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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was a marble aqueduct, with vines laden with ripe fruit covering it
with a fragrant veil: citrons and pomegranates were all around. Dark
passionate eyes of the South met mine; the dreamy sweetness of a
strange tongue sang an ineffably delicious song through and through my
soul: I sank into the utmost realms of reverie, and drank a precious
draught of alien life for only too brief a space. Not De Quincey in the
mystic rapture of opium, not Mohammed in his vision of Paradise, drank
deeper of the ineffable wine of the Supreme and Unattainable.â
It was several weeks before the much-hoped-for invitation came, and the
recipient was feeling so ill that he was hardly in a condition to take
full advantage of it, and feared he had made a bad impression on his
host. The following morning he wrote:
19 ALBERT ST., REGENTâS PARK N.W.,
31: 1: 80.
MY DEAR SIR,
I hope you will not consider me ungrateful for the pleasure you gave me
last night because I outwardly showed so little appreciationâbut I was
really so unwell from cold and headache that it was the utmost I could
do to listen coherently. But though, otherwise, I look back gratefully
to the whole evening I especially recall with pleasure the few minutes
in which now and again you read. I have never heard such a beautiful
reader of verse as yourself, and if I had not feltâwell, shyâI should
have asked you to go on reading. Voice, and tone, and expression, all
were in perfect harmonyâand although I have much else to thank you for,
allow me to thank you for the pleasure you have given me in this also.
I enclose 4 or 5 poems taken at random from my MSS. Two or three were
written two or three years ago. That called the âDancerâ is modelled on
your beautiful âCard-Dealer.â
I have also to thank you for your kind criticisms: and hope that you
do not consider my aspirations and daring hopes as altogether in vain.
Despair comes sometimes upon me very heavily, but I have not yet lost
heart.
Yours most faithfully,
WILLIAM SHARP.
On the 23d of February he wrote to Mrs. Caird:
DEAR MONA.
Was unable after all to resume my letter on Friday night. On Friday
morning I had a note from Rossetti wanting me to come again and dine
with himâthis time alone, I was glad to find. I spent a most memorable
evening, and enjoyed myself more than I can tell. We dined together
in free and easy manner in his studio, surrounded by his beautiful
paintings and studies. Then, and immediately after dinner he told me
things of himself, personal reminiscences, with other conversation
about the leading living painters and poets. Then he talked to me about
myself, and my manuscriptsâa few of which he had seen. Then personal
and other matters again, followed, to my great delight (as Rossetti is
a most beautiful reader) by his reading to me a great part of the as
yet unpublished sonnets which go to form âThe House of Life.â Some of
them were splendid, and seemed to me finer than those publishedâmore
markedly intellectual, I thought. This took up a long time, which
passed most luxuriously for me....
He has been so kind to me every way: and this time he gave me two most
valuable and welcome introductionsâone to Philip Bourke Marston, the
man whose genius is so wonderful, considering he has been blind from
his birthâand the other to his brother Mr. Michael Rossetti, to whom,
however, he had already kindly spoken about me. I am to go when I wish
to the latterâs literary re-unions, where I shall make the acquaintance
of some of our leading authors and authoresses. Did I tell you that the
last time I dined at Rossettiâs house he gave me a copy of his poems,
with something from himself written on the fly-leaf? On that occasion
I also met Theodore Watts, the well-known critic of _The Athenaeum_.
It is so strange to be on intimate terms with a man whom a short time
ago I looked on as so far off. Perhaps, dear friend, when you come to
stay with Elizabeth and myself in the happy days which I hope are in
store for us all, you will âpopâ into quite a literary circle!... I was
sure, also, you would enjoy the _Life of Clifford_ in âMod: Thought.â
What a splendid man he was: a true genius, yet full of the joy of life,
sociable, fun-loving, genial, and in every way a gentleman. I was
reading one of his books lately, and was struck with the sympathetic
spirit he showed toward what to him meant nothingâChristianity. I wish
we had more men like him. There is another man for whom I think I have
an equal admiration, though of a different order in one senseâDr.
Martineau. Have you read anything of his?
On Wednesday evening next I am going to a Spiritual SĂ©ance, by the
best mediumsâwhich I am looking forward to with great curiosity....
Besides verse, I am writing a Paper just now on âClimate in Relation
to the Influences of Art,â and going on with one or two other minor
things. There now, I have told you all about myself....
Your friend and comrade,
WILL.
He submitted several poems to Rossetti who had suggested that if he
had a suitable sonnet it might be included in Hall Caineâs _Century of
Sonnets_. Rossettiâs acknowledgment contained an adverse criticism on
the Sonnet sent, softened by an invitation to the younger man to go
again to see him.
Saturday.
DEAR MR. ROSSETTI,
Thanks for your kind invitation to Philip and myself for Monday
nightâwhich we are both glad to accept. I found him in bed this morning
on my way to the cityâbut had no scruple in waking him as I knew what
pleasure your message would give. We both thank you also for promising
to put us up at night.
I infer from your letter that you do not think _The Two Realities_
good enough to send to Caine: and though of course sorry, I acquiesce
in your judgment. I know that none of my best work is in sonnet-form,
and that I have less mastery over the latter than any other form of
verse. But I will try to improve my deficiencies in this way by acting
up to your suggestions. You see, I have never had the advantage of
such a severe critic as you before. For instance, I have received
praise from many on account of a sonnet you once saw (one of a series
on âWomanhoodâ) called âApproaching Womanhoodââwhich I enclose
herewithâwishing you to tell me _how_ it is poor and what I might have
made of it instead. As I am writing from the city I have no others by
me (but indeed you have been bothered sufficiently already) but will
try and give one from memoryâwhich I hastily dashed down one day in the
office.
Looking forward to Monday night,
Yours ever sincerely,
WILLIAM SHARP.
Eventually the Sonnets were written that satisfied his critic and were
included in Hall Caineâs Anthology.
About this time also he was attempting a poem relating to an imaginary
episode in the early life of Christ. To me it seemed a mistake, and I
urged him to consult Mr. Rossetti, who replied as follows:
Thursday, Jan., 1880.
MY DEAR SHARP,
I am quite unable to advise you on so abstruse a point. Strange to
say, I can conceive no higher Ideal than the Christ we know; and I
judge it to be very rash to lower in poetry (to the apprehension of
many beautiful minds) that Ideal, by any assumption to decide a point
respecting it which it is not possible to _decide_, whichever way belief
or even conviction may tend.
I did not gather fully the relation of the Wandering Jew to your poem.
If the very Jew in question, how is he to know of the development of
humanity before his time? That he is a symbol of course I understand;
but the balance between person and symbol should be clearly determined.
I hope you may enjoy yourself in such good company, and am ever,
Sincerely yours,
G. ROSSETTI.
Sir Noel Paton had given his younger countryman an introduction also to
his old friend Mrs. Craik (author of John Halifax) who, it happened,
was P. B. Marstonâs godmother. She had a house in Kent, at Shortlands,
and to it she on several occasions invited the two young poets. During
one of these days, in the late summer, they went for a drive through
the green lanes, when suddenly there came on a thunderstorm. The
carriage was shut up, but there was no way of protecting the occupant
of the box seat. So that Philip should come to no harm the younger man
took the box seat and got thoroughly wet. On reaching the house he
refused many suggestions to have his clothes dried, and went back to
town that evening in his damp garments. A violent cold ensued, which
he was unable to throw off. He was out of health, ill-nourished, owing
to his slender means, and overworked. That summer my mother had taken
a cottage in South Wales, on the estuary near Portmadoc, and my cousin
came to spend his holidays with us. A weary delicate creature arrived,
but he was sure that a bathe or two in the salt water would soon cure
him. Alas, instead of that within a few days he was laid low with
rheumatic fever, and for four weeks my mother and I nursed him and it
was the end of September before he could go back to town. That autumn
my mother let her house for six months and decided to winter in Italy
with her daughters. Although there was much that was alluring in the
prospect I was very greatly worried at leaving London, for my poet was
so weak and delicate, and I distrusted his notions of taking care of
himself. On the 13th December he wrote to me:
Monday, 13: 12: 80.
âI spent such a pleasant evening on Saturday. I went round to
Francillonâs house about 8 oâclock, and spent about an hour there with
him and Julian Hawthorne. Then we walked down to Covent Garden, and
joined the âOasisâ Clubâwhere we met about 30 or so other literary men
and artists, including the D. Christie Murray I so much wished to meet,
and whom I like very much. We spent a very pleasant while a decidedly
âBohemianâ night, and after we broke up I walked home with Francillon,
Julian Hawthorne, and Murray. Hawthorne and myself are to be admitted
members at the next meeting.â
He has described his friendship with the blind poet in his Introduction
to a Selection of Marstonâs poems published in the Canterbury Series:
âI was spending an evening with Rossetti, when I chanced to make some
reference to Marstonâs poetry. Finding that I did not know the blind
poet and that I was anxious to meet him, Rossetti promised to bring us
together. I remember that I was fascinated by him at onceâhis manner,
his personality, his conversation. âThere is a kind of compensation,â
he remarked to me once, âin the way that new friendships arise to
brighten my life as soon as I am bowled over by some great loss.ââ
Just before Christmas, William wrote:
DEAR MR. ROSSETTI,
... I wished very much to show you two poems I had written in the
earlier half of this year, and now send them by the same post. The one
entitled âMotherhoodâ I think the better on the whole. It was written
to give expression to the feeling I had so strongly of the beauty and
sacredness of Motherhood in itself, and how this is the same, in degree,
all through creation: the poem is accordingly in three partsâthe first
dealing with an example of Motherhood in the brute creation, the second
with a savage of the lowest order, and the third with a civilised
girl-woman of the highest type.
The otherââThe Dead Bridegroomââis more purely an âartâ poem. After
reading it, you will doubtless recognise the story, which I believe
is true. Swinburne (I understand) told it to one or two, and Meredith
embodied it in a short ballad. Philip Marston told me the story one day,
and, it having taken a great hold upon me, the accompanying poem was the
result. After I had finished and read it to Philip, it took strong hold
of his imagination alsoâand so he also began a poem on the same subject,
treating it differently, however, and employing the _complete_ details
of the story, instead of, as I have done, stopping short at the loverâs
death, and is still unfinished.
It is in great part owing to his generously enthusiastic praise that I
now send these for your inspection; but also because much of
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