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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this; especially as I had meant to say nothing about it. But yours
of last night is so kind and pleasant that I think it best to write
what’s on my mind, or rather what _was_ on it when I read your article.
For the rest, it is good to hear that you’re re-reading, and are kind
of dissatisfied with your own first views. I shall look with great
interest for the new statement, and value it—whatever its conclusions—a
good deal. I have worked hard at the little book, and am disposed (as
you see) to take it more seriously than it deserves; and whatever is
said about it comes home to me.
Always yours sincerely,
E. H.
_P. S._—I am glad you quoted “The King of Babylon.” It’s my own
favourite of all. I call it “a romance without adjectives” and the
phrase (which represents an ideal) says everything. I wish I could do
more of the same reach and tune.
* * * * *
At Wescam we enjoyed once more the pleasant ways of friendship that
had grown about us, and especially our Sunday informal evening
gatherings to which came all those with whom we were in sympathy.
Among the most frequent were Mrs. Mona Caird, the eager champion of
women long before the movement passed into the militant hands of the
suffragettes; Walter Pater, during his Oxford vacation; Dr. and Mrs.
Garnett; John M. Robertson, who was living the “simple life” of a
socialist in rooms close by; Richard Whiteing, then leader-writing
for _The Daily News_, and author of the beautiful idyll _The Island_.
Mathilde Blind—poetess novelist, who in youth had sat an eager disciple
at the feet of Mazzini, came frequently, Ernest Rhys was writing poems
and editing _The Camelot Classics_ from the heights of Hampstead, and
his wife, then Miss Grace Little, lived in the neighbourhood with her
sisters, the eldest of whom, Lizzie Little, was a writer of charming
verse. W. B. Yeats came in the intervals of wandering over Ireland
in search of Folk tales; John Davidson had recently come to London,
and was bitter over the hard struggle he was enduring; William Watson
was a rare visitor. Another frequent visitor was Arthur Tomson the
landscape painter, who came to us with an introduction from Mr. Andrew
Lang. A warm friendship grew up between Arthur and ourselves, which was
deepened by his second marriage with Miss Agnes Hastings, a girl-friend
of ours, and lasted till his death in 1905. Mr. and Mrs. John M. Swan
came occasionally, Mr. and Mrs. William Strang, we saw frequently, and
Theodore Roussell was an ever welcome guest. Sir George Douglas came
now and again from Kelso; Charles Mavor, editor of _The Art Review_,
ran down occasionally from Glasgow. Other frequenters of our Sunday
evenings were Richard Le Gallienne, whose _Book bills of Narcissus_ was
then recently published; Miss Alice Corkran, Mr. and Mrs. Todhunter,
Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Coleridge, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rinder, Mr. and Mrs.
Joseph Pennell. The Russian Nihilist Stepniak and his wife were a great
interest to us. I remember on one occasion they told us that Stepniak
intended to make a secret visit to Russia—as he had done before—that he
was starting the next morning, and though every care would be taken in
matter of disguise, the risks were so great that he and his wife always
said farewell to one another as though they never would meet again.
Mrs. Caird’s town house was close to us; and she, keenly interested—as
my husband and I also were—in the subject of the legal position of
women, had that spring written two articles on the Marriage question
which were accepted by and published in _The Westminster Review_ in
July. Twelve years ago the possibilities of a general discussion on
such subjects were very different to what exist now. The sensibilities
of both men and women—especially of those who had no adequate
knowledge of the legal inequalities of the Marriage laws nor of the
abuses which were and are in some cases still the direct outcome of
them—were disturbed and shocked by the plain statements put forward,
by the passionate plea for justice, for freedom from tyrannous legal
oppression, exercised consciously and unconsciously. Mrs. Caird’s
articles met with acute hostility of a kind difficult to understand
now, and much misunderstanding and unmerited abuse was meted out to
her. Nevertheless these brave articles, published in book form under
the title of _The Morality of Marriage_, and the novels written by the
same pen, have been potent in altering the attitude of the public mind
in its approach to and examination of such questions, in making private
discussion possible.
In the autumn of 1888 the monograph on Heine was published in the
_Great Writers Series_ (Walter Scott); and the author always regarded
it as the best piece of work of the kind he ever did. It seemed fitting
that the writer of a life of Shelley should write one of Heine, for
there is a kinship between the two poets. To their biographer Heine was
the strangest and most fascinating of all the poets not only of one
country and one century, but of all time and of all nations; he saw
in the wayward brilliant poet “one of those flowers which bloom more
rarely than the aloe—human flowers which unfold their petals but once,
it may be, in the whole slow growth of humanity.... At his best Heine
is a creature of controlled impulse; at his worst he is a creature of
impulse uncontrolled. Through extremes he gained the golden mean of
art: here is his _apologia_.”
The book is an endeavour to handle the subject in an impartial spirit,
to tell the story vividly, to give a definite impression of the
strange personality, and in the concluding pages to summarise Heine’s
genius. But, “do what we will we cannot affiliate, we cannot classify
Heine. When we would apprehend it his genius is as volatile as his
wit.... Of one thing only can we be sure: that he is of our time, of
our century. He is so absolutely and essentially modern that he is
often antique....
“As for his song-motive, I should say it was primarily his
_Lebenslust_, his delight in life: that love so intensely human that it
almost necessarily involved the ignoring of the divine. Rainbow-hued
as is his genius, he himself was a creature of earth. It was enough
to live.... He would cling to life, even though it were by a rotten
beam, he declared once in his extremity. And the poet of life he
unquestionably is. There is a pulse in everything he writes: his is no
galvanised existence. No parlour passions lead him into the quicksands
of oblivion....”
The author was gratified by appreciative letters from Dr. Richard
Garnett and Mr. George Meredith:
3 ST. EDMUND’S TERRACE,
Nov 11, 1888.
MY DEAR SHARP,
I have now finished your Heine, and can congratulate you upon an
excellent piece of biographical work. You are throughout perfectly
clear and highly interesting, and, what is more difficult with your
subject, accurate and impartial. Or, if there is any partiality it is
such as it is becoming in one poet to enlist aid for another. With all
one’s worship of Heine’s genius, it must be allowed that he requires a
great deal of toleration. The best excuse to be made for him is that
his faults were largely faults of race—and just now I feel amiably
toward the Jews, for if you have seen the Athenæum you will have
observed that I have fallen into the hands of the Philistines. Almost
the only point in which I differ from you is as regards your too slight
mention of Platen, who seems to me not only a master of form but a true
though limited poet—a sort of German Matthew Arnold. Your kind notice
of my translation from the Romanzen did not escape me. Something,
perhaps, should have been said of James Thomson, the best English
translator.
Believe me, my dear Sharp,
Most sincerely yours,
GARNETT.
BOX HILL, Dec. 10, 1887.
DEAR MR. SHARP,
Your Heine gave me pleasure. I think it competently done; and coming
as a corrective to Stigund’s work, it brings the refreshment of the
antidote. When I have the pleasure of seeing you we will converse
upon Heine. Too much of his—almost all of the Love poems drew both
tenderness and tragic emotion from a form of sensualism, much of his
wit too was wilful—a trick of the mind. Always beware of the devilish
in wit: it has the obverse of an intellectual meaning, and it shows at
the best interpretation, a smallness of range. Macmillan says that if
they can bring out my book “Reading of Earth” on the 18th I may expect
Otherwise you will not receive a copy until after Christmas.
Faithfully yours,
GEORGE MEREDITH.
Mr. Meredith wrote again after the publication of his poems:
BOX HILL, Feb. 15, 1888.
DEAR MR. SHARP,
It is not common for me to be treated in a review with so much respect.
But your competency to speak on the art of verse gives the juster
critical tone.
Of course you have poor J. Thomson’s book. I have had pain in reading
Nature needs her resources, considering what is wasted of herfinest. That is to say, on this field—and for the moment I have eyes
on the narrow rather than the wider. It is our heart does us this
mischief. Philosophy can as little subject it as the Laws of men can
hunt Nature out of women—artificial though we force them to be in their
faces. But if I did not set Philosophy on high for worship, I should
be one of the weakest.
Let me know when you are back. If in this opening of the year we have
the South West, our country, even our cottage, may be agreeable to you.
All here will be glad to welcome you and your wife for some days.
Yours very cordially,
GEORGE MEREDITH.
It was the late spring before we could visit Mr. Meredith. The day
of our going was doubly memorable to me, because as we went along
the leafy road from Burford Bridge station we met Mr. and Mrs. Grant
Allen—my first meeting with them—whose home was at that time in
Dorking. Memorable, too, was the courteous genial greeting from our
host and his charming daughter; and the many delightful incidents of
that first week end visit. William and Mr. Meredith had long talks in
the garden chalet on the edge of the wood. And in the evenings the
novelist read aloud to us. On that occasion I think it was he read
some chapters from “One of our Conquerors” on which he was working;
another time it was from “The Amazing Marriage” and from “Lord Ormont
and his Aminta.” The reader’s enjoyment seemed as great as that of his
audience, and it interested me to hear how closely his own methods
of conversation resembled, in wittiness and brilliance, those of the
characters in his novels. Sometimes he turned a merciless play of wit
on his listener; but my husband, who was as deeply attached to the man
as he admired the writer, enjoyed these verbal duels in which he was
usually worsted. The incident of the visit that charmed me most arose
from my stating that I had never heard the nightingale. So on the
Sunday afternoon we were taken to a stretch of woodland, “my woods of
Westermain” the poet smilingly declared, and there, standing among the
tree-boles in the late afternoon sun-glow I listened for the bird-notes
as he described them to me until he was satisfied I heard aright.
The Xmas of 1888, and the following New Year’s day we passed at
Tunbridge Wells, with Mathilde Blind, in rooms overlooking the common.
Many delightful hours were spent together in the evenings listening to
one or other of the two poets reading aloud their verse, or parts of
the novels they had in process. Mathilde was writing her _Tarantella_;
my husband had recently finished a boys’ serial story for _Young
Folk’s Paper_, with a highly sensational plot entitled “The Secret of
Seven Fountains,” and was at work on a Romance of a very different
order in which he then was deeply interested, though in later life
he considered it immature in thought and expression. The boys’ story
was one of adventure, of life seen from a purely objective point of
view. _The Children of To-morrow_ was the author’s first endeavour to
give expression in prose to the more subjective side of his nature,
to thoughts, feelings, aspirations he had hitherto suppressed; it is
the direct forerunner of the series of romantic tales he afterward
wrote as Fiona Macleod; it was also the expression of his attitude
of revolt against the limitations of the accepted social system. The
writing of the Monograph on Shelley had rekindled many ideas and
beliefs he held in common with
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