WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP by ELIZABETH A. SHARP (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) 📖
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the Fiona impetus produced the first chapter and the latter part, the
plot and melodramatic character of the Breton story are due to W. S.;
that the descriptions of nature are written by F. M. and W. S. in
fusion, are in character akin to the descriptions in “The Children of
Tomorrow,” written by W. S. in his transition stage. Consequently, when
in 1905, he discussed with me what he wished preserved of his writings,
he asked my promise that I would never republish the book in its
entirety.
In order to preserve what he himself cared for, he rewrote the Highland
portion of the book, named it “The Herdsman” and included it in _The
Dominion of Dreams_. (In the Uniform Edition, it is placed, together
with a series of detached Thought-Fragments from _Green Fire_, in
_The Divine Adventure_, Vol. IV.) He never carried out his intention
of writing Annaik’s story in full. Had he done so it would have been
incorporated in a story, partly reminiscent of his early sojourn among
the gipsies, and have been called _The Gypsy Trail_.
Some months later Mr. W. B. Yeats wrote to W. S.:
“I have read ‘Green Fire’ since I saw you. I do not think it is one of
your well-built stories, and I am certain that the writing is constantly
too self-consciously picturesque; but the atmosphere, the romance of
much of it, of ‘The Herdsman’ part in particular haunts me ever since I
laid it down.
‘Fiona Macleod’ has certainly discovered the romance of the remote
Gaelic places as no one else has ever done. She has made the earth by
so much the more beautiful.”
And Mr. George Russell (A. E.) wrote to F. M. from Dublin:
DEAR FIONA MACLEOD,
My friend, Willie Yeats, has just come by me wrapt in a faery whirlwind,
his mouth speaking great things. He talked much of reviving the Druidic
mysteries and vaguely spoke of Scotland and you. These stirring ideas
of his are in such a blaze of light that, but for the inspiration of a
presence always full of enthusiasm, I would get no ideas at all from
him. But when he mentioned your name and spoke of the brotherhood of
the Celts and what ties ought to unite them, I remembered a very kindly
letter which I had put on one side waiting for an excuse to write again.
So I take gladly Yeats’ theory of what ought to be and write....
Thoughts inspired by what is written or said are aimed at the original
thinker and from every quarter converge on his inner nature. Perhaps
you have felt this. It means that these people are putting fetters on
you, binding you to think in a certain way (what they expect from you);
and there is a danger of the soul getting bent so that after its first
battle it fights no more but repeats dream upon dream its first words
in answer to their demand and it grows more voice and less soul every
day. I read _Green Fire_ a few weeks ago and have fallen in love with
your haunted seas. Your nature spirit is a little tragic. You love
the Mother as I do but you seem for ever to expect some revelation of
awe from her lips where I would hide my head in her bosom. But the
breathless awe is true also—to “meet on the Hills of Dream,” that
would not be so difficult. I think you know that? Some time when the
power falls on me I’ll send a shadow of myself over seas just to get
the feeling of the Highlands. I have an intuition that the “fires”
are awakening somewhere in the North West. I may have met you indeed
and not known you. We are so different behind the veil. Some who are
mighty of the mighty there are nothing below and then waking life keeps
no memory of their victorious deeds in sleep. And if I saw you your
inner being might assume some old Druidic garb of the soul, taking that
form because you are thinking the Druidic thought. The inner being is
protean and has a thousand changes of apparel. I sat beside a friend
and while he was meditating, the inner being started up in Egyptian
splendour robed in purple and gold. He had chanced upon some mood of an
ancient life. I write to you of these things judging that you know of
them to some extent here: that your inner nature preserves the memory
of old initiations, so I talk to you as a comrade on the same quest.
You know too I think that these alluring visions and thoughts are of
little import unless they link themselves unto our humanity. It means
only madness in the end. I know people whose lamps are lit and they
see wonderful things but they themselves will not pass from vision
into action. They follow beauty only like the dwellers in Tyre whom
Ezekiel denounced “They have corrupted their wisdom by reason of their
brightness.” Leaving these mystic things aside what you say about art
is quite true except that I cannot regard art as the “quintessential
life” unless art comes to mean the art of living more than the art of
the artists.... Sometime, perhaps, if it is in the decrees of the gods
(our true selves) we may meet and speak of these things. But don’t get
enslaved by your great power of expression. It ties the mind a little.
There was an old Hermetist who said “The knowledge of It is a divine
silence and the rest of all the senses....”
You ask me to give my best. Sometimes I think silence is the best. I can
feel the sadness of truth here, but not the joy, and there must always
be as exquisite a joy as there is pain in any state of consciousness....
E.
PART II ( FIONA MACLEOD ) CHAPTER XVIII ( FROM THE HILLS OF DREAM )
_The Laughter of Peterkin_
On the wanderer’s return to England his volume of poems _From the Hills
of Dream_ was published by P. Geddes & Coll. The first edition was
dedicated to our godson Arthur Allhallow, younger son of Prof. and Mrs.
Patrick Geddes, who was born on that Hallow E’en the anniversary of our
Wedding-day. The volume consists of poems, runes and lyrics, written by
M. between 1893 and 1896; and a series of “prose rhythms” entitled“The Silence of Amor.”
A sympathetic letter from Mr. Ernest Rhys, the Welsh poet, drew a quick
response:
MURRAYFIELD, MIDLOTHIAN,
23: 11: 96.
DEAR MR. RHYS,
On my coming from the West to Edinburgh, for a few days, I found your
very welcome and charming letter, among others forwarded to me from the
Outlook Tower.
It gratifies me very much that you, whose work I so much admire and with
whose aims and spirit I am in so keen sympathy, care so well for the
“Hills of Dream.” These are hills where few inhabit, but comrade always
knows comrade there—and so we are sure to meet one another, whether one
carry a “London Rose” or a sheaf of half-barbaric Hill-Runes. It may
interest you to know that the name which seems to puzzle so many people
is (though it does exist as the name “Fiona,” not only in Ossian but at
the present day, though rarely) the Gaelic diminutive of “Fionaghal” (i.
Flora). For the rest—I was born more than a thousand years ago, inthe remote region of Gaeldom known as the Hills of Dream. There I have
lived the better part of my life, my father’s name was Romance, and that
of my mother was Dream. I have no photograph of their abode, which is
just under the quicken-arch immediately west of the sunset-rainbow. You
will easily find it. Nor can I send you a photograph of myself. My last
fell among the dew-wet heather, and is now doubtless lining the cells of
the wild bees.
All this authentic information I gladly send you!
Sincerely yours,
FIONA MACLEOD.
Early in 1897 Mr. Yeats wrote from Paris to F. M. concerning aims
and ideals he was endeavouring to shape into expression for the
re-vivifying of Celtic Ireland, and out of which has evolved the Irish
National Theatre:
MY DEAR MISS MACLEOD,
I owe you a letter for a long time, and can only promise to amend and
be more prompt in future. I have had a busy autumn, always trying to
make myself do more work than my disposition will permit, and at such
times I am the worst of correspondents. I have just finished a certain
speech in _The Shadowy Waters_, my new poem, and have gone to _The Café
du Musée de Cluny_ to smoke and read the Irish news in the _Times_. I
should say I wrote about your book of poems as you will have seen in the
_Bookman_. I have just now a plan I want to ask you about? Our Irish
Literary and Political literary organisations are pretty complete (I am
trying to start a Young Ireland Society, among the Irish here in Paris
at the moment) and I think it would be very possible to get up Celtic
plays through these Societies. They would be far more effective than
lectures and might do more than anything else we can do to make the
Irish Scotch and other Celts recognise their solidarity. My own plays
are too elaborate, I think, for a start, and have also the disadvantage
that I cannot urge my own work in committee. If we have one or two
short direct prose plays, of (say) a mythological and folklore kind, by
you and by some writer (I may be able to move O’Grady, I have already
spoken to him about it urgently) I feel sure we could get the _Irish
Literary Society_ to make a start. They have indeed for some time talked
of doing my _Land of Heart’s Desire._ My own theory of poetical or
legendary drama is that it should have no realistic, or elaborate, but
only a symbolic and decorative setting. A forest, for instance, should
be represented by a forest pattern and not by a forest painting. One
should design a scene, which would be an accompaniment not a reflection
of the text. This method would have the further advantage of being
fairly cheap, and altogether novel. The acting should have an equivalent
distance to that of the play from common realities. The plays might be
almost, in some cases, modern mystery plays. Your _Last Supper_, for
instance, would make such a play, while your story in _The Savoy_ would
arrange as a strong play of merely human tragedy. I shall try my own
hand possibly at some short prose plays also, but not yet. I merely
suggest these things because they are a good deal on my mind, and not
that I wish to burden your already full hands. My “Shadowy Waters” is
magical and mystical beyond anything I have done. It goes but slowly
however, and I have had to recast all I did in Ireland some years ago.
Mr. Sharp heard some of it in London in its first very monotonous form.
I wish to make it a kind of grave ecstasy.
I am also at the start of a novel which moves between the Islands of
Aran and Paris, and shall have to go again to Aran about it. After
these books I start a long cherished project—a poetical version of the
great Celtic epic tale Deirdre, Cuchullin at the Ford, and Cuchullin’s
death, and Dermot and Grainne. I have some hopes that Mr. Sharp will
come to Paris on his way back to England. I have much to talk over with
him, I am feeling more and more every day that our Celtic movement is
approaching a new phase. Our instrument is sufficiently prepared as far
as Ireland is concerned, but the people are less so, and they can only
be stirred by the imagination of a very few acting on all.
My book _The Secret Rose_ was
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