”

 

Some months previously William had written to an unknown correspondent,

Dr. John Goodchild, poet, mystic and archeologist:

 

 

  THE OUTLOOK TOWER,

  EDINBURGH,

  1898.

 

  MY DEAR SIR,

 

 I have to thank you very cordially for your book and the long and

 interesting letter which accompanied it. It must be to you also that I

 am indebted for an unrevised proof-copy of _The Light of the West_.

 

 Everything connected with the study of the Celtic past has an especial

 and deep interest for me, and there are few if any periods more

 significant than that of the era of St. Columba. His personality has

 charmed me, in the old and right sense of the word ‘charm’: but I

 have come to it, or it to me, not through books (though of course

 largely through Adamnan) so much as through a knowledge gained partly

 by reading, partly by legendary love and hearsay, and mainly by much

 brooding on these, and on every known saving and record of Colum, in

 Iona itself. When I wrote certain of my writings (e. g. “Muime Chriosd”

 and “The Three Marvels of Iona”) I felt, rightly or wrongly, as though

 I had in some measure become interpretative of the spirit of “Colum the

 White.”

 

 Again, I have long had a conviction—partly an emotion of the

 imagination, and partly a belief insensibly deduced through a hundred

 avenues of knowledge and surmise—that out of Iona is again to come a

 Divine Word, that Iona, the little northern isle, will be as it were the

 tongue in the mouth of the South.

 

  Believe me, sincerely yours,

  FIONA MACLEOD.

 

“The House of Usna”—one of three Celtic plays, on which F. M. had

been working for several months, was brought out under the auspices

of The Stage Society, of which William Sharp was the first Chairman.

Mr. Frederick Whelen, the founder of that Society, had met my husband

at Hindhead when we were staying with his uncle and aunt, Mr. and

Mrs. Grant Allen, at their charming house, The Croft, built among the

heather and the pines on the hill-top just by the edge of the chasm

called “The Devil’s Punch Bowl.”

 

The older man was keenly interested in the project, did his utmost

to help towards its realisation. “The House of Usna” was performed

at the Fifth Meeting of the Society at the Globe Theatre April 29th,

1900, together with two short plays by Maeterlinck, _The Interior_

and _The Death of Tintagiles_. The music, composed especially for the

short drama in three scenes, was by Mr. Y. M. Capel, and the play was

produced under the direction of Mr. Granville Barker. According to one

critic: “It had beauty and it had atmosphere, two very rare things on

the stage, but I did not feel that it quite made a drama, or convince,

as a drama should, by the continuous action of inner or outer forces.

It was, rather, passion turning upon itself, and with no language but a

cry.”

 

The author took the greatest interest in the rehearsals, and in the

performance. He thoroughly enjoyed the double play that was going

on, as he moved about the theatre, and chatted to his friends during

the intervals, with little heed of the risks he ran of detection of

authorship. The drama itself was printed three months later in _The

National Review_, and eventually published in book form in America by

Mr. T. B. Mosher, in 1903.

 

In 1900, too, the second of these dramas, “The Immortal Hour,” appeared

in the November number of _The Fortnightly Review_. It was published

posthumously in England (Foulis) and in America (Mosher). The third

play, “The Enchanted Valleys,” was never finished. It had been the

author’s intention to publish these dramas in book form under the third

title, and to dedicate it to Mr. W. L. Courtney, who, as Editor of the

_Fortnightly_, had been a good friend to Fiona Macleod.

 

To his unknown correspondent the dramatist wrote again:

 

 

  Nov. 15, 1900.

 

  DEAR DR. GOODCHILD,

 

 I am glad that you have found pleasure in _The Immortal Hour_. I wonder

 if you interpret the myth of Midir and Etain quite differently, or if

 you, too, find in Midir the symbol of the voice of the other world; and

 what you think of Dalua, the Fool, here and elsewhere. Your earnest

 letter, written in spiritual comradeship, has been read by me again

 and again. I do not say that the warning in it is not justified, still

 less that it is not called for: but, on the other hand, I do not think

 I follow you aright. Is it something in _The Immortal Hour_ (or in _The

 Divine Adventure_ or more likely _The Dominion of Dreams_) that impelled

 you to write as you did: or something seemingly implied, or inferred by

 you?...

 

 We seldom know how or where we really stand, or the mien and aspect

 we unwittingly bear to the grave eyes of the gods. Is it the lust of

 knowledge, of Hidden Things, of the Delight of the World, of the magic

 of Mother-Earth, of the Flesh—to one or all—that you allude. The matter

 touches me intimately.

 

 You have (I had almost said mysteriously, but why so, for it would be

 more mysterious if there were no secret help in spiritual comradeship)

 helped me at more than one juncture in my life....

 

  Most sincerely,

 

  FIONA MACLEOD.

 

Dr. Goodchild replied:

 

 

  BORDIGHERA,

  Nov. 29, 1900.

 

  MY DEAR MISS MACLEOD,

 

 I left one or two of your questions unanswered in my last. I am no

 Celtic scholar. It was your ‘Prayer of the Women’ which suggested to me

 first how far you might feel for your sisters, and how far you might

 journey to find succour....

 

 A woman who gazes into Columba’s Well and sees how the bubbles burst

 on its surface, needs all her own wisdom lest she be dizzy, and a hand

 held out from the opposite side the spring may help her to gaze more

 steadily. _Midhir_, I believe to be the same as the oriental _Mitherd_,

 the Recipient of Light, and its translator in the _Midhc-Myth_, A

 voice from the “Otherworld” as you say, but the wearer of the _Miter_,

 speaking not from the _Under_world, but the _Upper_world i.e. He is a

 High Priest speaking in the full light of the Sun.

 

 _Etain_ is difficult, and my own ideas by no means formulated. I merely

 suggest that ere your Etain was born, her name typified the strong hope

 of the singer, his immortality, his knowledge that the Sun not merely

 creates but re-creates in renewed beauty.

 

 If you remember Cairbre, the son of Etain, you may also remember those

 other Ethainn who sung before the Ark in a far country. The Father is

 put on one side for the Mother, by the singer, the Mother for the Bride.

 Even Milton, puritan though he was, must invoke a woman to the aid of

 “adventurous song” and is careful not to change the sex when in the Muse

 of Sinni and Silva is seen the Spirit of the Creator.

 

 As regards Dalua, I know nothing of him by name except what you yourself

 have written. Is there any connection between the name and Dala (the

 Celtic) which is sometimes found in company with Brat and Death, in your

 Celtic genealogies?

 

 At the same time I have dimly guessed all my life how folly might be

 better than the wisdom of wise men, and remembering dimly how much wiser

 I was myself as a child than after I had grown up, I have incessantly

 desired a return to that state of childish thought, and tried to learn

 from children, when I had the chance, the secrets of their folly which

 carried them so near to divinity, if they were not hurried away from

 their vision by those about them.

 

A. G.

 

The Essay entitled “Celtic” had originally appeared in the

_Contemporary Review_ a few weeks before the publication of the new

volume, and had aroused considerable comment. In Britain it was

regarded as a clear statement of the aims and ideas of the so-called

Celtic Revival—(a term which “F. M.” greatly disliked). It was

otherwise in Ireland, and naturally so, considering the different

conditions on both sides of the Irish channel out of which the movement

had grown. On this side political considerations had not touched the

question; it was mainly concerned with the preservation of the old

language, with racial characteristic feelings, and their expression

in literature. On the other side of the water, the workers had many

more issues at heart than in the Highlands. So the Highland Celt and

the Irish Celts did not quite understand one another; an animated

correspondence ensued in private and in the press. The Irish press

was divided in its opinion on ‘Celtic,’ because the writers were not

of one mind among themselves in their methods of working towards the

one end all Celts have at heart. There were those, who being ardent

Nationalists regarded the Celtic literary movement as one with the

political, or as greatly coloured by it. This factor gave a special

element to the Irish phase of the movement which sharply differentiated

it from the movement in Scotland, Wales or Brittany. Other workers

were interested in the movement as a whole, in each of the “six

Celtic Nations,” and “The Celtic Association” was formed, with Lord

Castletown at its head, with a view of keeping each of the six branches

of the movement in touch with each other: the Irish, Scots, Welsh,

Manx, Breton, and Cornish or British. This Society desired to make a

Federation of these working sections an actuality, and to that end

decided to hold a Pan Celtic Congress every three years. The first of

these was held in Dublin, and to it my husband subscribed as W. S. and

as F. M., though, as an obvious precaution against detection, he did

not attend it.

 

Opinion in Ireland was divided as to the value of such a Federation;

certain of the enthusiasts believed that working for it drew strength

and work away from the central needs in Ireland. Another point

of dispute was the question of language; as to what did or would

constitute an Irish Literature—works written in the Erse only; or all

work, either in the Erse or the English tongue that gave expression to

and made vital the Celtic spirit and aspirations. F. M. deplored the

uniting of the political element to the movement—and