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

last

 chorus of Oedipus at Kolônos,

 

 “Be no more troubled, and no longer lament, for all these things will be

 accomplished.”

 

 Then, too, there’s the finitude of all things. Why should one bother

 deeply when time is so brief. Even the gods passed, you know, or changed

 from form to form. I used to remember Renan’s ‘Prayer on the Acropolis’

 by heart, and I recall those words “Tout n’est ici-bas que symbole et

 que songe. Les dieux passent comme les hommes et il ne serait pas bon

 qu’ils fussent eternels.” ...

 

 Elizabeth, who is on a visit to Fife, will, I know, whole-heartedly

 endorse my decision.

 

 Again all my gratitude and affection, dear Alec,

 

  Your friend,

 

  WILL.

 

Early in September Mr. Hood sent the welcome information to my husband

that the Prime Minister had decided “on the strength of the assurance

that Mr. Sharp is F. M.” to make him a grant that would meet his

pressing needs and enable him to go abroad for the winter.

 

A few days before this message reached W. S. he had written to his

friend.

 

 

  23d Aug.

 

  DEAR JULIAN,

 

 A little line to greet you on your arrival in Venice, and to wish you

 there a time of happy rest and inspiration. May the spirit of the

 Sea-Queen whisper to you in romance and beauty.

 

 How I wish I could look in on you at the Casa Persico! I love Venice as

 you do. I hope you will not find great changes, or too many visitors:

 and beware of the September heats, and above all the September mosquito!

 

 “Julian” ought to have a great lift, and not the least pleasure in

 looking forward to seeing you again early in October is that of hearing

 some more of your book of Venice and of the other Julian.

 

 [“Julian” is the name of the hero of a book, _Adria_, on which Mr. Hood

 was then at work.]

 

 If all goes well—and I have been working so hard, and done so much, that

 things ought to go smoothly with me again—then we hope to leave London

 for Sicily about the 21st Oct., and to reach Taormina _about_ the 26th

 of that month.

 

 I need not say how glad I am that you _knew_ I could not decide

 otherwise than I did: and I am more than ever glad and proud of a

 friendship so deeply sympathetic and intuitively understanding.

 

  Ever affectionately yours, dear Friend,

 

  Will.

 

S. By the way, you will be glad to know that Baron Tauchnitz is also

 going to bring out in 2 vols. a selection of representative tales by

 Fiona Macleod. The book called _The Magic Kingdoms_ has been postponed

 till next year, but the first part of it will appear in _The Monthly

 Review_ in December probably. Stories, articles, studies, will appear

 elsewhere.

 

 Your friend W. S. has been and is not less busy, besides maturing work

 long in hand. So at least I can’t be accused of needless indolence.

 

To his great relief October-end found us at Taormina once again; and on

Allhallow-e’en he wrote to Mrs. Janvier:

 

 

  Oct. 30th.

 

 ... We reached Messina all right, and Giardini, the Station for

 Taormina, in fair time; then the lovely winding drive up to unique and

 beautiful and wildly picturesque Taormina and to the lovely winter

 villa and grounds of Santa Caterina where a warm welcome met us from

 Miss Mabel Hill, with whom we are to stay till the New Year.... I have

 for study a pleasant room on the garden terrace, at the Moorish end

 of the old convent-villa with opposite the always open door windows

 or great arch trellised with a lovely ‘Japanesy’ vine, looking down

 through a sea of roses and lemon and orange to the deep blue Ionian

 Sea. The divine beauty, glow, warmth, fragrance, and classic loveliness

 of this place would delight you.... Overhead there is a wilderness of

 deep blue, instinct with radiant heat and an almost passionate clarity.

 Forza, Mola, Roccafiorita, and other little mountain towns gleam in it

 like sunlit ivory. Over Forza (or Sforza rather) the storm-cloud of the

 Greco, with a rainbow hanging like a scimitar over the old, pagan,

 tragic, savagely picturesque mountain-ridge town. The bells of the

 hill-chapels rise and fall on the wind, for it is the beginning of All

 Souls festa. It is the day when ‘things’ are abroad and the secret ways

 are more easily to be traversed.

 

 Beneath my Moorish arch I look down through clustering yellow roses and

 orange and lemon to green-blue water, and thence across the wild-dove’s

 breast of the Ionian Sea. Far to the S. E. and S., over where Corinth

 and Athens lie, are great still clouds, salmon-hued on the horizon with

 pink domes and summits. An intense stillness and the phantasmagoria of

 a forgotten dreamland dwell upon the long western promontories of the

 Syracusan coast, with the cloud-like Hyblæan hill like a violet, and a

 light as of melting honey where Leontinoi and Siracusa lie....

 

 Nov. 8: This is a week later. I have accidentally destroyed or mislaid

 a sheet of this letter. Nothing of importance—only an account of the

 nocturnal festa of All Souls, with the glittering lights and the people

 watching by the graves, and leaving lights and flowers on each, the

 one to show the wandering souls the way back to the grave, the other

 to disguise the odour of mortality and illude them with the old beauty

 of the lost world—and the offerings of handfuls of beans, to give them

 sustenance on this their one mortal hour in the year. We three came

 here yesterday (Elizabeth, Miss Hill and I) and enjoyed the marvellous

 mountain-climbing journey from the sea-level of Giarre (near Catania) up

 to beautiful Linguaglossa, and Castiglione 2000 ft. high and so on to

 Randazzo and Maletto (3000 ft.) where we got out, and drove thro’ the

 wild lava-lands of this savage and brigand haunted region to Castello

 di Maniace where il Signor Ducino Alessandro gave us cordial and

 affectionate welcome.

 

 Sunday 9th. The weather is doubtful, but if it keeps fine we are going

 to drive down the gorges of the Simalthos (the Simeto of today) and then

 up by the crags and wild town of Bronte, and back by the old Ætnean

 hillroad of the ancient Greeks, or by the still more ancient Sikelian

 tombs at a high pass curiously enough known not by its ancient fame but

 as the Pass of the Gipsies. As the country is in a somewhat troubled and

 restive state just now, especially over Bronte, all pre-arrangements

 have been made to ensure safety....

 

 I hope you have received the Tauchnitz volume of “Wind and Wave.” The

 text of Selected Tales has been revised where advisable, sometimes

 considerably. The gain is very marked I think, especially in simplicity.

 I hope you will like the preface. The long collective-article in

 the _Contemporary_ for October “Sea-Magic and Running Water” I have

 already written to you about. One can never tell beforehand, but in all

 probability the following F. M. articles will appear in December (if not

 January) issues, viz.:

 

  In _The Monthly Review_—The Magic Kingdoms.

  In _The Contemporary_—The Lynn of Dreams.

  In _The Fortnightly_—The Four Winds of Eirinn.

 

 As soon as I can possibly work free out of my terribly time-eating

 correspondence, and am further ahead with my necessary and commissioned

 pot-boiling articles etc. I want to put together two F. M. volumes, one

 a vol. of Gaelic essays and Spiritual studies to be called _For The

 Beauty of an Idea_ and the other a volume of Verse to be called probably

 “The Immortal Hour and Poems” or else “The Enchanted Valleys.” But I

 have first a great deal to get off as W. S. and F. M.

 

 What is dear old Tom doing now? Give him my love, and affectionate hug,

 bless the old reprobate! I was delighted to meet an American admirer

 (and two hanger-on American admiresses) of his in Florence, who spoke of

 his work with much admiration as well as personal delight. So I warmed

 to them mightily in consequence, and had the pleasure of introducing the

 latest production—the delightful “Consolate Giantess.”

 

 What a letter in length this is! too long for even _you_, I fear.”

 

The following letter from Mr. Robert Hichens, another devoted lover of

Sicily, reached William Sharp at Maniace:

 

 

  DOVER,

  Nov. 4, 1902.

 

  MY DEAR WILL,

 

 ... The cold is setting in and today there is a fierce east wind. I

 scarcely dare think of what you are enjoying. I had hoped to join you at

 the end of this month, but the fates are unkind. When I do get away I

 may first have to go to the Desert as I am meditating some work there.

 Then I hope to make my way there to Sicily but only late in Spring. Will

 you still be there? There is magic in its air—or else beauty acts on the

 body as powerfully as on the soul, and purifies the blood as well as the

 soul....

 

 Every sentence I write wrings my heart. I ought not to write about

 Sicily. _Felix_ was begun in that delightful room at Maniace—with

 Webster, thoughtfully posed by Alec—on a side table within easy reach.

 

 Thank you again for your kind inspiring letter. I value praise from you.

 

  Yours cordially,

  ROBERT HICHENS.

 

Miss Hill and I returned to Sta. Caterina and left my husband at

Maniace, whence a few days later he wrote to me:

 

 

  CASTELLO DI MANIACE,

  15th Nov., 1902.

 

 How you would have enjoyed today!... one of the most beautiful of its

 kind I’ve ever had. It was quite dark when we rose shortly before six,

 but lovely dawn by 6.15, and after a gigantic breakfast we all set off

 all armed with rifles and revolvers. We drove up to the cutting to the

 left, 1/4 of a mile below Otaheite, and there diverged and went up the

 wild road of the Zambuco Pass, and for another five miles of ascent.

 Then we were met by the forest guard and Meli with great jennets (huge

 hill-mules as big as horses) and rode over the Serraspina (6,000 feet).

 To my great pleasure it was decided we could risk the further ascent of

 the great central Watershed of Sicily, the Serra del Rè (8,000 ft.) and

 I shall never forget it. All the way from about 4,000 ft. the air was

 extraordinarily light and intoxicating—and the views of Central Sicily

 magnificent beyond words. When we had ridden to about 7,500 feet thro’

 wild mountain gorges, up vast slopes, across great plateaux, and at last

 into the beginning of the vast dense primeval beech-forests (all an

 indescribable glory of colour) we dismounted and did the remaining half

 hour on foot. Then at last we were on the summit of the great central

 watershed. Thence everything to the south flows to the Ionian Sea,

 everything to the north to the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean.

 

 And oh the views and the extraordinary clarity! Even with the naked eye

 I saw all the inland mountains and valleys and lost forgotten towns,

 Troina on its two hills, Castrogiovanni and Alcara, etc. etc. And with

 the powerful binoculars I could see all the houses, and trace the

 streets and ruined temples etc. in Castrogiovanni on its extraordinary

 raised altar-like mountain plateau. Then, below us, lay all the northern

 shores of Sicily from Capo Cefalù to Milazzo on its beautiful great

 bay, and Capo Milazzo, and the Lipari Islands (so close with the glass

 I could see the few houses on their wild precipitous shores), from

 ‘Volcano,’ the original home of Vulcan, and Lipari itself to Stromboli,

 and white ships sailing. Enna (Castrogiovanni) immensely imposing and

 unforgettable. And, behind us, Etna vaster, sheerer, more majestic, more

 terrible, than I had ever dreamed of it.

 

 Then we lunched, amid that extraordinary and vast panorama—seeing 2,000

 feet below us the “almost inaccessible” famous Lake of Balzano, with

 its Demeter and Persephone associations (itself about 6,000 feet among

 the mountains!) All enjoyed it unspeakably, except poor old Meli, very

 nervous about brigands—poor old chap, a ransom of 800 francs had to be

 paid to the capitano of the brigand-lot to free his nephew, who is now

 ill after his confinement for many days in a hole under the lava, where

 he was half suffocated, and would have soon died from cold and damp and

 malaria.

 

 On the way down (in the forest, at about 6,000 feet) Alec suddenly

 without a word dashed aside, and sprang through the sloping undergrowth,

 and the next moment I saw him holding his revolver at the head of a

 man crouching behind a mass of bramble, etc. But the latter had first

 managed to hide or throw away his gun, and swore he hadn’t got one, and

 meant no harm, and that the ugly weapon he carried (a light, long axe

 of a kind) was to defend himself from the wolves! His companion had

 successfully escaped. The man slunk away, to be arrested later by the

 Carabinieri.

 

On his