WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP by ELIZABETH A. SHARP (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) đź“–
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the far-stretching Umbrian country. I made the acquaintance of some
nice people at the Hotel, and we agreed to share a carriage for a
day—so early on Friday morning we started in a carriage and pair for
Assisi. About 3 miles from Perugia we came to the Etruscan tombs, which
we spent a considerable time in exploring: I was much struck with the
symbolism and beauty of the ornamental portions, Death evidently to
the ancient Etrurians being but a departure elsewhere. The comparative
joyousness (exultation, as in the symbol of the rising sun over the
chief entrance) of the Etruscans contrasts greatly with the joylessness
of the Christians, who have done their best to make death repellant in
its features and horrible in its significance, its possibilities.
_Only a Renaissance of belief in the Beautiful being the only sure
guide can save modern nations from further spiritual degradation_—and
not till the gloomy precepts of Christianity yield to something more
akin to the Greek sense of beauty will life appear to the majority
lovely and wonderful, alike in the present and in the future.
After leaving the Tombs of the Volumnii we drove along through a most
interesting country, beautiful everywhere owing to Spring’s feet having
passed thereover, till we came to the Church of Sta. Maria degli
Angeli—on the plain just below Assisi. We went over this, and then
drove up the winding road to the gray old town itself, visiting, before
ascending to the ruined citadel at the top of the hill, the Chiesa di
Santa Chiara. Lying on the grass on the very summit of the hill, we
had lunch, and then lay looking at the scenery all round us, north,
south, east, and west. Barren and desolate and colourless, with neither
shade of tree nor coolness of water, these dreary Assisi hills have
nothing of the grandeur and beauty of the barrenness and desolation of
the north—they are simply hideous to the eye, inexpressibly dreary,
dead, and accursed. I shall never now hear Assisi mentioned without
a shudder, for picturesque as the old town is, beautiful as are the
Monastery, the Upper Church, the paintings and the frescoes—they are
overweighted in my memory with the _hideousness_ of the immediate
hill-surroundings. It made me feel almost sick and ill, looking from
the ruined citadel out upon these stony, dreary, lifeless, hopeless
hills—and I had again and again to find relief in the beauty of more
immediate surroundings—the long grasses waving in the buttresses of
the citadel, the beautiful yellow (absolutely stainless in colour)
wallflowers sprouting from every chink and cranny, and the green and
gray lizards darting everywhere and shining in the sunlight. Here
at least was life, not death: and to me human death is less painful
than that of nature, for in the former I see but change, but in the
latter—annihilation. These poor mountains!—once, long ago, bright and
joyous with colour and sound and winds and waters and birds—and now
without a tree to give shadow where grass will never again grow, save
here and there a stunted and withered olive, like some plague-stricken
wretch still lingering amongst the decayed desolation of his
birthplace—without the music and light of running water, save, perhaps
twice amidst their parched and serried flanks a crawling, muddy,
hideous _liquid_; and without sound, save the blast of the winter-wind
and the rattle of dislodged stones.
Yet the day was perfect—one of those flawless days combining the
laughter of Spring and the breath of ardent Summer: but perhaps this
very perfection accentuates the desert wretchedness behind the old town
of St. Francis. Yet the very day before I went I was told that the view
from the citadel was lovely (and this not with reference to the Umbrian
prospect in _front_ of Assisi, which is fine though to my mind it has
been enormously exaggerated)—lovely! As well might a person ask me to
look at the divine beauty of the Belvedere Apollo, and then say to me
that lovely also was yon maimed and hideous beggar, stricken with the
foulness of leprosy.
The hills about Assisi beautiful! Oh Pan, Pan, indeed your music passed
long, long ago out of men’s hearing....”
FLORENCE, 7th May.
“On either Wednesday or Thursday last we started early for Monte
Oliveto, and after a long and interesting drive we came to a rugged and
wild country, and at last, by the side of a deep gorge to the famous
Convent itself. The scenery all round made a great impression on me—it
was as wild, almost as desolate as the hills behind Assisi—but there
was nothing repellant, i. e., stagnant, about it. While we were having
something to eat outside the convent (a huge building) the abbé came
out and received us most kindly, and brought us further refreshment in
the way of hard bread and wine and cheese—their mode of life being too
simple to have anything else to offer.
Owing to the great heat and perhaps over-exposure while toiling up some
of the barren scorched roads, where they became too hilly or rough for
the horses—I had succumbed to an agonising nervous headache, and could
do nothing for a while but crouch in a corner of the wall in the shade
and keep wet handkerchiefs constantly over my forehead and head. In
the meantime the others had gone inside, and as Mrs. S. had told the
abbé I was suffering from a bad headache he came out to see me and at
once said I had had a slight touch of the sun—a frequent thing in these
scorched and barren solitudes. He took me into a private room and made
me lie down on a bed—and in a short time brought me two cups of strong
black coffee, with probably something in it—for in less than twenty
minutes I could bear the light in my eyes and in a few minutes more I
had only an ordinary headache. He was exceedingly kind altogether, and
I shall never think of Monte Oliveto without calling to remembrance the
Abbé Cesareo di Negro. I then spent about three hours over the famous
35 noble frescoes by Sodoma and Signorelli, illustrating the life
of Saint Benedict, the founder of the convent. They are exceedingly
beautiful—and one can learn more from this consecutive series than can
well be imagined. While taking my notes and wondering how I was to
find time (without staying for a couple of days or so) to take down
all particulars—I saw the abbé crossing the cloisters in my direction,
and when he joined me he said, “la Signora” had told him I was a
poet and writer, and that I thought more of Sodoma than any of his
contemporaries, and so he begged me to accept from him a small work
in French on the history of the convent including a fairly complete
account of each fresco. A glance at this showed that it would be of
great service to me, and save much in the way of note-taking—and I was
moreover glad of this memento; he inscribed his name in it....
The more I see of Sodoma’s work the more I see what a great artist he
was—and how enormously underrated he is in comparison with many others
better known or more talked about. After having done as much as I could
take in, I went with the abbé over other interesting parts and saw
some paintings of great repute, but to me unutterably wearisome and
empty—and then to the library—and finally through the wood to a little
chapel with some interesting frescoes. I felt quite sorry to leave the
good abbé. I promised to send him a copy of whatever I wrote about
the Sodomas—and he said that whenever I came to Italy again I was to
come and stay there for a few days, or longer if I liked—and he hoped
I would not forget but take him at his word. Thinking of you, I said
I supposed ladies could not stay at the Convent—but he said they were
not so rigorous now, and he would be glad to see the wife of the young
English poet with him, if she could put up with plain fare and simple
lodging. Altogether, Monte Oliveto made such an impression on me that
I won’t be content till I take you there for a visit of a few days....”
VENEZIA, 10th May.
“ ... I came here one day earlier than I anticipated. What can I
say! I have no words to express my delight as to Venice and its
surroundings—it makes up an hundredfold for my deep disappointment
as to Rome. I am in sympathy with everything here—the art, the
architecture, the beauty of the city, everything connected with it,
the climate, the brightness and joyousness, and most of all perhaps
the glorious presence of the sea.... From the first moment, I fell
passionately and irretrievably in love with Venice: I should rather be
a week here than a month in Rome or even Florence: the noble city is
the crown of Italy, and fit to be empress of all cities.
All yesterday afternoon and evening (save an hour on the Piazza and
neighbourhood) I spent in a gondola—enjoying it immensely: and after
dinner I went out till late at night, listening to the music on the
canals. Curiously, after the canals were almost deserted—and I was
drifting slowly in a broad stream of moonlight—a casement opened
and a woman sang with as divine a voice as in my poem of _The Tides
of Venice_: she was also such a woman as there imagined—and I felt
that the poem was a true forecast. Early this morning I went to the
magnificent St. Mark’s (not only infinitely nobler than St. Peter’s,
but to me more impressive than all the Churches in Rome taken
together). I then went to the Lido, and had a glorious swim in the
heavy sea that was rolling in. On my return I found that Addington
Symonds had called on me—and I am expecting W. D. Howells. I had also a
kind note from Ouida.
Life, joyousness, brightness everywhere—oh, I am so happy! I wish I
were a bird, so that I could sing out the joy and delight in my heart.
After the oppression of Rome, the ghastliness of Assisi, the heat and
dust of Florence—Venice is like Paradise. Summer is everywhere here—on
the Lido there were hundreds of butterflies, lizards, bees, birds, and
some heavenly larks—a perfect glow and tumult of life—and I shivered
with happiness. The cool fresh joyous wind blew across the waves white
with foam and gay with the bronze-sailed fisher-boats—the long wavy
grass was sweet-scented and delicious—the acacias were in blossom
of white—life—dear, wonderful, changeful, passionate, joyous life
everywhere! I shall never forget this day—never, never. Don’t despise
me when I tell you that once it overcame me, quite; but the tears were
only from excess of happiness, from the passionate delight of getting
back again to the Mother whom I love in Nature, with her wind-caresses
and her magic breath.”
* * * * *
The weeks in Venice gave my correspondent the crowning pleasure of his
Italian sojourn; Venetian art appealed to him beyond that of any other
school. The frequent companionship of John Addington Symonds, the long
hours in the gondola, in the near and distant lagoons were a perpetual
joy to him. June he spent in the Ardennes with my mother and me—at
Dinant, at Anseremme and at La Roche. They were happy days which we
spent chiefly in a little boat sailing up the Lesse, dragging it over
the shallows, or resting in the green shade of oak and beech trees.
In July he was once more in London and hard at work. Among other things
he had contributed a series of articles on the Etrurian Cities to the
_Glasgow Herald_, and followed them with letters descriptive of the
Ardennes, then relatively little known. In August he packed all his
Italian notes, and joined his mother and sisters at Innellan on the
Clyde, and later he visited Sir Noel Paton in Arran, whence he wandered
over many of his old loved haunts in Loch Fyne, in Mull and in Iona.
On his way back to London—where he was to take up his work as Art
Critic to the _Glasgow Herald_—a serious misadventure befell him. His
portmanteau with all his precious Italian photographs, notes and other
MSS. was lost. Nowhere could he trace it, and he had to return without
He was in despair; for it meant not only the loss of material forfuture commissions, but the loss of work already finished, and in
process.
It was a wet August; and his search through the various places he
had passed on the Clyde was made in pouring rain. Again and again on
the steamers and on the piers he was soaked during those miserable
days. He settled in London at
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