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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was as good as his word! The night was dark, and the roads near Athenry
awful after the recent gale and rains—and it was no joke to hold on to
the car. Whenever we came to a particularly bad bit (and I declared
afterwards that he took some of the stone dykes at a leap) he cried—“Now
thin yer honour, whin I cry _Whiroo!_ you hould on an’ trust to God”—and
then came his wild _Whiroo!_ and the horse seemed to spring from the
car, and the jarvey and I to be flying alongside, and my rope-bound
luggage to be kicking against the stars—and then we came down with a
thud, and when I had a gasp of refound breath I asked if the road was as
smooth and easy all the way, whereat my friend laughed genially and said
“Be aisy at that now—shure we’re coming to the bad bit soon!” ...
Not far from here is a fairy-doctor, I am going to see him some day. It
is strange that when one day Lady Gregory took one of Russell’s mystical
drawings (I think of the MĹŤr Reega) and showed it to an old woman, she
at once exclaimed that that was the “photograph” of the fairy queen she
had often seen, only that the strange girdle of fan-flame was round her
waist and not on her head as in the drawing. An old man here also has
often met “the secret people,” and when asked to describe one strange
“fairy lord” he has encountered more than once, it was so like G. R’s
drawing that that was shown him among several others, and he at once
picked it out!
It is a haunted land.
In haste (and hunger),
WILF.
S. I have been thinking much over my long-projected consecutive work
(i. e. as W. S.)—in five sequel books—on the drama of life as seen in
the evolution of the dreams of youth—begun, indeed, over ten years ago
in Paris—but presciently foregone till ten maturing years should pass.
But now the time has come when I may, and should, and indeed, now,
_must_, write this _Epic of Youth_. That will be its general collective
name—and it will interest you to know the now definitely fixt names of
these five (and all very long) books; each to be distinct and complete
in itself, yet all sequently connected: and organic and in the true
sense dramatic evolution of some seven central types of men and women
from youth to maturity and climax, along the high and low, levels.
Name: _The Epic of Youth._
The Hunters of Wisdom. The Tyranny of Dreams.III. The Star of Fortune.
The Daughters of Vengeance. The Iron Gates.
This will take five years to do—so it is a big task to set, before the
end of 1902!—especially as I have other work to do, and F. M.’s, herself
as ambitious. But method, and maturer power and thought, can accomplish
with far less nervous output, what otherwise was impossible, and only at
a killing or at least perilous strain.
So wish me well!
But the pressure of health, of the needs of daily livelihood, and of
the more dominating ambitions of F. M. prevented the fulfilment of this
scheme.
Many times he talked of it, drafted out portions of it—but it remained
unaccomplished, and all that exists of it is the beginning chapters
of the first book written in Paris ten years before, and then called
_Cæsar of France_.
London proved to be impossible to him owing to the excitable condition
of his brain. Therefore he took rooms in Hastings whence he wrote to me:
Nov. 21, 1897.
I am so glad to be here, in this sunlight by the sea. Light and
motion—what a joy these are. The eyes become devitalised in the pall of
London gloom....
There is a glorious amplitude of light. The mind bathes in these
illimitable vistas. Wind and Wave and Sun: how regenerative these elder
brothers are.
Solomon says there is no delight like wisdom, and that wisdom is the
heritage of age: but there is a divine unwisdom which is the heritage
of youth—and I would rather be young for a year than wise for a cycle.
There are some who live without the pulse of youth in the mind: on the
day, in the hour, I no longer feel that quick pulse, I will go out like
a blown flame. To be young; to keep young: that is the story and despair
of life....
Among the Christmas publications of 1897 appeared _The Laughter of
Peterkin_ by Fiona Macleod. This book, issued by Messrs. Archibald
Constable and illustrated by Mr. Sunderland Rollinson, was a new
departure for the author, an interlude in the midst of more strenuous
original work, for it was the re-telling of three old tales of Celtic
Wonderland: “The Four White Swans,” or “The Children of Lir,” “The
Fate of the Sons of Turenn,” and “Darthool and the Sons of Usna.”
Some years later, after the publication of Lady Gregory’s “Gods and
Fighting Men,” Mr. Alfred Nutt wrote to F. M. and suggested that she
should again turn her attention to the re-telling of some of the
beautiful old Celtic tales and legends. My husband, however, realised
that he had far more dreams haunting the chambers of his mind than he
could have time to give expression to. Therefore, very regretfully, he
felt constrained to forego what otherwise would have been a work of
love.
PART II ( FIONA MACLEOD ) CHAPTER XIX ( WIVES IN EXILE )
_Silence Farm_
The production of the Fiona Macleod work was accomplished at a heavy
cost to the author as that side of his nature deepened and became
dominant. The strain upon his energies was excessive: not only from
the necessity of giving expression to the two sides of his nature;
but because of his desire, that, while under the cloak of secrecy F.
should develop and grow, the reputation of William Sharp shouldat the same time be maintained. Moreover each of the two natures had
its own needs and desires, interests and friends. The needs of each
were not always harmonious one with the other, but created a complex
condition that led to a severe nervous collapse. The immediate result
of the illness was to cause an acute depression and restlessness that
necessitated a continual change of environment. In the early part
of 1898 he went in turn to Dover, to Bournemouth, Brighton, and St.
Margaret’s Bay. He was much alone, except for the occasional visit of
an intimate friend; for I could go to him at the week-ends only, as I
had the work in London to attend to. The sea, and solitude, however,
proved his best allies.
To Mrs. Janvier he wrote:
... I am skirting the wood of shadows. I am filled with vague fears—and
yet a clear triumphant laughter goes through it, though whether of life
or death no one knows. I am also in a duel with other forces than those
of human wills—and I need all my courage and strength. At the moment I
have recovered my physic control over certain media. It cannot last more
than a few days at most a few weeks at a time: but in that time _I am
myself_....
Let there be peace in your heart: peace and hope transmuted into joy: in
your mind, the dusking of no shadow, the menace of no gloom, but light,
energy, full life: and to you in your whole being, the pulse of youth,
the flame of green fire....
At the end of April he wrote to R. Murray Gilchrist from St. Margaret’s
Bay:
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I know you will have been sorry to hear that I have been ill—and had to
leave work, and home. The immediate cause was a severe and sudden attack
of influenza which went to membranes of the head and brain, and all but
resulted in brain fever. This evil was averted—but it and the possible
collapse of your friend Will were at one time, and for some days, an
imminent probability.
I have now been a fortnight in this quiet sea-haven, and am practically
myself again. Part of my work is now too hopelessly in arrears ever to
catch up. Fortunately, our friend Miss F. M. practically finished her
book just before she got ill too—and there is a likelihood that _There
is But One Love_ [published in the following year under the title of
_The Dominion of Dreams_] will come out this Spring. A few days will
decide....
Your friend and Sunlover,
(in the deep sense you know I mean—for I
have suffered much, but am now again fronting
life gravely and with laughing eyes),
WILL.
and again after his return to London:
RUTLAND HOUSE.
MY DEAR ROBERT,
... After months of sickness, at one time at the gates of death, I am
whirled back from the Iron Gates and am in the maelstrom again—fighting
with mind and soul and body for that inevitable losing game which we
call victory. Well, the hour waits: and for good or ill I put forth that
which is in me. The Utmost for the Highest. There is that motto for all
faithful failures....
I am busy of course. And so, too, our friend F. M.—with an elixir of
too potent life. The flame is best: and the keener, the less obscured
of smoke. So I believe: upon this I build. _Cosmopolis_ will ere long
have “The Wayfarer” of hers—_Good Words_ “The Wells of Peace”—_Harpers_,
something—_Literature_ a spiritual ballad—and so forth. But her life
thought is in another and stranger thing than she has done yet.[4] ...
Your friend W. S. is busy too, with new and deeper and stronger work.
The fugitive powers impel. I look eagerly to new work of yours: above
all to what you colour with yourself. I care little for anything that
is not quick with that volatile part of one which is the effluence of
the spirit within. Write to me soon: by return best of all. You can help
me—as I, I hope, can help _you_.
It is only the fullest and richest lives that know what the _heart_ of
loneliness is.
You are my comrade, and have my love,
WILL.
Two, among the many letters he wrote to me during that Spring—so full
of suffering for him and anxiety for me—are, I think, very indicative
of the two phases of his nature. The first relates to views we held in
common; the second gives an insight into the primitive elemental soul
that so often swayed him, and his work.
March 29, 1898.
... Yes, in essentials, we are all at one. We have both learned
and unlearned so much, and we have come to see that we are wrought
mysteriously by forces beyond ourselves, but in so seeing we know that
there is a great and deep love that conquers even disillusion and
disappointment....
Not all the wishing, not all the dreaming, not all the will and hope
and prayer we summon can alter that within us which is stronger than
ourselves. This is a hard lesson to learn for all of us, and most for
a woman. We are brought up within such an atmosphere of conventional
untruth to life that most people never even perceive the hopeless
futility in the arbitrary ideals which are imposed upon us—and the
result for the deeper natures, endless tragic miscarriage of love,
peace, and hope. But, fortunately, those of us who to our own suffering
_do_ see only too clearly, can still strike out a nobler ideal—one
that does not shrink from the deepest responsibilities and yet can so
widen and deepen the heart and spirit with love that what else would be
irremediable pain can be transmuted into hope, into peace, and even into
joy.
People talk much of this and that frailty or this or that circumstance
as being among the commonest disintegrants of happiness. But far more
fatal for many of us is that supreme disintegrant, the Tyranny of
Love—the love which is forever demanding _as its due_ that which is
wholly independent of bonds, which is as the wind which bloweth
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