WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP by ELIZABETH A. SHARP (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) đ
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So let Silence seal me and Darkness gather, Piper of Sleep.
Play me a lulling chant, O Anthem-maker,
Out of the fall of lonely seas, and the windâs sorrow:
Behind are the burning glens of the sunset-sky
Where like blown ghosts the sea-mews wail their desolate sea-dirges:
Make me of these a lulling chant, O Anthem-maker.
Noânoâfrom nets of silence weave me, O Sigher of Sleep,
A dusky veil ash-gray as the moonpale mothâs grey wing;
Of thicket-stillness woven, and sleep of grass, and thin evanishing air
Where the tall reed spires breathlessâfor I am tired, O Sigher of Sleep,
And long for thy muffled song as of bells on the wind, and the windâs cry
Falling, and the dim wastes that lie
Beyond the last, low, dim, oblivious sigh.
During a short visit to Maniace W. S. wrote to Mrs. Philpot:
11th Nov., 1903.
... At this season of the year, beautiful and unique in its appeal
and singular wild fascination as it is, this place does not suit me
climatically, being for one thing too high between 2,000 and 3,000 ft.
and also too much under the domination of Etna, who swings vast electric
current, and tosses thunder charged cloud-masses to and fro like a Titan
acolyte swinging mighty censers at the feet of the Sun. We drive to
Taormina on Tuesday and the divine beauty and not less divinely balmy
and regenerative climateâsitting as she does like the beautiful goddess
Falcone worshipped there of old, perched on her orange and olive-clad
plateau, hundreds of feet above the peacock-hued Ionian Sea, with one
hand as it were reaching back to Italy (Calabria ever like opal or
amethyst to the North-east), with the other embracing all the lands of
Etna to Syracuse and the HyblĂŠan Mount, the lands of Empedocles and
Theocritus, of Ăschylus and Pindar, of Stesichorus and Simonides, and so
many other great namesâand with her face ever turned across the Ionian
Sea to that ancient Motherland of Hellas, where once your soul and mine
surely sojourned.
We shall have a delightful âgoingâ and one you would enjoy to the
full.... Tomorrow if fine and radiant we start for that absolutely
unsurpassable expedition to the great orange gardens a thousand feet
lower at the S. W. end of the Duchy. We first drive some eight miles or
so through wild mountain land till we come to the gorges of the Simeto
and there we mount our horses and mules and with ample escort before
and behind ride in single file for about an hour and a half. Suddenly
we come upon one of the greatest orange groves in Europeâ26,000 trees
in full fruit, an estimated crop of 3,000,000! stretching between the
rushing Simeto and great cliffs. Then once more to the saddle and back a
different way to barbaric Bronte and thence a ten mile drive back along
the ancient Greek highway from Naxos to sacred Enna. And so, for the
moment, Ă revedĂšrla!â
After a delightful week at CorfĂč we settled in Athens (at Maison
Merlin) for four months, and found pleasant companionship with members
of the English and American Schools of Archeologyâof which Mr. Carl
Bosenquet and Prof. Henry Fowler were respectively the headsâwith Dr.
Wilhelm head of the Austrian School,âwith Mr. Bikelas the Greek poet,
at whose house we met several of the rising Greek men of letters, and
other residents and wanderers.
The winter was very cold and at first my husband was very illâthe
double strain of his life seemed to consume him like a flame. At the
New Year he wrote again to Mrs. Philpot:
MAISON MERLIN,
ATHENS.
DEAR FRIEND,
This is mainly to tell you that Iâve come out of my severe feverish
attack with erect (if draggled) colours and hope to march
âcock-a-hoopishlyâ into 1904 and even further if the smiling enigmatical
gods permit!... To-day I heard a sound as of Pan piping, among the glens
on Hymettos, whereon my eyes rest so often and often so long dream.
Tomorrow Iâll take Gilbert Murrayâs fine new version of Hippolytus or
BacchĂŠ as my pocket companion to the Theatre of Dionysus on the hither
side of the Acropolis; possibly my favourite Ćdipus at Kolonos and read
sitting on Kolonos itself and imagine I hear on the wind the rise and
fall of the lonely ancient lives, serene thought-tranced in deathless
music. And in the going of the old and the coming of the new year, a
friendâs thoughts shall fare to you from far away Athens.... As far as
practicable I am keeping myself to the closer study of the literature
and philosophy and ethical concepts and ideals of ancient Hellas and
of mythology in relation thereto, but you know how fascinating and
perturbing much else is, from sculpture to vase paintings, from Doric
and Ionic architecture to the beauty and complex interest of the
almost inexhaustible field of ancient Greek coins, and those of GrĂŠcia
Magna,âAnd then (both Eheu and Evoe!) I have so much else to doâbesides
âLifeâ the supreme and most exciting of the arts!
A letter of New Year wishes to Dr. Garnett from W. S.; and a copy of
_The House of Usna_ to Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Rhys brought the following
acknowledgments:
27 TANZA ROAD, HAMPSTEAD,
Jan. 8, 1904.
MY DEAR SHARP,
Your letter has given me infinite pleasure....
Athens must be a delightful residence at this time of year, especially
if there are no âcold snaps,â against which I fear that the modern
Athenians are no better provided than their ancestors were. There is a
very amusing letter in Alisplornâs epistles, describing the sufferings
of a poor parasite in a hard winter. You seem to have very charming
society. The name of Bikelas is well known to me, but I am not much
versed in Roman literature. The history of Paparrhegopoulos has been
a good deal noticed here of late. It seems to be a really classical
work. By producing such the Greeks will indicate their claim to a high
position in the European family, until the time has come for action,
which apparently has not come yet.
I quite agree in the conclusion at which they seem to have arrived that
it is better to have the Turks in Constantinople than the Bulgarians,
much more the Russians. If either of their victims once occupy it, the
rightful possessors will be forever excluded.
I have not wanted for literary occupationsâone a little work of fancy
which I am about finishing, and of which you will hear more. Then I have
a story to translate from the Portuguese, published in the _Venture_;
an edition of Browningâs preface to Shelleyâs forged letters, with
an introduction by me, and the second volume of English literature
in conjunction with Gosse, which has been these six weeks ready for
issue but delayed from time to time to suit the Americans. It is now
positively announced for the 31st.
With kindest regards to Mrs. Sharp, who I hope finds Attica entirely to
her taste,
I am, dear Sharp,
Very sincerely yours,
GARNETT.
DERWEN,
HERMITAGE LANE, N. W.,
Jan. 28, 1904.
DEAR MISS FIONA MACLEOD,
Most delightful of all New Yearâs gifts is a really beautiful book;
and we thank you,âboth of us,âfor sending us your most characteristic
heroic-lyric tragedy, _The House of Usna_. We were fortunate in being
allowed to see it performedâhow long ago can it have been!âat the
Stage Societyâs instance.... The âPsychic Drama,â as you conceive it,
opens the door to a lost world of Nature and the emotions of Nature
in the imagination. No doubt it is a frightfully difficult thing to
attire these emotions in fair and credible human dress, one that seemed
impossible even, but the âHouse of Usnaâ may serve as a test of how
far those who have the key to these emotions can hope to fit it to old
or new-old dramatic forms. Your âForewordâ is suggestive enough to be
treated separately; but we write from a sick house, and in such states,
it is harder to think of critical things than of pure imaginative ones.
For these last, as they rise out of your magic âHouse,â and haunt the
ear, we owe you very whole and ample thanks.
With many wishes for health and spirit in this year of 1904,
We are, yours most truly,
AND E. RHYS.
With Spring sunshine and warmth my husband regained a degree of
strength, and it was his chief pleasure to take long rambles on the
neighbouring hills alone, or with the young American archeologist,
Mrs. Roselle L. Shields, a tireless walker. We made some interesting
expeditions to Tyrens, MycenĂŠ, Corinth, Delphi, etc. and from âOlympia
in Elisâ he wrote to a friend:
âHow you would love this radiant heat, this vast solitude of ruins,
the millions of flowers and dense daisied grass. This fragment of vast
Olympia is the most ancient Greek temple extant. It lies at the base of
the Hill of Kronos, of which the lowest pines are seen to the right and
overlooks the whole valley of the Alpheios....
And the millions of flowers. They are almost incredible in number and
density. The ground is often white with thick snow of daisies. Wild
plums, pears, cherries, etc. The radiant and glowing heat is a joy. I am
sad to think that this day week beautiful Greece will be out of sight.â
Later he wrote to Mr. Rhys:
MAISON MERLIN, ATHENS,
Friday, 26th Feb., 1904.
MY DEAR ERNEST,
... Yesterday I had a lovely break from work, high up on the beautiful
bracing dwarf-pine clad slopes of Pentelicos, above Kephisia, the
ancient deme of Menanderâand then across the country behind Hymettos,
the country of Demosthenes, and so back by the High Convent of St. John
the Hunter, on the north spur of the Hymettian range, and the site of
ancient Gargettos, the place of Epicurusâ birth and boyhood. At sundown
I was at Heracleion, some three or four miles from Athensâand the city
was like pale gold out of which peaked Lycabettos rose like a purple
sapphire. The sky beyond, above Salamis, was all grass-green and mauve.
A thunder-cloud lay on extreme Hymettos, rising from Marathon: and three
rainbows lay along the violet dusk of the great hill-range....
We intend to spend April in France, mostly in Southern Provence, which
we love so well, and where we have dear French friends.
I am apparently well and strong again, hard at work, hard at pleasure,
hard at life, as before, and generally once more full of hope and energy.
Love to you both, dear friends and a sunbeam to little Stella.
Ever yours,
WILL.
On leaving Greece we loitered at HyĂšres in the month of
cherry-blossoms, and moved slowly northwards through NĂźmes to the
fantastic neighbourhood of Le Puy, with its curious hill-set town and
churches perched on pinnacles of conical rock.
From Le Puy W. S. wrote to Mrs. Janvier:
18th April, 1904.... What has most impressed my imagination in this
region is what I saw today outside of fantastic Le Puyânamely at the
magnificent old feudal rock-Chateau fortress of Polignac, erected on
the site of the famous Temple of Apollo (raised here by the Romans on
the still earlier site of a Druidic Temple to the Celtic Sun God). I
looked down the mysterious hollow of the ancient oracle of Apollo, and
realised how deep a hold even in the France of today is maintained by
the ancient Pagan faith....
PART II ( FIONA MACLEOD ) CHAPTER XXV ( THE WINGED DESTINY )
_Literary Geography_
Two important events of 1904 to William Sharp were the publication of
_The Winged Destiny_, at midsummer, by Messrs. Chapman & Hall; and of
his _Literary Geography_ in October.
In the Dedication to Dr. John Goodchild of _The Winged Destiny_ (the
title of _The Magic Kingdoms_ was discarded), the author set forth
âherâ intention:
âIn this book I have dealtâas I hope in all I writeâonly with things
among which my thought has moved, searching, remembering, examining,
sometimes dreaming....
It is not the night-winds in sad hearts only that I hear, or the sighing
of vain fatalities: but, often rather, of an
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