WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP by ELIZABETH A. SHARP (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) 📖

what may be

 good in them is owing to your gratefully remembered personal influence

 and kindness, as well as your own beautiful work.”

 

His kindly critic answered:

 

  Jan., 1881.

 

  MY DEAR SHARP,

 

 I have only this evening read your poems, and am quite amazed at the

 vast gain in distinction and reality upon anything I had seen of yours

 before. I read “Motherhood” first and think it best on the whole. It is

 full of fine things and strange variety. “The Dead Bridegroom” is less

 equal, but some touches are extremely fine. The close after the crisis

 strikes me as done with a certain difficulty and wants some pointing. As

 a narrative poem, I do not yet think it quite distinct enough, though it

 always rises at the right moment. The execution of your work needs some

 reform in detail. The adjectives, especially when monosyllabic, are too

 crowded. There are continual assonances of _ings_, _ants_, _ows_, etc.,

 midway in the lines. However, the sonorousness is sometimes striking

 and the grip of the phrases complete at its best. I am sure you have

 benefited much by association with Philip Marston, though I do not mean

 to say that such things as these can have their mainspring elsewhere

 than in native gift.

 

 I will keep the poems a few days yet and then return them.

 

  Yours sincerely,

 

G. ROSSETTI.

 

A letter from the younger poet, written a few days later, reached me in

Rome:

 

  24: 1: 81.

 

 “Well, last Friday was a ‘red-letter’ day to me. I went to Rossetti’s at

 six, dined about 7.30, and stayed there all night. We had a jolly talk

 before dinner, and then Shields the painter came in and stayed till

 about 11 o’clock: after that Rossetti read me all his unpublished poems,

 some of which are magnificent—talked, etc.—and we did not go to bed till

 about three in the morning. I did not go to the Bank next day, as I did

 not feel well: however, I wrote hard at poetry, etc., all day till seven

 o’clock, managing to keep myself up with tea. I was quite taken aback

 by the extent of Rossetti’s praise. He said he did not say much in his

 letter because writing so often looks ‘gushing’ but he considered I was

 able to take a foremost place among the younger poets of the day—and

 that many signs in my writings pointed to a first-class poet—that the

 opening of ‘The Dead Bridegroom’ was worthy of Keats—that ‘Motherhood’

 was in every sense of the word a memorable poem—that I must have great

 productive power, and broad and fine imagination—and many other things

 which made me very glad and proud.”

 

“The Dead Bridegroom” was never published, but in a letter to a friend

who raised objections to the treatment of the poem “Motherhood”—he

wrote in explanation:

 

 “You seem to think my object in writing was to describe the actual

 initial act of Motherhood—whereas such acts were only used incidentally

 to the idea. I entirely agree with you in thinking such a _motif_ unfit

 for poetic treatment—and more, I think the choice of such would be in

 very bad taste and wanting in true delicacy. My aim was something very

 far from this—and what made me see you had not grasped it were the

 words—‘Besides, is not your type of civilised woman degraded by being

 associated with the savage and the wild beast?’

 

 “Of course, what I was endeavouring to work out was just the opposite

 of this. ‘Motherhood’ was written from a deep conviction of the beauty

 of the state of Motherhood itself, of the holy, strangely similar bond

 of union it gave to all created things, and how it, as it were, forged

 the links whereby the chain of life reached unbroken from the polyp

 depths we do see to the God whom we do not see. Looking at it as I did,

 I saw it transfigured to the Seal of Unity: I saw the bestial life touch

 the savage, and the latter’s low existence edge complete nobility of

 womanhood, as—in the spirit—I see this last again merge into fuller

 spiritual periods beyond the present sphere of human life. In embodying

 this idea I determined to take refuge in no vague transcendentalism,

 or from any false feeling shirk what I knew to be noble in its mystic

 wonder and significance: and I came to the conclusion that the

 philosophic idea could be best embodied and made apparent by moulding it

 into three typical instances of motherhood, representing the brute, the

 savage, and the civilised woman. From this point of view, I considered

 the making choice of the initial act of motherhood—of birth—entirely

 justifiable, and beyond reach of reproach of impurity, or even

 unfitness. As to the artistic working out of these typical _motives_, I

 gave to the first glow and colour, to the second mystery and weirdness,

 to the third what dignity and solemnity I could.

 

 “These were my aims and views, and I have not yet seen anything to make

 me change them....

 

 “So much for ‘Motherhood.’ As to ‘The Dead Bridegroom,’ I quite admit

 that the advisability of choosing such subjects is a very debatable

 one. It is the only one of mine (in my opinion) which could incur the

 charge of doubtful ‘fitness.’ As a poem, moreover, it is inferior in

 workmanship to ‘Motherhood.’”

 

  To E. A. S.:

 

  “4: 2: 81.

 

 “I have written one of my best poems (in its own way) since writing

 you last. It was on Tuesday night: I did not get back till about

 seven o’clock, and began at once to write. Your letter came an hour

 or so afterward but it had to lie waiting till after midnight, when I

 finished, having written and polished a complete poem of thirty verses

 in that short time. It is a ballad. The story itself is a very tragic

 one. Perhaps the kind of verse would be clear to you if I were to quote

 a verse as a specimen:

 

  “And I saw thy face wax flush’d, then pale,

  And thy lips grow blue like black-ice hail,

  With eyes on fire with the soul’s fierce bale,

            Son of Allan!

  “I may have been pale, and may be red—

  But this night shall one lie white and dead.

            (O Mother of God! whose eyes

  Watch men lie dead ’neath midnight skies.)”

 

 “Both story and verse I invented myself: and I think you will think it

 equal to anything I have done in power. It was a good lot to do at a

 sitting, wasn’t it? I will read it to you when you come home again....

 I enjoyed my stay with Rossetti immensely. We did not breakfast till

 one o’clock on Tuesday—pretty late, wasn’t it? (I told you I had a

 holiday, didn’t I?) He told me again that he considered ‘Motherhood’

 fit to take the foremost place in recent poetry. He has such a fine

 house, though much of it is shut up, and full of fine things: he showed

 me some of it that hardly any one ever sees. He has asked me to come

 to him again next Sunday. Isn’t it splendid?—and ar’n’t you glad for

 my sake? He told Philip that he thought I “had such a sweet genial

 happy nature.” Isn’t it nice to be told of that. My intense delight in

 little things seems also to be a great charm to him—whether in a stray

 line of verse, or some new author, or a cloudlet, or patch of blue sky,

 or chocolate-drops, etc., etc. Have you noticed this in me? I am half

 gratified and half amused to hear myself so delineated, as I did not

 know my nature was so palpable to comparative strangers. And now I am

 going to crown my horrid vanity by telling you that Mrs. Garnet met

 Philip a short time ago, and asked after the health of his friend, the

 “handsome young poet!” There now, amn’t I horridly conceited? (N. B.—I’m

 pleased all the same, you know!)

 

 “I wrote a little lyric yesterday which is one of the most musical I

 have ever done. To-day, I was ‘took’ by a writing mood in the midst

 of business hours, and despite all the distracting and unpoetical

 surroundings, managed to hastily jot down the accompanying lyric. It is

 the general end of young _unknowing_ love....

 

 “I had a splendid evening last night, and Rossetti read a lot more of

 his latest work. Splendid as his published work is, it is surpassed

 by what has yet to be published. The more I look into and hear his

 poems the more I am struck with the incomparable power and depth of

 his genius—his almost magical perfection and mastery of language—his

 magnificent spiritual strength and subtlety. He read some things last

 night, lines in which almost took my breath away. No sonnet-writer in

 the past has equalled him, and it is almost inconceivable to imagine any

 one doing so in the future. His influence is already deep and strong,

 but I believe in time to come he will be looked back to as we now

 look to Shakespeare, to Milton, and in one sense to Keats. I can find

 no language to express my admiration of his supreme gifts, and it is

 with an almost painful ecstasy that I receive from time to time fresh

 revelations of his intellectual, spiritual, and artistic splendour.

 I fancy one needs to be an actual poet to feel this to the full, but

 every one, however dim and stagnant or coldly intellectual his or her

 soul, must feel more or less the marvellous beauty of this wedding of

 the spirit of emotional thought and the spirit of language, and the

 child thereof—divine, perfect expression. Our language in Rossetti’s

 hands is more solemn than Spanish, more majestic than Latin, deeper

 than German, sweeter than Italian, more divine than Greek. I know of

 nothing comparable to it. He told me to call him Rossetti and not ‘Mr.

 Rossetti,’ as disparity in age disappears in close friendship, wasn’t it

 nice of him? It makes me both very proud and humble to be so liked and

 praised by the greatest master in England—proud to have so far satisfied

 his fastidious critical taste and to have excited such strong belief in

 my powers, and humble in that I fall so far short of him as to make the

 gulf seem impassable.”

 

In Italy I was making a careful study of the old masters in painting,

and found that my correspondent took but lukewarm interest in my

enthusiasm. Until that date he had had little opportunity of studying

Painting; and at no time did the _cinquecento_ and earlier painters

really attract him. I regretted his indifference, and asked him,

banteringly, if his dislike extended equally to the early masters of

the pen and to those of the brush.

 

He replied: “You ask me, if I dislike the Old Masters of Poetry as

much as I do those of Painting? and I reply Certainly not, but at the

same time the comparison is not fair. Most of the old poets are not

only poets of their time but have special beauties at the present

day, and can be read with as much or almost as much pleasure now as

centuries ago. Their imagination, their scope, their detail is endless.

On the other hand the Old Masters of Painting are (to me, of course,

and speaking generally) utterly uninteresting in their subjects, in

the way they treat them, and in the meaning that is conveyed. If it

were not for the richness and beauty of their colour I would never

go into another gallery _from pleasure_, but colour alone could not

always satisfy me. But take the ‘Old Masters’ of Poetry! Homer of

Greece, Virgil and Dante of Italy, Theocritus of Sicily, and in England

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Webster, Ford, Massinger, Marlowe,

Milton!

 

“The poetry of these men is beautiful in itself apart from the relation

they bear to their times. We may not care for Dryden (though I do)

or Prior or Cowley, because in the verse of these latter there is

nothing to withstand the ages, nothing that rises above their times.

In looking at Rubens, or Leonardo da Vinci, or Fra Angelico, we must

school ourselves to admiration by saying ‘How wonderful for their time,

what a near attempt at a perspective, what a near success in drawing

nature—external and human!’ Would you, or any one, care for a painting

of Angelico’s if executed in exactly the same style and in equally soft

and harmonious colours at the present day? Could you enjoy and enter

into it apart from its relation to such-and-such a period of early

Christian Art? It may be possible, but I doubt it. On the other hand

take up the Old Masters of Poetry and judge them by the present high

standard. Take up Homer—who has his width and space? Dante—who has his

fiery repressed intensity? Theocritus, who has sung sweeter