LISMORE
Taormina
Our summer was spent on Arran, Colinsay, and on “the Green Isle” of Lismore in the sea-mouth of Loch Linnhe within sight of the blue hills of Morven. We had rooms in the Ferryman’s cottage at the north point of the isle, where the tide race was so strong at the ebb in stormy weather that at times it was impossible to row across to the Appin shore, even to fetch a telegram whose advent was signalled to us by a little flag from the post office—a quicker way of getting it than by the long road from the Lismore post office. We spent much of our time on the water in a little rowing boat. A favourite haunt was a little Isle of Seals, in the loch, where we one day found a baby seagull, fat and fully fledged, but a prisoner by reason of a long piece of grass that had tightly wound round and atrophied one of its feet. Sometimes our friend the ferryman would come too. At first he refused to talk if I was there, because I could not speak Gaelic, and he thought I was English. But at last when I had reassured him that I too was a Scot, when he admitted that though I had not a Highland tongue I had Highland eyes just like his mother’s—his shyness wore away. And one day when we were out on the loch at sundown, and an exquisite rosy flush lay over hill and water, he stopped rowing and leant over his oars, silent for a time, and at last murmured in his slow Highland English “’Tis—the—smile—of God—upon—the—waters.”
At Lismore F. M. wrote, to quote the author’s own words, “‘The Four Winds of Eiré’ (long); ‘The Magic Kingdoms’ (longer and profounder, one of the best things F. M. has ever written); ‘Sea-Magic’ (a narrative and strange Sea-Lore); ‘The Lynn of Dreams’ (a spiritual study); and ‘Seumas’ (a memory).”
During the summer and autumn he had, as F. M., also written a long study on the work of W. B. Yeats for The North American Review; had arranged the first volume of a selection of tales for the Tauchnitz series, entitled Wind and Wave; and had prepared a revised and augmented edition of The Silence of Amor for publication in America by Mr. Mosher. W. S. meanwhile had not been idle. After editing a volume of the Poems by our friend, Eugene Lee-Hamilton, with a long Introduction for The Canterbury Poets, he was at work on a series of articles which were intended for a projected book to be called Literary Geography; and of these there appeared in Harper’s “Walter Scott’s Land,” “R. L. Stevenson’s Country”; and a poem, “Capt’n Goldsack.”
Unfortunately, his increasing delicacy not only disabled him from the continuous heavy strain of work he was under, but our imperative absence from England necessitated also the relinquishing of my journalistic work. The stress of circumstances weighed heavily on him, as he no longer had the energy and buoyancy with which to make way against it. At this juncture, however, one or two friends, who realised the seriousness of conditions petitioned that he should be put on the Civil Pension List. The Hon. Alex. Nelson Hood and Mr. Alfred Austin were the chief movers in the matter, and were backed by Mr. George Meredith, Mr. Thomas Hardy and Mr. Watts Dunton. Realising however, that the writings of William Sharp, considered alone, would not constitute a sufficient claim, Mr. Hood urged William to allow him to acquaint the Prime Minister with the authorship of the Fiona Macleod writings, and of the many sacrifices their production had entailed. My husband consented providing that Mr. Balfour were told “confidentially and verbally.” However, it proved necessary that “a statement of entire claims to consideration should be laid upon the table of the House of Commons for the inspection of members.” In writing to acquaint my husband of this regulation, Mr. Hood added:
“I do not presume to say one word to influence you in the decision you may come to. In such a matter it is for you to decide. If you will sacrifice your unwillingness to appear before the world in all the esteem and admiration which are your due, then, (I may say this) perhaps you will obtain freedom—or some freedom—from anxiety and worry that will permit you to continue your work unhampered and with a quiet mind. But advice I cannot give. I cannot recommend any one to abandon a high ideal, and your wish to remain unknown is certainly that....”
To this W. S. replied:
Edinburgh,
21st Aug., 1902.
My dear Alec,
You will have anticipated my decision. No other was possible for me. I have not made many sacrifices just to set them aside when a temptation of need occurs. Indeed, even writing thus of ‘sacrifices’ seems to me unworthy: these things are nothing, and have brought me far more than I lost, if not in outward fortune. It is right, though, to say that the decision is due to no form of mental obstinacy or arrogance. Rightly or wrongly, I am conscious of something to be done—to be done by one side of me, by one half of me, by the true inward self as I believe—(apart from the overwhelmingly felt mystery of a dual self, and a reminiscent life, and a woman’s life and nature within, concurring with and oftenest dominating the other)—and rightly or wrongly I believe that this, and the style so strangely born of this inward life, depend upon my aloofness and spiritual isolation as F. M. To betray publicly the private life and constrained ideal of that inward self, for a reward’s sake, would be a poor collapse. And if I feel all this, as I felt it from the first (and the nominal beginning was no literary adventure, but a deep spiritual impulse and compelling circumstances of a nature upon which I must be silent) how much more must I feel it now, when an added and great responsibility to others has come to me, through the winning of so already large and deepening a circle of those of like ideals or at least like sympathies in our own country, and in America—and I allude as much or more to those who while caring for the outer raiment think of and need most the spirit within that raiment, which I hope will grow fairer and simpler and finer still, if such is the will of the controlling divine wills that, above the maze, watch us in our troubled wilderness.
That is why I said that I could not adopt the suggestion, despite promise of the desired pension, even were that tenfold, or any sum. As to ‘name and fame,’ well, that is not my business. I am glad and content to be a ‘messenger,’ an interpreter it may be. Probably a wide repute would be bad for the work I have to do. Friends I want to gain, to win more and more, and, in reason, “to do well”: but this is always secondary to the deep compelling motive. In a word, and quite simply, I believe that a spirit has breathed to me, or entered me, or that my soul remembers or has awaked (the phraseology matters little)—and, that being so, that my concern is not to think of myself or my ‘name’ or ‘reward,’ but to do (with what renunciation, financial and other, may be necessary) my truest and best.
And then, believing this, I have faith you see in the inward destiny. I smiled when I put down your long, affectionate, and good letter. But it was not a smile of bitterness: it was of serene acceptance and confidence. And the words that came to my mind were those in the last chorus of Oedipus at Kolônos,
“Be no more troubled, and no longer lament, for all these things will be accomplished.”
Then, too, there’s the finitude of all things. Why should one bother deeply when time is so brief. Even the gods passed, you know, or changed from form to form. I used to remember Renan’s ‘Prayer on the Acropolis’ by heart, and I recall those words “Tout n’est ici-bas que symbole et que songe. Les dieux passent comme les hommes et il ne serait pas bon qu’ils fussent eternels.” ...
Elizabeth, who is on a visit to Fife, will, I know, whole-heartedly endorse my decision.
Again all my gratitude and affection, dear Alec,
Your friend,
Will.
Early in September Mr. Hood sent the welcome information to my husband that the Prime Minister had decided “on the strength of the assurance that Mr. Sharp is F. M.” to make him a grant that would meet his pressing needs and enable him to go abroad for the winter.
A few days before this message reached W. S. he had written to his friend.
23d Aug.
Dear Julian,
A little line to greet you on your arrival in Venice, and to wish you there a time of happy rest and inspiration. May the spirit of the Sea-Queen whisper to you in romance and beauty.
How I wish I could look in on you at the Casa Persico! I love Venice as you do. I hope you will not find great changes, or too many visitors: and beware of the September heats, and above all the September mosquito!
“Julian” ought to have a great lift, and not the least pleasure in looking forward to seeing you again early in October is that of hearing some more of your book of Venice and of the other Julian.
[“Julian” is the name of the hero of a book, Adria, on which Mr. Hood was then at work.]
If all goes well—and I have been working so hard, and done so much, that things ought to go smoothly with me again—then we hope to leave London for Sicily about the 21st Oct., and to reach Taormina about the 26th of that month.
I need not say how glad I am that you knew I could not decide otherwise than I did: and I am more than ever glad and proud of a friendship so deeply sympathetic and intuitively understanding.
Ever affectionately yours, dear Friend,
Will.
P. S. By the way, you will be glad to know that Baron Tauchnitz is also going to bring out in 2 vols. a selection of representative tales by Fiona Macleod. The book called The Magic Kingdoms has been postponed till next year, but the first part of it will appear in The Monthly Review in December probably. Stories, articles, studies, will appear elsewhere.
Your friend W. S. has been and is not less busy, besides maturing work long in hand. So at least I can’t be accused of needless indolence.
To his great relief October-end found us at Taormina once again; and on Allhallow-e’en he wrote to Mrs. Janvier:
Oct. 30th.
... We reached Messina all right, and Giardini, the Station for Taormina, in fair time; then the lovely winding drive up to unique and beautiful and wildly picturesque Taormina and to the lovely winter villa and grounds of Santa Caterina where a warm welcome met us from Miss Mabel Hill, with whom we are to stay till the New Year.... I have for study a pleasant room on the garden terrace, at the Moorish end of the old convent-villa with opposite the always open door windows or great arch trellised with a lovely ‘Japanesy’ vine, looking down through a sea of roses and lemon and orange to the deep blue Ionian Sea. The divine beauty, glow, warmth, fragrance, and classic loveliness of this place would delight you.... Overhead there is a wilderness of deep blue, instinct with radiant heat and an almost passionate clarity. Forza, Mola, Roccafiorita, and other little mountain towns gleam in it like sunlit ivory. Over Forza (or Sforza rather) the storm-cloud of the Greco, with a rainbow hanging like a scimitar over the old, pagan, tragic, savagely picturesque mountain-ridge town. The bells of the hill-chapels rise and fall on the wind, for it is the beginning of All Souls festa. It is the day when ‘things’ are abroad and the secret ways are more easily to be traversed.
Beneath my Moorish arch I look down through clustering yellow roses and orange and lemon to green-blue water, and thence across the wild-dove’s breast of the Ionian Sea. Far to the S. E. and S., over where Corinth and Athens lie, are great still clouds, salmon-hued on the horizon with pink domes and summits. An intense stillness and the phantasmagoria of a forgotten dreamland dwell upon the long western promontories of the Syracusan coast, with the cloud-like Hyblæan hill like a violet, and a light as of melting honey where Leontinoi and Siracusa lie....
Nov. 8: This is a week later. I have accidentally destroyed or mislaid a sheet of this letter. Nothing of importance—only an account of the nocturnal festa of All Souls, with the glittering lights and the people watching by the graves, and leaving lights and flowers on each, the one to show the wandering souls the way back to the grave, the other to disguise the odour of mortality and illude them with the old beauty of the lost world—and the offerings of handfuls of beans, to give them sustenance on this their one mortal hour in the year. We three came here yesterday (Elizabeth, Miss Hill and I) and enjoyed the marvellous mountain-climbing journey from the sea-level of Giarre (near Catania) up to beautiful Linguaglossa, and Castiglione 2000 ft. high and so on to Randazzo and Maletto (3000 ft.) where we got out, and drove thro’ the wild lava-lands of this savage and brigand haunted region to Castello di Maniace where il Signor Ducino Alessandro gave us cordial and affectionate welcome.
Sunday 9th. The weather is doubtful, but if it keeps fine we are going to drive down the gorges of the Simalthos (the Simeto of today) and then up by the crags and wild town of Bronte, and back by the old Ætnean hillroad of the ancient Greeks, or by the still more ancient Sikelian tombs at a high pass curiously enough known not by its ancient fame but as the Pass of the Gipsies. As the country is in a somewhat troubled and restive state just now, especially over Bronte, all pre-arrangements have been made to ensure safety....
I hope you have received the Tauchnitz volume of “Wind and Wave.” The text of Selected Tales has been revised where advisable, sometimes considerably. The gain is very marked I think, especially in simplicity. I hope you will like the preface. The long collective-article in the Contemporary for October “Sea-Magic and Running Water” I have already written to you about. One can never tell beforehand, but in all probability the following F. M. articles will appear in December (if not January) issues, viz.:
In The Monthly Review—The Magic Kingdoms.
In The Contemporary—The Lynn of Dreams.
In The Fortnightly—The Four Winds of Eirinn.
As soon as I can possibly work free out of my terribly time-eating correspondence, and am further ahead with my necessary and commissioned pot-boiling articles etc. I want to put together two F. M. volumes, one a vol. of Gaelic essays and Spiritual studies to be called For The Beauty of an Idea and the other a volume of Verse to be called probably “The Immortal Hour and Poems” or else “The Enchanted Valleys.” But I have first a great deal to get off as W. S. and F. M.
What is dear old Tom doing now? Give him my love, and affectionate hug, bless the old reprobate! I was delighted to meet an American admirer (and two hanger-on American admiresses) of his in Florence, who spoke of his work with much admiration as well as personal delight. So I warmed to them mightily in consequence, and had the pleasure of introducing the latest production—the delightful “Consolate Giantess.”
What a letter in length this is! too long for even you, I fear.”
The following letter from Mr. Robert Hichens, another devoted lover of Sicily, reached William Sharp at Maniace:
Dover,
Nov. 4, 1902.
My dear Will,
... The cold is setting in and today there is a fierce east wind. I scarcely dare think of what you are enjoying. I had hoped to join you at the end of this month, but the fates are unkind. When I do get away I may first have to go to the Desert as I am meditating some work there. Then I hope to make my way there to Sicily but only late in Spring. Will you still be there? There is magic in its air—or else beauty acts on the body as powerfully as on the soul, and purifies the blood as well as the soul....
Every sentence I write wrings my heart. I ought not to write about Sicily. Felix was begun in that delightful room at Maniace—with Webster, thoughtfully posed by Alec—on a side table within easy reach.
Thank you again for your kind inspiring letter. I value praise from you.
Yours cordially,
Robert Hichens.
Miss Hill and I returned to Sta. Caterina and left my husband at Maniace, whence a few days later he wrote to me:
Castello di Maniace,
15th Nov., 1902.
How you would have enjoyed today!... one of the most beautiful of its kind I’ve ever had. It was quite dark when we rose shortly before six, but lovely dawn by 6.15, and after a gigantic breakfast we all set off all armed with rifles and revolvers. We drove up to the cutting to the left, 1/4 of a mile below Otaheite, and there diverged and went up the wild road of the Zambuco Pass, and for another five miles of ascent. Then we were met by the forest guard and Meli with great jennets (huge hill-mules as big as horses) and rode over the Serraspina (6,000 feet). To my great pleasure it was decided we could risk the further ascent of the great central Watershed of Sicily, the Serra del Rè (8,000 ft.) and I shall never forget it. All the way from about 4,000 ft. the air was extraordinarily light and intoxicating—and the views of Central Sicily magnificent beyond words. When we had ridden to about 7,500 feet thro’ wild mountain gorges, up vast slopes, across great plateaux, and at last into the beginning of the vast dense primeval beech-forests (all an indescribable glory of colour) we dismounted and did the remaining half hour on foot. Then at last we were on the summit of the great central watershed. Thence everything to the south flows to the Ionian Sea, everything to the north to the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean.
And oh the views and the extraordinary clarity! Even with the naked eye I saw all the inland mountains and valleys and lost forgotten towns, Troina on its two hills, Castrogiovanni and Alcara, etc. etc. And with the powerful binoculars I could see all the houses, and trace the streets and ruined temples etc. in Castrogiovanni on its extraordinary raised altar-like mountain plateau. Then, below us, lay all the northern shores of Sicily from Capo Cefalù to Milazzo on its beautiful great bay, and Capo Milazzo, and the Lipari Islands (so close with the glass I could see the few houses on their wild precipitous shores), from ‘Volcano,’ the original home of Vulcan, and Lipari itself to Stromboli, and white ships sailing. Enna (Castrogiovanni) immensely imposing and unforgettable. And, behind us, Etna vaster, sheerer, more majestic, more terrible, than I had ever dreamed of it.
Then we lunched, amid that extraordinary and vast panorama—seeing 2,000 feet below us the “almost inaccessible” famous Lake of Balzano, with its Demeter and Persephone associations (itself about 6,000 feet among the mountains!) All enjoyed it unspeakably, except poor old Meli, very nervous about brigands—poor old chap, a ransom of 800 francs had to be paid to the capitano of the brigand-lot to free his nephew, who is now ill after his confinement for many days in a hole under the lava, where he was half suffocated, and would have soon died from cold and damp and malaria.
On the way down (in the forest, at about 6,000 feet) Alec suddenly without a word dashed aside, and sprang through the sloping undergrowth, and the next moment I saw him holding his revolver at the head of a man crouching behind a mass of bramble, etc. But the latter had first managed to hide or throw away his gun, and swore he hadn’t got one, and meant no harm, and that the ugly weapon he carried (a light, long axe of a kind) was to defend himself from the wolves! His companion had successfully escaped. The man slunk away, to be arrested later by the Carabinieri.
On his return to Taormina W. S. wrote to the Author of Adria, who had gone to Venice for “local colour”:
Taormina,
19th Nov., 1902.
Caro Fra Giuliano,
To my surprise I hear from our common friend, Mr. Aurelio Da Rù, the painter of Venice, that you are at present staying at San-Francisco-in-Deserto. This seems to me a damp and cold place to choose for November, but possibly you are not to be there long: indeed, Da Rù hints at an entanglement with a lady named “Adria.” Perhaps I am indiscreet in this allusion. If so, pray forgive me. The coincidence struck me as strange, for only the other day I heard our friend Alec Hood speaking of an Adria, of whom, to say the least of it, he seemed to think very highly. By the way, I wouldn’t tell him (A. H.) too much of your affairs or doings—or he may put them in a book. (He’s a “literary feller” you know!)
I have just been staying with him—and I wish when you see him you would tell him what a happy time I had at Maniace, and how pleasantly I remember all our walks and talks and times together, and how the true affection of a deepened friendship is only the more and more enhanced and confirmed.
It is a lovely day, and very warm and delightful. Sitting by the open French-window of my study, with a bunch of narcissus on my table, there is all the illusion of Spring. I have just gone into an adjoining Enchanted Garden I often frequent, and gathered there some sprays of the Balm of Peace, the azure blossoms of Hope, and the white roses of Serenity and Happiness and sending them, by one of the wild-doves of loving thought and sympathy and affection, to Alec at Maniace.
Ever, dear Fra Giuliano, with love to Da Rù, the Graziani, the Manins, and above all to Alec,
Yours,
Will.
And again two days later:
Shar Shan, Bor!
Which, being interpreted, is Romany (Gypsy) for “How d’ye do, Mate!”—I fear you are having a bad day for your return to Maniace. Here, at any rate, ‘tis evil weather. Last night the wind rose (after ominous signals of furtive lightnings in every quarter) to the extent of tempest: and between two and three a.m. became a hurricane. This lasted at intervals till dawn, and indeed since: and at times I thought a cyclone had seized Taormina and was intent on removing ‘Santa Caterina’ on to the top of Isola Bella. Naturally, sleep was broken. And in one long spell, when wind and a coarse rain (with a noise like sheep that has become sleet) kept wakefulness in suspense, my thoughts turned to Venice, to Giuliano in the lonely rain-beat wave-washed sanctuary of San-Francisco-in-Deserto; to Daniele Manin, with his dreams of the Venice that was and his hopes of the Venice to be; and to Adria, stilled at last in her grave in the lagunes after all her passionate life and heroic endeavour. And then I thought of the Venice they, and you, and I, love:—and recalled lines of Jacopo Sannazaro which I often repeat to myself when I think of the Sea-City as an abstraction—
“O d’Italia dolente
Eterno lumine
Venezia!”
And that’s all I have to say to-day!... except to add that this very moment there has come into my mind the remembrance of some words of Montesquieu I read last year (in the Lettres Persanes), to the effect (in English) that “altho’ one had seen all the cities of the world, there might still be a surprise in store for him in Venice,”—which would be a good motto for your book.
Your friend,
Will.
The few entries in William Sharp’s Diary for 1903 begin with New Year’s Day:
Taormina.
Thursday, 1st Jan., 1903. Yesterday afternoon I ended literary work for the year, at p. 62 on my MS. of “The King’s Ring” with the sentence: “Flora Macdonald saw clearly that the hearts of these exiles and New Englanders would follow a shepherd more potent than any kind, the shepherd called Freedom, who forever keeps his flocks of hopes and ideals on the hills of the human heart.” To-day, this afternoon, wrote till end of p. 70. In the evening we dined with Robert Hichens at the Hotel Timeo.
Sat. 3rd. Finished “The King’s Ring.” Revised: and sent off to Mary to type. We lunched at the Timeo. After lunch we spent an hour or more in the Greek Theatre with Hichens. Then we walked to Miss Valerie White’s villa and had tea with her. In evening ‘turned in’ about 9 and read Bourget’s Calabria Ricordi, and Lenormant on Crotone and Pythagorus.”
Saturday, 9th Jan.
To the Editor of The Pall Mall Magazine:
Dear Sir,
I have written a story somewhat distinct in kind from the work associated with my name, and think it is one that should appeal to a far larger public than most of my writings do: for it deals in a new way with a subject of unpassing interest, the personality of Flora Macdonald. “The King’s Ring,” however, is not concerned with the hackneyed Prince Charlie episode. It is, in a word, so far as I know, the only narrative presentment of the remarkable but almost unknown late-life experiences of Flora Macdonald: for few know that, long after her marriage, she went with her husband and some of her family and settled in South Carolina, just before the outbreak of the War of Independence: how her husband was captured and imprisoned: how two of her sons in the Navy were lost tragically at sea: and how she herself with one daughter with difficulty evaded interference, and set sail from a southern port for Scotland again, and on that voyage was wounded in an encounter with a French frigate. True, all these things are only indicated in “The King’s Ring,” for fundamentally the story is a love-story, that of Flora M.’s beautiful eldest daughter Anne and Major Macleod, with the tragical rivalry of Alasdair Stuart, bearer of the King’s Ring.
Practically the facts of the story are authentic: save the central episode of Alasdair Stuart, which is of my own invention. I think the story would appeal to many not only in Scotland and England but in America.
Yours very truly,
Fiona Macleod.
The story was accepted and the first instalment was printed in the Pall Mall Magazine in May, 1904; but after its appearance the author did not care sufficiently for it to republish it in book form.
The Diary continues:
Sunday 4th. Began article on “Thro’ Nelson’s Duchy” commissioned for The Pall Mall Magazine. Received The Monthly Review for Jany. with the Fiona Macleod article, “The Magic Kingdoms”: the Mercure de France for January: and proofs from the Pall Mall Magazine of my articles on Scott and George Eliot. Among several letters one from Mrs. Gilchrist, who says (apropos of F. M.’s “By Sundown Shores”) “she always can send one back to the distance which is all the future.”
Later, after a walk alone I looked in at Villa Bella Rocca and had a pleasant chat with M. et Mme. Grandmont about Anatole France, Loti, and treatment of sea in “Pecheur d’Islande,” Bourget’s and Lenormant’s “Calabria,” etc. Wrote after dinner from 9 till 11; and read some Bacchylides, etc. At 11.15 suddenly some five or six cocks began to crow vehemently: and about five minutes later abruptly stopped.
Monday 5th. A day of perfect beauty. Divinely warm. In morning sat out on Loggia two hours or so working at revision. After lunch Hichens came for me and we walked down to Capo San Andrea and thence took a boat with two men (Francesco and his brother) across to Capo Schiso (Naxos) and thence walked some five or six miles back. Tea at H’s. A divinely lovely sunset.
Tuesday 6th. As beautiful a day as yesterday. More could be said of no day. Worked at “Thro’ Nelson’s Duchy” material, and wrote a letter. A walk after lunch. Then again a little work. Had a charming letter from Joachim Gasquet, and to F. M. one from Stephen Gwynn (with his “Today and Tomorrow in Ireland”)—and an Academy with pleasant para. about F. M. saying just what I would want said (with an allusion to a special study of F. M. in the Harvard Monthly, by the Editor).
This afternoon, the Festa of the Epiphany, more great doings with the delayed Xmas tree treat of the School-children of Taormina. Much enjoyed it.
Thursday 8th. Finished the P. M. Mag. commissioned article “Thro’ Nelson’s Duchy”—about 5,000 words—then revised: marked with directions the 8 fine Photos selected by A. N. H. (Alex. Nelson Hood) and sent off to be registered....
After dinner wrote one or two letters including longish one of literary advice to Karl Walter. Read some Æschylus’ “Eumenides.”
WILLIAM SHARP
From a photograph taken by the Hon. Alex. Nelson Hood, 1903
This is the letter in question:
Taormina,
Jan., 1903.
My dear Walter,
... In some respects your rendering of your sonnet is towards improvement. But it has one immediate and therefore fatal flaw. Since the days of Sophocles it has been recognized as a cardinal and imperative law, that a great emotion (or incident, or idea, or collective act) must not be linked to an effective image, an incongruous metaphor. Perhaps the first and last word about passion (in a certain sense only, of course, for to immortal things there is no mortal narrowing or limiting in expression) has been said more than two thousand years ago by Sappho and to-day by George Meredith. “The apple on the topmost bough” ... all that lovely fragment of delicate imperishable beauty remains unique. And I know nothing nobler than Meredith’s “Passion is noble strength on fire.” ... But turn to a poet you probably know well, and study the imagery in some of the Passion-sonnets in “The House of Life” of Rossetti—of Passion
... “creature of poignant thirst
And exquisite hunger” ...
—the splendid sexual diapason in the sestet of the sonnet celled “The Kiss”—or, again, to “the flame-winged harp-player.”
... “thou art Passion of Love,
The mastering music walks the sunlit sea.”
Perhaps I have said enough to illustrate my indication as to the opening metaphor in your sonnet. Apart from the incongruity of the image, it has no logical congruity with the collateral idea of Fear. The sonnet itself turns on a fine emotion in your mind: let that emotion shape a worthy raiment of metaphor and haunting cadence of music, not as the metricist desires but as the poet au fond compels. Yes, both in sonnet-writing and in your terza-rima narrative (cultivate elision here, also fluent terminals, or you will find the English prosody jib at the foreign reins) you will find G. useful. But the secret law of rhythm in a moving or falling wave, in the cadence of wind, in the suspiration of a distant song, in running water, in the murmur of leaves, in chord confluent upon chord, will teach you more—if you will listen long enough and know what you listen to.
I hope I have not discouraged you. I mean the reverse of that.
Your friend,
William Sharp.
I add here a letter of criticism and encouragement sent by F. M. to another young writer, in the previous summer, to the nephew of William Black the novelist:
London, June, 1902.
My dear Mr. Black,
As soon as possible after my return from Brittany I read your MS. It is full of the true sentiment, and has often charm in the expression: but I think you would do well to aim at a style simpler still, freer from mannerisms, and above all from mannerisms identified with the work of other writers. As I am speaking critically, let me say frankly that I have found your beautiful tale too reminiscent ever and again of an accent, a note, a vernacular (too reminiscent even in names), common to much that I have written. You are sympathetic enough to care for much of my work, and loyal enough to say so with generous appreciation: but just because of this you should be on guard against anything in my style savouring of affectation or mannerism. You may be sure that whatever hold my writings may have taken on the imagination of what is at most a small clan has been in despite of and not because of mannerisms, which sometimes make for atmosphere and versimilitude and sometimes are merely obvious, and therefore make for weakness and even disillusion. Be on guard, therefore, against a sympathy which would lead you to express yourself in any other way than you yourself feel and in other terms than the terms of our own mind. Mannerism is often the colour and contour of a writer’s mind: but the raiment never fits even the original wearer, and is disastrous for the borrower, when the mental habit of mannerism is translated into the mental incertitude of mannerisms. You have so natural a faculty and so eager a desire, that I have no hesitation in urging you to devote your best thought and time and effort to a worthy achievement.
But no work of the imagination has any value if it be not shaped and coloured from within. Every imaginative writer must take his offspring to the Fountain of Youth, and the only way is through the shadowy and silent avenues of one’s own heart. My advice to you, then, is, not to refrain from steeping your thought and imagination in what is near to your heart and dream, but to see that your vision is always your own vision, that your utterance is always your own utterance, and to be content with no beauty and no charm that are dependent on another’s vision of beauty and another’s secret of charm.
Meanwhile, I can advise you no more surely than to say, write as simply, almost as baldly, above all as naturally as possible. Sincerity, which is the last triumph of art, is also its foster-mother. You will do well, I feel sure: and among your readers you will have none more interested than
Yours Sincerely,
Fiona Macleod.
To another friend he wrote in answer to a question on ‘style’:
“Rhythmic balance, fluidity, natural motion, spontaneity, controlled impetus, proportion, height and depth, shape and contour, colour and atmosphere, all these go to every living sentence—but there, why should I weary you with uncertain words when you can have a certainty of instance almost any time where you are: you have hut to look at a wave to find your exemplar for the ideal sentence. All I have spoken of is there—and it is alive—and part of one flawless whole.”
From W. S. to Mrs. Janvier.
Taormina,
18th Feb., 1903.
... In fact, letters are now my worst evil to contend against—for, with this foreign life in a place like this, with so many people I know, it is almost impossible to get anything like adequate time for essential work—and still less for the imaginative leisure I need, and dreaming out my work—to say nothing of reading, etc. As you know, too, I have continually to put into each day the life of two persons—each with his or her own interests, preoccupations, work, thoughts, and correspondence. I have really, in a word, quite apart from my own temperament, to live at exactly double the rate in each day of the most active and preoccupied persons. No wonder, then, that I find the continuous correspondence of ‘two persons’ not only a growing weariness, but a terrible strain and indeed perilous handicap on time and energy for work....
A little later William Sharp started for a fortnight’s trip to Greece by way of Calabria—Reggio, Crotona, Taranto, Brindisi to Corfù and Athens, with a view of gathering impressions for the working out of his projected book (by W. S.) to be called Greek Backgrounds.
En route he wrote to me:
23d Jan., 1903.
“Where of all unlikely places do you think this is written from? Neither Corfù nor Samothrace nor Ithaka nor Zante, nor any Greek isle betwixt this and the Peloponnesus, but in Turkey!... i.e., in Turkish Albania, surrounded by turbaned Turks, fezzed Albanians, and picturesque kilted Epeirotes, amid some of the loveliest scenery in the world.
You will have had my several cards en route and last from Târantô. The first of a series of four extraordinary pieces of almost uncanny good fortune befell me en route,—but it would take too long now to write in detail. Meanwhile I may say I met the first of three people to whom I already owe much—and who helped me thro’ every bother at Brindisi. (He is a foreign Consul in Greece.)
(By the way, the engine from Târantô to Brindisi was called the Agamemnon and the steamer to Greece the Poseidon—significant names, eh?)
I had a delightful night’s rest in my comfortable cabin, and woke at dawn to find the Poseidon close to the Albanian shore, and under the superb snow-crowned Acrokerannian Mountains. The scenery superb—with Samothrace, and the Isle of Ulysses, etc., etc., seaward, and the beautiful mountainous shores of Corfù (here called Kepkuga, Kêrkyra) on the S.W. and S. There was a special Consul-Deputation on board, to land two, and also to take off a number of Turks, Albanians, and Epeirotes for Constantinople. We put in after breakfast at Eavri Kagavri—a Greco-Albanian township of Turkey. The scattered oriental ‘town’ of the Forty Saints crowns a long ridge at a considerable height—the harbour-town is a cluster of Turkish houses beside an extraordinary absolutely deserted set of gaunt ruins. Hundreds of Albanians and Epeirotes, Moslem priests and two Greek papas (or popes) were on the shore-roads, with several caravans each of from 20 to 50 mules and horses. Costumes extraordinarily picturesque, especially the white-kilted or skirted Albanian mountaineers, and the Larissa Turks. We were 3 hours—and I the only ‘privileged’ person to get thro’ with the consul. We took many aboard—a wonderful crew, from a wonderful place, the fairyland of my Greek resident from Paris—who is on his way to spend a month with his mother in Athens, and has asked me to visit him at his house there....
Well, the Poseidon swung slowly out of the bay,—a lovely, exciting, strange, unforgettable morning—and down the lovely Albanian coast—now less wild, and wooded and craggy, something like the West Highlands at Loch Fyne, etc., but higher and wilder. When off a place on the Turkish Albanian coast called Pothlakov (Rothroukon) the shaft of the screw suddenly broke! The engineer told the captain it would be five hours at least before it could be mended—adding, a little later, that the harm could probably not be rectified here, and that we should have to ride at sea till a relief boat came from Corfù or Greece to take off the passengers, etc.
As no one has a Turkish passport, no one can get ashore except lucky me, with my influential friend, in a Turkish steam-pinnacle! (It is so beautiful, so warm, and so comfortable on the Poseidon, that, in a sense, I’m indifferent—and would rather not be relieved in a hurry.)
(Later.) Late afternoon on board—still no sign of getting off. No Corfù to-day, now, though about only an hour’s sail from here! Perhaps tonight—or a relief steamer may come. I’ll leave this now, as I want to see all I can in the sundown light. It is all marvellously strange and lovely. What a heavenly break-down! What luck!
Just had a talk with another passenger stamping with impatience. I didn’t soothe him by remarking I hoped we should adrift ashore and be taken prisoners by the Turks. He says he wants to get on. Absurd. “There’s more beauty here than one can take-in for days to come,” I said—“Damn it, sir, what have I got to do with beauty,”—he asked indignantly. “Not much, certainly,” I answered drily, looking him over. An Italian maestro is on board on his way to Athens—now playing delightfully in the salon. A Greek guitarist is going to play and sing at moonrise. No hills in the world more beautiful in shape and hue and endless contours—with gorgeous colours. Albania is lost Eden, I think. Just heard that a steamer is to come for us in a few hours, or less, from Corfù, and tow us into Kêrkyra (the town)—and that another Austro-Lloyd from Trieste or Brindisi will take us on to-morrow sometime from Corfù to Athens.... The only perfectly happy person on board.
Yours,
Will.
Athens, 29th Jan.
... This lovely place is wonderful. How I wish you were here to enjoy it too. I take you with me mentally wherever I go. It is a marvellous home-coming feeling I have here. And I know a strange stirring, a kind of spiritual rebirth.
Athens, Feb. 1st.
... Yesterday, a wonderful day at Eleusis. Towards sundown drove through the lovely hill-valley of Daphne, with its beautifully situated isolated ruin of the Temple of Aphrodîtê, a little to the north of the Sacred Way of the Dionysiac and other Processions from Aonai (Athenai) to the Great Fane of Eleusis. I have never anywhere seen such a marvellous splendour of living light as the sundown light, especially at the Temple of Aphrodîtê and later as we approached Athens and saw it lying between Lycabettos and the Acropolis, with Hymettos to the left and the sea to the far right and snowy Pentelicos behind. The most radiant wonder of light I have ever seen.
On his return to Taormina he received the following letter from Mr. Hichens:
St. Stephens,
Canterbury.
My dear Sharp,
... Lately I recommended a very clever man, half Spanish and half German, to read the work of Fiona Macleod. I wondered how it would strike one who had never been in our Northern regions, and he has just written to me, and says: “I am reading with intense delight Fiona Macleod’s books and thank you very much for telling me to get them. I ordered them all from London and cannot tell you how I admire the thoughts, the style, “toute la couleur locale.” They are books I shall keep by me and take about with me wherever I go.” I suppose he feels they are fine, as I feel Tourgeney’s studies of Russian character are fine, although I have never lived among Russians. I shall take Anna Karénina to Italy with me and read it once more. At Marseilles I saw the “Resurrection” acted. It was very interesting and touching, though not really a very good play. It was too episodical. In London it is an immense success.
Well, I hope you will really come to winter in Africa. You can stay at either the Oasis or the Royal and I think we should be very happy. We must often go out on donkey-back into the dunes and spend our day there far out in the desert. I know no physical pleasure,—apart from all the accompanying mental pleasure,—to be compared with that which comes from the sun and air of the Sahara and the enormous spaces. This year I was more enchanted than ever before. Even exquisite Taormina is hum-drum in comparison. I expect to go to Italy very early in May, and back to Africa quite at the beginning of November. Do try to come then as November is a magnificent month. Don’t reply. You are too busy. I often miss the walks, and your company, which wakes up my mind and puts the bellows to my spark of imagination.
Ever yours,
Robert Hichens.
I can’t help being rather sorry that you won’t go to Sicily again for a long while. I always feel as if we all had a sort of home there.
For, as Mr. Hichens wrote to me, “I still think Taormina the most exquisite place in Europe. On a fine morning it is ineffably lovely.”
WINTER IN ATHENS
Greek Backgrounds
During the following summer William Sharp saw George Meredith for the last time. Concerning that visit to Box Hill he wrote to a friend:
Monday, June 22, 1903.
... I am so glad I went down to see George Meredith to-day. It was goodbye, I fear, though the end may not be for some time yet: not immediate, for he has recovered from his recent severe illness and painful accident, though still very weak, but able to be up, and to move about a little.
At first I was told he could see no one, but when he heard who the caller was I was bidden enter, he gave me a sweet cordial welcome, but was frail and weak and fallen into the blind alleys that so often await the most strenuous and vivid lives. But, in himself, in his mind, there is no change. I felt it was goodbye, and when I went, I think he felt it so also. When he goes it will be the passing of the last of the great Victorians. I could have (selfishly) wished that he had known a certain secret: but it is better not, and now is in every way as undesirable as indeed impossible. If there is in truth, as I believe, and as he believes, a life for us after this, he will know that his long-loving and admiring younger comrade has also striven towards the hard way that few can reach. What I did tell him before has absolutely passed from his mind: had, indeed, never taken root, and perhaps I had nurtured rather than denied what had taken root. If in some ways a little sad, I am glad otherwise. And I had one great reward, for at the end he spoke in a way he might not otherwise have done, and in words I shall never forget. I had risen, and was about to lean forward and take his hands in farewell, to prevent his half-rising, when suddenly he exclaimed “Tell me something of her—of Fiona. I call her so always, and think of her so, to myself. Is she well? Is she at work? Is she true to her work and her ideal? No, that I know!”
It was then he said the following words, which two minutes later, in the garden, I jotted down in pencil at once lest I should forget even a single word, or a single change in the sequence of words. “She is a woman of genius. That is rare ... so rare anywhere, anytime, in women or, in men. Some few women ‘have genius,’ but she is more than that. Yes, she is a woman of genius: the genius too, that is rarest, that drives deep thoughts before it. Tell her I think often of her, and of the deep thought in all she has written of late. Tell her I hope great things of her yet. And now ... we’ll go, since it must be so. Goodbye, my dear fellow, and God bless you.”
Outside, the great green slope of Box Hill rose against a cloudless sky, filled with a flowing south wind. The swifts and swallows were flying high. In the beech courts thrush and blackbird called continually, along the hedgerows the wild-roses hung. But an infinite sadness was in it all. A prince among men had fallen into the lonely and dark way.
Goodbye it was in truth; but it was the older poet who recovered hold on life and outlived the younger by four years.
GEORGE MEREDITH
From a photograph by F. Hollyer, about 1898
A wet spring, and a still damper autumn affected my husband seriously; and while we were visiting Mrs. Glassford Bell in Perthshire he became so ill that we went to Llandrindod Wells for him to be under special treatment. As he explained to Mr. Ernest Rhys:
Llandrindod Wells,
Sept., 1903.
My dear Ernest,
... I know that you will be sorry to learn that things have not gone well with me. All this summer I have been feeling vaguely unwell and, latterly, losing strength steadily.... However, the rigorous treatment, the potent Saline and Sulphur waters and baths, the not less potent and marvellously pure and regenerative Llandrindod air—and my own exceptional vitality and recuperative powers—have combined to work a wonderful change for the better; which may prove to be more than “a splendid rally,” tho’ I know I must not be too sanguine. Fortunately, the eventuality does not much trouble me, either way: I have lived, and am content, and it is only for what I don’t want to leave undone that the sound of ‘Farewell’ has anything deeply perturbing.
W. S.
And later to Mrs. Janvier:
London, Sept. 30, 1903.
Thanks for your loving note. But you are not to worry yourself about me. I’m all right, and as cheerful as a lark—let us say as a lark with a rheumatic wheeze in its little song-box, or gout in its little off-claw.... Anyway, I’ll laugh and be glad and take life as I find it, till the end. The best prayer for me is that I may live vividly till “Finis,” and work up to the last hour....
My love to you both, and know me ever your irrepressible,
Billy.
In a letter to Mr. Alden (Aug. 25th, 1903) he describes the work he had on hand at the moment, and the book he had projected and hoped to write:
“ ... in the Pall Mall Magazine you may have noticed a series of topographical papers (with as much or more of anecdotal and reminiscent and critical) contributed, under the title of “Literary Geography,” by myself. The first three were commissioned by the editor to see how they ‘took.’ They were so widely liked, and those that followed, that this summer he commissioned me to write a fresh series, one each month till next March. Of these none has been more appreciated than the double article on the Literary Geography of the Lake of Geneva. Forthcoming issues are The English Lake Country, Meredith, Thackery, The Thames, etc. In the current issue I deal with Stevenson.
... About my projected Greek book, to comprise Magna Grecia as well, i. e. Hellenic Calabria and Sicily, etc.... I want to make a book out of the material gathered, old and new, and to go freshly all over the ground.... I intend to call it Greek Backgrounds and to deal with the ancient (recreated) and modern backgrounds of some of the greatest of the Greeks—as they were and are—as, for example, of Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Empedocles, Theocritus, etc.—and of famous ancient cities, Sybaris, Corinth, etc.; and deal with the home or chief habitat or famous association. For instance:
| (1) Calabria (Crotan and Metapontum) with Pythagoras. | ||
| (2) Eleusis in Greece, Syracuse and Gela in Sicily |
} | with life and death of Æschylus. |
| (3) Colonos | Sophocles. | |
| (4) Athens etc. | with Euripides. | |
| (5) Syracuse and Acragas (Girgente) |
} | with Pindar etc. etc. |
The two following letters were acknowledgments of birthday greetings. In the first to Mr. Stedman our plans for that winter are described:
The Grosvenor Club,
Oct. 2, 1903.
My dear E. C. S.,
Two days ago, on Wednesday’s mail, I posted a letter to reach you, I hope, on the morning of your birthday—and today, to my very real joy, I safely received your long and delightful letter. It has been a true medicine—for, as I told you, I’ve been gravely ill. And it came just at the right moment, and warmed my heart with its true affection.
... I know you’ll be truly glad to hear that the tidings about myself can be more and more modified by good news from my physician,—a man in whom I have the utmost confidence and who knows every weakness as well as every resource and reserve of strength in me, and understands my temperament and nature as few doctors do understand complex personalities.
He said to me today “You look as if you were well contented with the world.” I answered “Yes, of course I am. In the first place I’m every day feeling stronger, and in the next, and for this particular day, I’ve just had a letter of eight written pages from a friend whom I have ever dearly loved and whom I admire not less than I love.” He knew you as a poet as well as the subtlest and finest interpreter of modern poetry—and indeed (tho’ I had forgotten) I had given him a favourite volume and also lent your Baltimore addresses.
When I’m once more in the land of Theocritus (and oh how entrancing it is) I’ll be quite strong and well again, he says. Indeed I’m already ‘a live miracle’! We sail by the Orient liner “Orizaba” on the 23rd; reach Naples (via Gibraltar and Marseilles) 9 to 10 days later; and leave by the local mail-boat same evening for Messina—arrive there about 8 on Monday morning—catch the Syracuse mail about 10, change at 12 at Giarre, and ascend Mt. Etna by the little circular line to Maletto about 3,000 ft. high, and thence drive to the wonderful old Castle of Maniace to stay with our dear friend there, the Duke of Bronte—our third or fourth visit now. We’ll be there about a fortnight: then a week with friends at lovely and unique Taormina: and then sail once more, either from Messina or Naples direct to the Piræus, for Athens, where we hope to spend the winter and spring.
How I wish you were to companion us. In Sicily, I often thought of you, far off Brother of Theocritus. You would so delight in it all, the Present that mirrors the magical Past; the Past that penetrates like stars the purple veils of the Present.
Yes, I know well how sincere is all you say as to the loving friend awaiting me—awaiting us—if ever we cross the Atlantic: but it is gladsome to hear it all the same. All affectionate greetings to dear Mrs. Stedman, a true and dear friend.
Ever, dear Stedman,
Your loving friend,
William Sharp.
13th Sept., 1903.
Dear Mrs. Gilchrist,
It is at all times a great pleasure to hear from you, and that pleasure is enhanced by hearing from you on my birthday and by your kind remembrance of the occasion....
We look forward to Athens greatly, though it is not (as in Elizabeth’s case) my first visit to that land of entrancing associations and still ever-present beauty. But as one grows older, one the more recognises that ‘climate’ and ‘country’ belong to the geography of the soul rather than to that secondary physical geography of which we hear so much. The winds of heaven, the dreary blast of the wilderness, the airs of hope and peace, the tragic storms and cold inclemencies—these are not the property of our North or South or East, but are of the climes self-made or inherited or in some strange way become our ‘atmosphere.’ And the country we dream of, that we long for, is not yet reached by Cook nor even chartered by Baedeker. You and yours are often in our thought. In true friendship, distance means no more than that the sweet low music is far off: but it is there.
Your friend,
William Sharp.
We journeyed by sea to Naples. Our hopes of a chat with our friends the Janviers at Marseilles were frustrated by a violent gale we encountered. As my husband wrote to Mrs. Janvier while at sea:
R.M.S. Orizaba,
Oct. 31, 1903.
It seems strange to write to you on the Festival of Samhain—the Celtic Summer-end, our Scottish Hallowe’en—here on these stormy waters between Sardinia and Italy. It is so strong a gale, and the air is so inclement and damp that it is a little difficult to realise we are approaching the shores of Italy. But wild as the night is I want to send you a line on it, on this end of the old year, this night of powers and thoughts and spiritual dominion.
It was a disappointment not to get ashore at Marseilles—but the fierce gale (a wild mistral) made it impossible. Indeed the steamer couldn’t approach: we lay-to for 3 or 4 hours behind a great headland some 4 or 5 miles to S. W. of the city, and passengers and mails had to be driven along the shore and embarked from a small quarry pier.... We had a very stormy and disagreeable passage all the way from Plymouth and through the Bay. ... The first part of the voyage I was very unwell, partly from an annoying heart attack. You may be sure I am better again, or I could not have withstood the wild gale which met us far south in the Gulf of Lyons and became almost a hurricane near Marseilles. But I gloried in the superb magnificence of the lashed and tossed sport of the mistral, as we went before it like an arrow before a gigantic bow.
It is now near sunset and I am writing under the shelter of a windsail on the upper deck, blowing ‘great guns’ though I don’t think we are in for more than a passing gale. But for every reason I shall be glad to get ashore, not that I want to be in Naples, which I like least of any place in Italy, but to get on to Maniace ... where I so much love to be, and where I can work and dream so well....
But the gale increased and became one of the wildest we had ever known, as William reminded me later when he showed me an unrhymed poem he had composed—exactly as it stands—in the middle of the night, and the next day, in Naples, recalled it and wrote it down. It was his way of mental escape from a physical condition which induced great nervous strain or fatigue, to create imaginatively a contrary condition and environment, and so to identify himself with it, that he could become oblivious to surrounding actualities. This is the poem:
INVOCATION
Play me a lulling tune, O Flute-Player of Sleep,
Across the twilight bloom of thy purple havens,
Far off a phantom stag on the moonyellow highlands
Ceases; and as a shadow, wavers; and passes:
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 wind’s 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.
No—no—from nets of silence weave me, O Sigher of Sleep,
A dusky veil ash-gray as the moonpale moth’s grey wing;
Of thicket-stillness woven, and sleep of grass, and thin evanishing air
Where the tall reed spires breathless—for I am tired, O Sigher of Sleep,
And long for thy muffled song as of bells on the wind, and the wind’s 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 climate—sitting 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 Hyblæan Mount, the lands of Empedocles and Theocritus, of Æschylus and Pindar, of Stesichorus and Simonides, and so many other great names—and 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 “going” 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 Europe—26,000 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, à revedèrla!”
After a delightful week at Corfù we settled in Athens (at Maison Merlin) for four months, and found pleasant companionship with members of the English and American Schools of Archeology—of which Mr. Carl Bosenquet and Prof. Henry Fowler were respectively the heads—with Dr. Wilhelm head of the Austrian School,—with 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 ill—the 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 I’ve come out of my severe feverish attack with erect (if draggled) colours and hope to march “cock-a-hoopishly” 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 I’ll take Gilbert Murray’s fine new version of Hippolytus or Bacchæ as my pocket companion to the Theatre of Dionysus on the hither side of the Acropolis; possibly my favourite Œdipus 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 friend’s 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 Græcia Magna,—And then (both Eheu and Evoe!) I have so much else to do—besides “Life” 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 “cold snaps,” against which I fear that the modern Athenians are no better provided than their ancestors were. There is a very amusing letter in Alisplorn’s 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 occupations—one 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 Browning’s preface to Shelley’s 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,
R. Garnett.
Derwen,
Hermitage Lane, N. W.,
Jan. 28, 1904.
Dear Miss Fiona Macleod,
Most delightful of all New Year’s gifts is a really beautiful book; and we thank you,—both of us,—for sending us your most characteristic heroic-lyric tragedy, The House of Usna. We were fortunate in being allowed to see it performed—how long ago can it have been!—at the Stage Society’s instance.... The “Psychic Drama,” 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 “House of Usna” 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 ‘Foreword’ 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 ‘House,’ 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,
G. 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, Mycenæ, Corinth, Delphi, etc. and from ‘Olympia in Elis’ he wrote to a friend:
“How 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.”
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 Menander—and 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 Epicurus’ birth and boyhood. At sundown I was at Heracleion, some three or four miles from Athens—and 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 Hyères in the month of cherry-blossoms, and moved slowly northwards through Nîmes 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 Puy—namely 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....