THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS
The Sin-Eater
It was soon evident that the noise and confused magnetism of the great City weighed disastrously on William Sharp. At the New Year, 1895, he wrote to a friend:
“London I do not like, though I feel its magnetic charm, or sorcery. I suffer here. The gloom, the streets, the obtrusion and intrusion of people, all conspire against thought, dream, true living. It is a vast reservoir of all the evils of civilised life with a climate which makes me inclined to believe that Dante came here instead of to Hades.”
The strain of the two kinds of work he was attempting to do, the immediate pressure of the imaginative work became unbearable, “the call of the sea,” imperative.
As he has related in “Earth, Fire and Water”: “It was all important for me not to leave in January, and in one way I was not ill-pleased for it was a wild winter. But one night I awoke hearing a rushing sound in the street, the sound of water. I would have thought no more of it had I not recognised the troubled sound of the tide, and the sucking and lapsing of the flow in muddy hollows. I rose and looked out. It was moonlight, and there was no water. When after sleepless hours I rose in the grey morning I heard the splash of waves, I could not write or read and at last I could not rest. On the afternoon of that day the waves dashed up against the house.”
An incident showed me that his malaise was curable by one method only. A telegram had come for him that morning, and I took it to his study. I could get no answer. I knocked, louder, then louder,—at last he opened the door with a curiously dazed look in his face. I explained. He answered “Ah, I could not hear you for the sound of the waves!” It was the first indication to me, in words, of what troubled him.
That evening he started for Glasgow en route for Arran, where I knew he would find peace.
“The following morning we (for a kinswoman was with me) stood on the Greenock pier waiting for the Hebridean steamer and before long were landed on an island, almost the nearest we could reach that I loved so well.... That night, with the sea breaking less than a score of yards from where I lay, I slept, though for three nights I had not been able to sleep. When I woke the trouble was gone.”
There is a curious point in his telling of this episode. Although the essay is written over the signature of “Fiona Macleod” and belongs to that particular phase of work, nevertheless it is obviously “William Sharp” who tells the story, for the “we” who stood on the pier at Greenock is himself in his dual capacity; “his kinswoman” is his other self.
He wrote to me on reaching his destination:
Corrie, Isle of Arran,
20: 2: 1895.
“You will have had my telegram of my safe arrival here. There was no snow to speak of along the road from Brodick (for no steamer comes here)—so I had neither to ride nor sail as threatened: indeed, owing to the keen frost (which has made the snow like powder) there is none on the mountains except in the hollows, though the summits and flanks are crystal white with a thin veil of frozen snow.
It was a most glorious sail from Ardrossan. The sea was a sheet of blue and purple washed with gold. Arran rose above all like a dream of beauty. I was the sole passenger in the steamer, for the whole island! What made the drive of six miles more beautiful than ever was the extraordinary fantastic beauty of the frozen waterfalls and burns caught as it were in the leap. Sometimes these immense icicles hung straight and long, like a Druid’s beard: sometimes in wrought sheets of gold, or magic columns and spaces of crystal.
Sweet it was to smell the pine and the heather and bracken, and the salt weed upon the shore. The touch of dream was upon everything, from the silent hills to the brooding herons by the shore.
After a cup of tea, I wandered up the heights behind. In these vast solitudes peace and joy came hand in hand to meet me. The extreme loneliness, especially when I was out of sight of the sea at last, and could hear no more the calling of the tide, and only the sough of the wind, was like balm. Ah, those eloquent silences: the deep pain-joy of utter isolation: the shadowy glooms and darkness and mystery of night-fall among the mountains.
In that exquisite solitude I felt a deep exaltation grow. The flowing of the air of the hills laved the parched shores of my heart....
There is something of a strange excitement in the knowledge that two people are here: so intimate and yet so far-off. For it is with me as though Fiona were asleep in another room. I catch myself listening for her step sometimes, for the sudden opening of a door. It is unawaredly that she whispers to me. I am eager to see what she will do—particularly in The Mountain Lovers. It seems passing strange to be here with her alone at last....”
The Mountain Lovers was published in the summer of 1895 by Mr. John Lane. A copy of it was sent to Mr. George Meredith with the following letter:
9 Upper Coltbridge Terrace,
Murrayfield.
Dear Sir,
Will you gratify one of your most loyal readers by the acceptance of the accompanying book? Nothing helped
me so much, or gave me so much enduring pleasure, as your generous message to me about my first book, Pharais, which you sent through my cousin, Mr. William Sharp.
Fac-simile of an autograph “Fiona Macleod” poem by William Sharp
Naturally, I was eager it should appeal to you—not only because I have long taken keener delight in your writings than in those of any living author, but also because you are Prince of Celtland....
I hope you will be able to read, and perhaps care for, The Mountain Lovers. It is not a story of the Isles, like Pharais, but of the remote hill-country in the far northwest. I know how busy you are: so do not consider it necessary to acknowledge either the book or this letter. Still, if some happy spirit move you, I need not say that even the briefest line from you would be a deep pleasure to
Yours, with gratitude and homage,
Fiona Macleod.
Acknowledgment came swiftly:
Box Hill, July 13, 1895.
Dear Madam,
If I could have written on any matter out of my press of work when I received your Pharais, there would have been no delay with me to thank you for such a gift to our literature. This book on the “Mountains” promises as richly. Whether it touches equally deep, I cannot yet say. I find the same thrill in it, as of the bard on the three-stringed harp, and the wild western colour over sea and isles; true spirit of the mountains. How rare this is! I do not know it elsewhere. Be sure that I am among those readers of yours whom you kindle. I could write more, but I have not recovered from the malady of the degoût de la plume, consequent on excess—and I pray that it may never fall on you. For though it is wisdom at my age to cease to write, it is not well to be taught to cease by distaste. That is a giving of oneself to the enemy. I have to be what I am, and I disclose it to win your pardon for my inexpressiveness when I am warmly sensible of a generous compliment.
I am, Yours most faithful
George Meredith.
It was in 1895 that the Omar Khayyam Club under the Presidentship of Mr. Edward Clodd, who was an old personal friend of Mr. Meredith, elected to hold its summer dinner at the Burford Bridge Hotel. Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. George Gissing and William Sharp were among the guests. Mr. Clodd knew that it would be difficult to persuade Mr. Meredith to be present at the dinner. Nevertheless he lured him to the Hotel, and when coffee was served, (I quote from a contemporary account) “the beautiful face of the great novelist appeared within the doorway, and he was welcomed with enthusiasm by all present. The president extended to Mr. Meredith the right hand of fellowship on behalf of the Club, in a charming and eloquent speech not devoid of pathos. Mr. Meredith in his reply declared that Mr. Clodd was the most amiable of Chairmen but the most dastardly of deceivers. Never before, he added, had he been on his legs to make a speech in public, now before he knew it he was bustled over the first fence, and found himself overrunning the hounds. ‘I have my hands on the fellow at this moment’ he continued laughingly ‘and I could turn on him and rend him, but I spare him.’ After a few graceful and characteristic sentences concerning the Club and its object, and Omar, and expressing his appreciation of his reception Mr. Meredith said in conclusion: ‘I thank you from my heart, everyone of you.’”
Much to William Sharp’s satisfaction he was elected member of the Omar Khayyam Club in the autumn of the same year. On receipt of the announcement of the fact the new member wrote to the President:
Rutland House,
2d Nov., 1895.
Dear Brother-in-Omar,
On my return from Scotland the other day I found a note informing me that I had been elected an Omarian on the nomination of your distinguished self.
My thanks, cher confrère. ‘A drop of my special grape to you,’ as Omar might say, if he were now among us with a Hibernian accent! Herewith I post to you another babe, born into this ungrateful world so recently as yesterday.... Such as it is, I hope you may like it. “Ecce Puella” itself was written at white heat—and ran in ripples off the brain: and so is probably readable.
“Fragments from The Lost Journals of Piero di Cosimo” when they appeared (some few years ago) won the high praise of Pater—but perhaps their best distinction is that they took in the cocksure and levelled the Omniscient. One critical wight complained that I was not literal (probably from the lack of knowledge of medieval Italian), which he clinched by the remark that he had compared my version with the original! I see that Silas Hocking has just published a book called “All men are liars.” I would fain send a copy to that critic, even now. By the way, my cousin Miss Fiona Macleod wrote to me the other day for your address. I understand she wanted to send you a copy of her new book. If you get it, you should, as a folk-lorist, read the titular story, The Sin-Eater.
My wife joins with me in cordial regards, and I am
Sincerely yours,
William Sharp.
The President replied:
19 Carleton Road,
Tufnell Park
5th Nov.
My dear Sharp,
It is an addition to the pleasant memories of my year of office to know that you are of the elect. You come in with Lang and Gissing. By the way, the next dinner is fixed for the sixth proximo. And it is an addition to a burden of obligation willingly borne which your kind gift imposes. For work such as yours has unending charm for me, because while Science was my first love and is still my dear mistress, I love her more for what she suggests than what she reveals. Facts, unrelated, bore me: only in their significance does one get abiding interest. That is why your ‘Vistas’ and such like delicate, throbbing things attract me. Some of these were especially welcome on a recent dull Sunday by our ‘cold restless sea,’ on which in bright days you promise to come with Allen to look at it from my window. Your delicious story of the critic sent me straight to the Journal of di Cosimo. How well you produce the archaic flavour: the style has a Celtic ring about it. As for ‘Ecce Puella’ I await the hearing of it from the voice of a ‘puella’ who likes your work. I was at Meredith’s on Sunday week: he keeps wonderfully well for him: his talk is bright as his face is beautiful. He has his fling at me over the Burford Bridge deception, and says that my duplicity cost you all a fine speech. I tell him that the speech we had was good enough for ‘the likes of us.’ So Fiona Macleod is your cousin! She is of the ‘elect.’ I take it as most kind of her to send me her new book, which I have as yet but partly read, and am about to acknowledge. She holds a weird, strong pen, and will help the Celt to make further conquest of the dullard Saxons. Meredith and I talked about her “Mountain Lovers” when I was with him in August.
Kindest regards to Mrs. Sharp and yourself.
Yours sincerely,
Edward Clodd.
In the Autumn of 1894 we had come in touch with Professor and Mrs. Patrick Geddes of Edinburgh, and a friendship with far reaching results for “Fiona Macleod” arose between the two men. Both were idealists, keen students of life and nature; cosmopolitan in outlook and interest, they were also ardent Celts who believed in the necessity of preserving the finer subtle qualities and the spiritual heritage of their race against the encroaching predominance of materialistic ideas and aims of the day.
It was the desire and dream of such idealists and thinkers as Professor Geddes, and those associated with him, to preserve and nurture what is of value and of spiritual beauty in the race, so that it should fuse into and work with, or become part of, the great acquisitions and marvellous discoveries of modern thought. To hold to the essential beauty and thought of the past, while going forward eagerly to meet the new and ever increasing knowledge, was the desire of both men. In their aims they were in sympathy with one another; their manner of approach and methods of work were different. Patrick Geddes—biologist—was concerned primarily with the practical and scientific expression of his ideals; William Sharp was concerned primarily with expression through the art of words. Mutually sympathetic, they were eager to find some way of collaboration.
It was the dream of Professor Geddes to restore to Scotland something of its older pre-eminence in the world of thought, to recreate in Edinburgh an active centre and so arrest the tremendous centralising power of the metropolis of London; to replace the stereotyped methods of education by a more vital and synthetic form; and to encourage national art and literature. Towards the carrying out of these aims he had built a University Hall and Settlement for students, artists, etc. Perhaps the most important of his schemes, certainly the most important from the modern scientific point of view was the planning of the Outlook Tower—once an observatory—now an educational museum on the Castle Rock commanding a magnificent view of the city, of the surrounding country, of sea and sky; “an institution that is designed to be a method of viewing the problems of the science of life.” According to Professor Geddes “Our little scholastic colony in the heart of Edinburgh symbolises a movement which while national to the core, is really cosmopolitan in its intellectual reach.”
Grouped with this scientific effort, was the aim to revive the Celtic influence in art and literature; and the little colony contained a number of men and women who were working to that end; notably among the painters were James Cadenhead, Charles Mackie, Robert Burns, John Duncan, also Pittendrigh MacGillivray the sculptor; and among the writers Professor Arthur Thomson, Dr. Douglas Hyde, Nora Hopper, Rosa Mulholland, A. Percival Graves, S. R. Crockett, Elisée Réclus, Alexander Carmichael, Victor Branford, Professor Patrick Geddes, F. M. and W. S.
Into that eager and sympathetic atmosphere of linked thought and aim my husband and I were speedily drawn; and before long a Publishing Firm was established for the issuing of Celtic Literature and Works on Science. To Mr. and Mrs. Geddes was confided the important secret relating to the personality of “Fiona Macleod,” to the thoughts and ideals that unlay ‘her’ projected work. It was arranged that William Sharp should be the Manager in the Firm of Patrick Geddes & Colleagues (which post he very soon relinquished for that of Literary Adviser); an arrangement which made it possible for that particular Colleague to publish three of his “F. M.” books under his immediate supervision and from what was then one of the centres of the Celtic movement. This post, naturally, necessitated frequent visits to Edinburgh. For the month of August 1895 we took a flat in the neighbourhood of the University settlement so that we might share actively in the Summer Session.
It was an interesting experience. The students came from England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany; among the lecturers in addition to Professors Geddes and Arthur Thomson were Elisée Réclus the geographer and his brother Elie Réclus, Edmond Demolins and Abbé Klein.
W. S. prepared his lectures in rough outline. His inexperience in such work led him to plan them as though he were drafting out twelve books, with far more material than he could possibly use in the time at his disposal. His subject was “Art and Life” divided into ten lectures:
| I. | Life & Art: Art & Nature: Nature. | |
| II. | Disintegration: Degeneration: Regeneration. | |
| III. | The Return to Nature: In Art, in Literature. The Literary Outlook in England & America. | |
| IV. | The Celtic Renascence, Ossian, Matthew Arnold, The Ancient Celtic Writers. | |
| V. | The Celtic Renascence. Contemporary. The School of Celtic Ornament. | |
| VI. | The Science of Criticism: What it is, what it is not. The Critical Ideal. | |
| VII. | Ernest Hello. | |
| VIII. | The Drama of Life, and Dramatists. | |
| IX. | The Ideals of Art—pagan, Mediæval, modern. | |
| X. | The Literary Ideal—Pagan, Mediæval. The Modern Ideal. |
One lecture only was delivered; for during it he was seized with a severe heart attack and all his notes fell to the ground. It was with the greatest effort that he was able to bring the lecture to a close: and he realised that he must not attempt to continue the course; the risk was too great. Therefore, while I remained in Edinburgh to keep open house for the entertainment of the students, he went to the little Pettycur Inn at Kinghorn, on the north side of The Firth of Forth, till I was able to join him at Tighnabruaich in the Kyles of Bute where we had taken a cottage with his mother and sisters for September.
Two volumes of short stories were published in the late Autumn. It was the writer’s great desire that work should be issued by W. S. and by F. M. about the same time; in part to sustain what reputation belonged to his older Literary self, and in part to help to preserve the younger literary self’s incognito. Ecce Puella published by Mr. Elkin Matthew for W. S. was a collection of stories &c. that had been written at different times and issued in various magazines, and prefaced by a revised and shortened version of the Monograph on “Fair Women in Painting and Poetry.” It contained among other short stories one entitled “The Sister of Compassion,” dedicated “to that Sister of compassion for all suffering animals, Mrs. Mona Caird,” our dear friend. The other volume contained the first series of barbaric tales and myths of old Celtic days, “recaptured in dreams,” that followed in quick succession from the pen of Fiona Macleod. The Sin-Eater was the first of the three F. M. books published by the new Scoto-Celtic publishers. The Author was gratified by favourable reviews from important journals, and by letters, from which I select two.
The first is from Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie:
The Outlook,
13 Astor Place,
May 23d, 1897.
My dear Friend,
The Sin-Eater came in holiday week and was one of my most welcome remembrances. I have read it with deep pleasure, almost with envy; so full is it of the stuff which makes literature. It has the vitality and beauty of a rich and living imagination. The secrets of the spirit are in it, and that fellowship with the profounder experiences which gets at the heart of a race. I have not forgotten your kind words about my own work; words which gave me new heart and hope. For you are the very type of man to whose mind I should like to appeal. The judgment of Mrs. Sharp, which you quote, gave me sincere pleasure. To get the attention of the few for whose opinion one cares most is a piece of great good fortune; to really find one’s way to their hearts is best of all. I am looking forward to a good long talk with you. I wish you were here today. This is a divine May; balmy, fragrant, fresh; as if it had never been here before. There is enough soul in Miss Macleod’s stories to set up a generation of average novelists. The work of the real writer seems to me a miracle; something from the sources of our life. I have found, however, so few among all my good literary friends who feel about literature as I do that I have felt at times as if I had no power of putting into words what lies in my heart. This does not mean that I have missed appreciation; on the contrary, I have had more than I deserve. But most of the younger men here regard literature so exclusively as a craft and so little as a revelation that I have often missed the kind of fellowship which you gave me. The deeper feeling is, however, coming back to us in the work of some of the newest men—Bliss Carman for instance. There is below such a book as “Vistas” a depth and richness of imagination which have rarely been disclosed here. I hope you will find time to send me an occasional letter. You will do me a real service. I am now at work on a book which I hope will be deeper and stronger than anything I have done yet. There is the stir of a new life here, although it may be long in getting itself adequately expressed.
Yours fraternally,
Hamilton W. Mabie.
The second is from Sir George Douglas, poet, scholar, and keen critic:
Springwood Park, Kelso,
23:12:95.
My dear Sharp,
Many thanks for your interesting letter and enclosures. I am very glad to find that you think I have understood Miss Macleod’s work, and I think it very good of her to have taken my out-spoken criticisms in such good part. Certainly if she thinks I can be of any use to her in reading over the proofs of “The Washer of the Ford,” it will be a great pleasure to me. I shall probably be in Italy by the time she names—the end of Feb. but in these days of swift posts I hope that need not matter. What you tell me of Fiona’s admirer is very interesting, and from my recollection of the way in which books and the fancied personality of their authors possessed my mind when I was a youth, I can well enter into his infatuation. Fortunately there were no women among my “influences,” or I might have been in as bad a case as he! Would not this be a case for telling the secret, under pledges of course, if it were only to prevent mischief? By the way the whole incident seems to me to afford excellent material for literary treatment—not by you perhaps, nor yet by me (for the literary element in the material puts it outside your province, and makes it not quite the theme I like for my own use either) but say, for W.
Yours ever sincerely,
George Douglas.
I do not quite agree with you as to the inception of Miss Macleod, and possibly this is a matter in which you are not the best possible judge. At any rate, without going into the matter, I fancy that I could establish the existence in works earlier than the Poems of Phantasy of a certain mystical tendency, (German perhaps rather than Celtic in its colouring at that time) but none the less akin to the mysticisms of F. M.
But I may be mistaken....
Our friend, Sir George Douglas, had followed the literary career of William Sharp with careful interest, and gave the same heed to the writings of “Fiona Macleod.” After perusal of The Sin-Eater he made a careful study of the two methods of work, and wrote to the author to tell him he was finally convinced from internal evidence that William Sharp was the author of these books under discussion. He did not ask for confirmation but wished the author to know his conclusions. The latter, who valued not only the friendship but the critical appreciation of his correspondent, made no denial, but begged that the secret might be guarded. In Sir George Douglas’ answer is a reference to a curious incident which had happened while we were at Rudgwick. A letter came from an unknown correspondence containing a proposal of marriage to Fiona Macleod. Whether it was intended as a “draw” or not we could not decide. The proposal was apparently written in all seriousness. Similarities of taste, details of position, profession etc., were carefully given. Acceptance was urged with all appearance of seriousness; therefore the refusal was worded with gravity befitting the occasion.
THE WASHER OF THE FORD
Owing to the publication of The Sin-Eater by a firm identified with the Scoto-Celtic movement the book attracted immediate attention. Dr. Douglas Hyde voiced the Irish feeling when he wrote to my husband: “I think Fiona Macleod’s books the most interesting thing in the new Scoto-Celtic movement, which I hope will march side by side with our own.” This movement was according to William Sharp “fundamentally the outcome of Ossian, and immediately of the rising of the sap in the Irish nation.” Following on the incentive given by such scholars as Windische, Whitly Stokes, Kuno Meyer, and the various Folklore societies, a Gaelic League had been formed by enthusiasts in Ireland, and in Scotland, for the preservation and teaching of the old Celtic tongue; for the study of the old literatures of which priceless treasures lay untouched in both countries, and for the encouragement of natural racial talent. Wales had succeeded in recovering the use of her Cymric tongue; and the expression in music of racial sentiment had become widespread throughout that country. Ireland and the Highlands looked forward to attaining to a similar result; and efforts to that end were set agoing in schools, in classes, by means of such organisations as the Irish Feis Ceoil Committee, the Irish Literary Society and the Irish National Theatre. Their aim was to preserve some utterance of the national life, to mould some new kind of romance, some new element of thought, out of Irish life and traditions. Among the most eager workers were Dr. Douglas Hyde, Mr. W. B. Yeats, Mr. Standish O’Grady, Mr. George Russell (A.E.), Dr. George Sigerson, and Lady Gregory.
In Scotland much valuable work had been done by such men as Campbell of Islay, Cameron of Brodick, Mr. Alexander Carmichael; by the Gaelic League and the Highland Mod and its yearly gatherings. There were writers and poets also who used the old language and were consequently known within only a small area. No conspicuous modern Celtic work had hitherto been written in the English tongue until the appearance of the writings of Fiona Macleod, and later of Mr. Neil Munro. The Sin-Eater was therefore warmly welcomed on both sides of the Irish Channel, and Fiona Macleod, acclaimed as the leading representative of the Highland Gael, “our one and only Highland novelist.” The Irish Independent pronounced her to be “the poet born,” “her work is pure romance—and she strikes a strange note in modern literature, but it has the spirit of the Celt, and is another triumph for the Celtic genius.”
In consequence of this reception, and of a special article in The Bookman, speculations began to be made concerning the unknown and unseen authoress. The Highland News in pursuance of its desire to awake in the Highlands of Scotland an active sympathy with the growing Scoto-Celtic movement, was anxious to give some details concerning the new writer. To that end Mr. John Macleay wrote to William Sharp to ask if “considering your relation towards Miss Macleod, you might be able to tell me where I could obtain any personal information about her.” In reply, a few sparse notes were sent; the author in question was said to have passed her girlhood in the West Highlands; her tastes, her dislike of towns and her love of seclusion, were among the characteristics described.
When, early in 1896, The Highland News wrote to several authors to ask their views on the subject of Literature in the Highlands, Mr. Grant Allen, Mrs. Katherine Tynan Hinkson, Fiona Macleod and William Sharp were among those writers whose letters, expressive of interest and sympathy, were published.
The two letters contributed by my husband were written necessarily, each from a slightly different standpoint. He welcomed the opportunity of appearing in print in the two characters for he believed that it would help to shield the secret concerning Fiona Macleod.
The publication by P. Geddes & Coll. of The Washer of the Ford—a collection of Tales and Legendary Moralities—aroused a fresh outbreak of curiosity. For instance, a sensational article appeared in The Highland News on the vexed question of the identity of the Highland writer, headed: “Mystery! Mystery! All in a Celtic Haze.”
According to it: “Highland Celts in Glasgow are, I hear, hot on the scent of what they imagine to be a female James Macpherson. This, of course, is Miss Fiona Macleod. The way which Miss Macleod has led our Glasgow countrymen is strange indeed, and the literary detective has been busy. In the first place, it is asserted that Miss Fiona Macleod does not exist. No one seems to have seen her. One gentleman called twice at her residence in Edinburgh, and Miss Macleod was out. She has written about Iona, but again in that well watched place her name is unknown. The natural inference, you will admit, is that there is something here to be “fahnd aht,” as the Englishman says. Seeing that the non-existence of Miss Fiona Macleod has been thus established, the next point is who wrote those books to which that name is attached. Now, Mr. William Sharp has declared himself to be Miss Fiona Macleod’s uncle; he has, too, interested himself in Celtic things. Isn’t it the second natural inference that he has written the books? But Mr. Sharp has specifically denied the authorship. Then, of course, it must be Mr. and Mrs. Sharp in collaboration. But again comes denial. Mr. Sharp has addressed the following note to the Glasgow “Evening News,” which has been somewhat persistent in casting doubt on the existence of Miss Macleod—“Miss Fiona Macleod is not Mr. William Sharp, Miss Fiona Macleod is not Mrs. William Sharp, Miss Fiona Macleod is—Miss Fiona Macleod.” The persecuted author was much disturbed by this effort to draw Fiona Macleod into a controversy, to force her to declare herself. Not only was he indignant at what to him was an unwarrantable interference with the privacy of the individual, and resented the traps that were laid to catch the author should “she” be ‘unwary,’ it was instrumental also in making him much more determined to guard his secret at all costs. During the months of controversy the subject of it accomplished a considerable amount of work.
He collaborated with me in the preparation of an Anthology of Celtic Poetry; prepared an edition of Ossian (P. Geddes & Coll.) for which he wrote a long introduction; and began to work upon a humourous novel, not, however, finished until 1898.
As F. M. he published The Washer of the Ford in April, wrote Green Fire, and also a number of Poems, which were subsequently included in From the Hills of Dream. His Diary for the New Year has this entry:
“Jany 7th, 1896. The British Weekly has a paragraph given under all reserve that Fiona Macleod is Mrs. William Sharp. Have written—as W. S.—to Dr. R. Nicoll and to Mrs. Macdonell of The Bookman to deny this authoritatively.”
From the first we decided that it would be advisable to admit that F. M. was my cousin, also, that my husband acted as her adviser and ‘right hand’ in the matter of publishing.
The arrangements for the two first books were made by W. S. in person. No such precautions were necessary for the books brought out by P. Geddes & Col. as the head of the firm was in the secret. But, as it was well known in Edinburgh and elsewhere that William Sharp was keenly interested in the ‘Celtic Movement,’ he thought it well to collaborate with me on an Anthology of Celtic Poetry entitled Lyra Celtica (and published by the firm), for which he prepared an Introduction and Notes.
On the 6th January, in a letter to Mrs. William Rossetti he wrote “Just back from France where I went so far with my wife on her way to Central Italy. Her health has given way, alas, and she has been sent out from this killing climate for 3 or 4 months at any rate.”
At the end of January he wrote to me:
“Only a brief line to thank you for your letter about me and Fiona. Every word you say is true and urgent, and even if I did not know it to be so I would pay the most searching heed to any advice from you, in whose insight and judgment mentally as well as spiritually I have such deep confidence. Although in the main I had come to exactly the same standpoint I was wavering before certain alluring avenues of thought.... If I live to be an elderly man, time enough for one or more of my big philosophical and critical works. Meanwhile—the flame!
The only thing of the kind I will now do—and that not this year—will be the “Introduction to the Study of Celtic Literature”: but for that I have the material to hand, and shall largely use in magazines first.... Well, we shall begin at once! February will be wholly given over to finishing Wives in Exile and The Washer of the Ford.”
On the 1st February he left town and settled down to work at the Pettycur Inn, Kinghorn, Fife. His Diary gives the following record of work:
“Feb. 3rd. Wrote the Preface to The Washer of the Ford.
“Feb. 7th. Dictated (1750 words) article on Modern Romantic Art, for the Glasgow Herald—Also World article.
“Feb. 9th. Wrote ‘The Festival of the Birds.’
“Feb. 10th. Glasgow Herald Article (1500 words) on The Art of the Goldsmith, and wrote ‘The Blessing of the Fishes.’”
In the middle of February William had written to Mr. R. Murray Gilchrist, one of the few friends who then knew the secret of the pseudonym:
My dear Gilchrist,
Fiona Macleod has suddenly begun to attract a great deal of attention. There have been leaders as well as long and important reviews: and now the chief North of Scotland paper, The Highland News, is printing two long articles devoted in a most eulogistic way to F. M. and her influence “already so marked and so vital, so that we accept her as the leader of the Celtic Renaissance in Scotland.” There is, also, I hear, to be a Magazine article on her. This last week there have been long and favourable reviews in the Academy and The New Age.
I am glad you like my other book, I mean W. S’s! [Ecce Puella] There are things in it which are as absolutely out of my real self as it is possible to be: and I am glad that you recognise this. I have not yet seen my book of short stories published in America under the title The Gypsy Christ, though it has been out some weeks: and I have heard from one or two people about it. America is more indulgent to me just now than I deserve. For a leading American critic writes of The Gypsy Christ that, “though it will offend some people and displease others, it is one of the most remarkable volumes I have read for long. The titular story has an extraordinary, even a dreadful impressiveness: ‘Madge o’ the Pool’ is more realistic than ‘realism’: and alike in the scathing society love-episode, ‘The Lady in Hosea,’ and in that brilliant Algerian conte, ‘The Coward,’ the author suggests the method and power of Guy de Maupassant.”
I hope to get the book soon, and to send you a copy. As I think I told you, the setting of the G/C is entirely that which I knew through you. I have made use of one or two features—exaggerated facts and half facts—which I trust will not displease you. Do you remember my feeling about those gaunt mine-chimneys: I always think of them now when I think of the G/C. Fundamentally, however, the story goes back to my own early experiences—not as to the facts of the story, of course.... Then again, Arthur Sherburne Hardy, who is by many considered the St. Beuve of American criticism—in surety and insight—has given his opinion of a book i. e. of all he has seen of it (a comedy of the higher kind) for which Stone and Kimball have given me good terms—Wives in Exile—that it is “quite unlike anything else—at once the most brilliant, romantic, and witty thing I have read for long—to judge from the opening chapters and the scheme. It will stand by itself, I think.”
Personally, I think it shows the best handicraft of anything W. S. has done in fiction. It is, of course, wholly distinct in manner and method from F. M.’s work. It ought to be out by May. Sunshine and blithe laughter guided my pen in this book. Well, I have given you my gossip about myself: and now I would much rather hear about you. I wish you were here to tell me all about what you have been doing, thinking, and dreaming.
Yours,
W. S.
I received the following letter from him in Rome:
London, 21st Feb.
I am sure The Highland News must have delighted you. Let me know what you think of Fiona’s and W. S.’s letters.... I am so sorry you are leaving Siena.... I follow every step of your movements with keenest interest. But oh the light and the colour, how I envy you!
I am hoping you are pleased with Lyra Celtica. It is published today only—so of course I have heard nothing yet from outsiders. Yesterday I finished my Matthew Arnold essay[3]—and in the evening wrote the first part of my F. M. story, “Morag of the Glen”—a strong piece of work I hope and believe though not finished yet. I hope to finish it by tonight. I am so glad you and Mona liked the first of “The Three Marvels of Hy” (pronounced Eo or Hee) so well. Pieces like “The Festival of the Birds” seem to be born out of my brain almost in an inspirational way. I hardly understand it. Yes, you were in the right place to read it—St. Francis’ country. That beautiful strange Umbria! After all, Iona and Assisi are not nearly so remote from each other as from London or Paris. I send you the second of the series “The Blessing of the Flies.” It, too, was written at Pettycur—as was “The Prologue.” ... There is a strange half glad, half morose note in this Prologue which I myself hardly apprehend in full significance. In it is interpolated one of the loveliest of the ‘legendary moralities’ which I had meant to insert in Section I—that of ‘The King of the Earth.’ I will send it to you before long....
To a correspondent he wrote about the “Three Marvels of Hy”: “They are studies in old Religious Celtic sentiment so far as that can be recreated in a modern heart that feels the same beauty and simplicity of the Early Christian faith.”
And to me again: “... I know you will rejoice to hear that there can be no question that F. M’s deepest and finest work is in this “Washer of the Ford” volume. As for the spiritual lesson that nature has taught me, and that has grown within me otherwise, I have given the finest utterance to it that I can. In a sense my inner life of the spirit is concentrated in the three pieces “The Moon-Child,” “The Fisher of Men,” and “The Last Supper.” Than the last I shall never do anything better. Apart from this intense inner flame that has been burning within me so strangely and deeply of late—I think my most imaginative work will be found in the titular piece “The Washer of the Ford,” which still, tho’ written and revised some time ago, haunts me! and in that and the pagan and animistic “Annir Choille.” We shall read those things in a gondola in Venice?”
He joined me in Venice on the 16th May—glad of sunshine and rest. We journeyed back to England by way of the Lakes, in a time of early roses, and returned to London to find the first copies of The Washer of the Ford awaiting us. Two out of many letters concerning the book that came to him from friends who were in the secret and watched the development of the “F. M.” work, were a strong incentive to further effort.
The first is from Mr. Frank Rinder:
My dear Will,
From my heart I thank you for the gift of this book. It adds to the sum of the precious, heaven-sent things in life. It will kindle the fire of hope, of aspiration and of high resolve in a thousand hearts. As one of those into whose life you have brought a more poignant craving for what is beautiful in word and action, I thank you for writing it.
Your friend,
Frank.
The second was from Mr. Janvier:
Saint Remy de Provence,
June 22, 1896.
My dear Will,
If The Washer of the Ford were the first of Fiona’s books I am confident that the sex of its author would not pass unchallenged. A great part of it is essentially masculine—all the “Seanachas,” and “The Annir Choille,” and the opening of “The Washer”: not impossible for a woman to write, but unlikely. Nor would a woman have written “The Annir Choille,” I think, as it is written here. Fiona has shown her double sex in this story more completely, it seems to me, than in any other. It is written with a man’s sense of decency and a woman’s sense of delicacy—and the love of both man and woman is in it to a very extraordinary degree. The fighting stories seem to me to be pure man—though I suppose that there are Highland women (like Scott’s “Highland Widow”) capable of their stern savagery. But on these alone, Fiona’s sex scarcely could have been accepted unchallenged. But what seems to me to show plainest, in all the stories together, is not the trifle that they are by a man or by a woman but that they have come out of your inspired soul. They seem to be the result of some outside force constraining you to write them. And with their freshness they have a curious primordial flavour—that comes, I suppose, from the deep roots and full essences of life which are their substance of soul. Being basic, elementary, they are independent of time; or even race. In a literary—technically literary—way they seem to me to be quite your most perfect work. I am sensitive to word arrangement, and some of your work has made me rather disposed to swear at you for carelessness. You have not always taken the trouble to hunt for the word that you needed. But these stories are as nearly perfect in finish, I think, as literary endeavour can make them. And they have that effect of flow and ease that can only come—at least, I can imagine it only as arriving—from the most persistent and laborious care. In the detail of make-up, I am especially impressed by the insertion of the Shadow Seers just where the key is changed radically. They are at once your justifying pieces for what has gone before, and an orchestral interlude before the wholly different Seanachas begin. Of all in the book, my strongest affection is for “The Last Supper.” It seems to me to be the most purely beautiful, and the profoundest thing that you have done.
I feel that some strong new current must have come into your life; or that the normal current has been in some way obstructed or diverted—for the animating spirit of these new books reflects a radical change in your own soul. The Pagan element is entirely subordinated to and controlled by the inner passions of the soul. In a word you have lifted your work from the flesh-level to the soul-level....
What you say in your letter of worry and ill-health saddens me. It is unjust that your rare power of creation should be hampered in any way. But it seems to me that there must be great consolation in your certain knowledge that you have greatly created, in spite of all.
Always affectionately yours,
T. A. J.
“RUNES OF THE SORROW OF WOMEN”
Green Fire
During the most active years of the Fiona Macleod writings, the author was usually in a highly wrought condition of mental and emotional tension, which produced great restlessness, so that he could not long remain contentedly anywhere. We spent the summer of 1896 moving about from one place to another that had special interest for him. First we went to Bamborough, for sea-bathing (he was a fine swimmer), and to visit the little Holy Isle of the Eastern Shores, Lindisfarne, Iona’s daughter. Thence to the Clyde to be near his mother and sisters. From Inverness we went to the Falls of Lora, in Ossian’s country, and later we moved to one of William’s favourite haunts, Loch Tarbert, off Loch Fyne, where our friends Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rinder had taken a house for the summer. There I left him with his secretary-sister, Mary, and returned to London to recommence my work on The Glasgow Herald. The two following letters to me told of the progress of his work:
September 23d.
I am now well in writing trim I am glad to say. Two days ago I wrote the long-awaited “Rune of the Passion of Woman” the companion piece in a sense to the ‘Chant of Woman’ in Pharais—and have also done the Savoy story “The Archer” (about 4,500 words) and all but done “Ahez the Pale.” Today I hope to get on with the “Lily Leven.” ...
I must make the most of this day of storm for writing. I had a splendid long sleep last night, and feel ‘spiff.’ ... I am not built for mixed companies, and like them less and less in proportion as the imperative need of F. M. and W. S. for greater isolation grows. I realise more and more the literal truth of what George Meredith told me—that renunciation of ordinary social pleasures (namely of the ordinary kind in the ordinary way) is a necessity to any worker on the high levels: and unless I work that way I shall not work at all.
26th Sept.
... Yesterday turned out a splendid breezy day, despite its bad opening: one of the most beautiful we have had, altho’ too cold for bathing, and too rough for boating. I went off by myself for a long sail—and got back about 4. Later I went alone for an hour or so to revise what had stirred me so unspeakably, namely the third and concluding “Rune of the Sorrow of Women.” This last Rune tired me in preliminary excitement and in the strange semi-conscious fever of composition more than anything of the kind since I wrote the first of the three in Pharais one night of storm when I was alone in Phenice Croft.
I have given it to Mary to copy, so that I can send it to you at once. Tell me what you think and feel about it. In a vague way not only you, Mona, Edith and others swam into my brain, but I have never so absolutely felt the woman-soul within me: it was as though in some subtle way the soul of Woman breathed into my brain—and I feel vaguely as if I had given partial expression at least to the inarticulate voice of a myriad women who suffer in one or other of the triple ways of sorrow. For work, and rebuilding energy, I am thankful I came here. You were right: I was not really fit to go off to the Hebrides alone, at the present juncture, and might well have defeated my own end. Tomorrow morning I shall be writing—probably at From the Hills of Dream.
From Tighnabruaich Hotel, a lovely little village in the Kyles of Bute, he wrote to me:
I am glad to be here, for though the weather has changed for the worse I am so fond of the place and neighbourhood. But what I care for most is I am in a strong Fiona mood, though more of dream and reverie—creatively—than of actual writing: indeed it is likely all my work here, or nearly all shall be done through dream and mental-cartooning. I have written “The Snow Sleep of Angus Ogue” for the winter Evergreen, and am glad to know it is one of F. M.’s deepest and best utterances.
The Evergreen was a Quarterly started by Prof. Geddes, of which W. S. was Editor. Five numbers only were issued. During the autumn William had prepared for publication by P. Geddes & Coll a re-issue of the Tales contained in The Sin-Eater and The Washer of the Ford, in the form of a paper covered edition in three volumes, Barbaric Tales, Spiritual Tales, Tragic Romances. Each volume contained a new tale. Mr. W. B. Yeats considered that “Of the group of new voices none is more typical than the curious mysterious voice that is revealed in these stories of Miss Fiona Macleod.... She has become the voice (of these primitive peoples and elemental things) not from mere observation of their ways, but out of an absolute identity of nature.... Her art belongs in kind, whatever be its excellence in its kind, to a greater art, which is of revelation, and deals with invisible and impalpable things. Its mission is to bring us near to those powers and principalities, which we divine in mortal hopes and passions.
Mr. W. E. Henley had shown considerable interest in the “F. M.” Tales, and had written an appreciative letter to the author, who immediately acknowledged it:
1:4:97.
Dear Mr. Henley,
I thank you for your kind letter. Any work of recognition from you means much to me. Your advice is wise and sane, I am sure—and you may be certain that I shall bear it in mind. It will be difficult to follow—for absolute simplicity is the most difficult of all styles, being, as it must be, the expression of a mind at once so imaginative in itself, so lucid in its outlook, and so controlled in its expression, that only a very few rarely gifted individuals can hope to achieve the isolating ideal you indicate.
The three latest things I have written are the long short-story “Morag of the Glen,” “The Melancholy of Ulad,” and “The Archer.” I would particularly like to know what you think of the style and method of “The Archer” (I mean, apart from the arbitrary fantasy of the short supplementary part—which affords the clue to the title)—as there I have written, or tried to write, with the accent of that life as I know it.
F. M.
The central story of “The Archer” was one of the Tales which the author valued most, and rewrote many times. In its final form—“Silas,” in the Tauchnitz volume of F. M. Tales—it stands without the opening and closing episodes. Concerning the “fantasy of the short supplementary part” a curious coincidence happened. That arbitrary fantasy is the record of a dream, or vision, which the author had at Tarbert. In a letter from Mr. Yeats received shortly after, the Irish poet related a similar experience which he had had—a vision of a woman shooting arrows among the stars—a vision that appeared also the same night to Mr. Arthur Symons. I remember the exchange of letters that passed between the three writers; unfortunately Fiona’s letter to Mr. Symons, and the latter’s answer, are not available. But I have two of the letters on the subject which, through the courtesy of Mr. Yeats, I am able to quote; both, unfortunately are undated. F. M. describes a second vision which, however, had no connection with the coincidence.
Mr. Yeats wrote:
Tillyra Castle,
Co. Galway.
My dear Sharp,
Many thanks for your letter. You must have written it the very morning I was writing to Miss Macleod. I have just returned from the Arran Islands where I had gone on a fishing boat, and where I go again at the end of this week. I am studying on the islands for the opening chapter of a story I am about to set out upon. I met two days ago an old man who hears the fairies he says every night and complains much that their singing keeps him awake. He showed me a flute which he had got thinking that if he played it they might be pleased and so cease teasing him. I have met much curious lore here and in Arran.
I have had some singular experiences myself. I invoked one night the spirits of the moon and saw between sleep and waking a beautiful woman firing an arrow among the stars. That night she appeared to Symons who is staying here, and so impressed him that he wrote a poem on her the only one he ever wrote to a dream, calling her the fountain of all song or some such phrase. She was the symbolic Diana. I invoked a different spirit another night and it appeared in dreams to an old French Count, who was staying here, and was like Symons ignorant of my invocations. He locked his door to try to keep it out. Please give my greetings to Miss Macleod.
Yours Sincerely,
W. B. Yeats.
F. M. wrote in acknowledgment of a long critical letter from Mr. Yeats, to whom “she” had sent The Washer of the Ford:
Tarbert on Loch Fyne.
Dear Mr. Yeats,
Unforeseen circumstances have prevented my writing to you before this, and even now I must perforce be more brief than I would fain be in response to your long and deeply interesting as well as generous letter. Alas, a long pencilled note (partly apropos of your vision of the woman shooting arrows, and of the strange coincidence of something of the same kind on my own part) has long since been devoured by a too voracious or too trustful gull—for a sudden gust of wind blew the quarto-sheet from off the deck of the small yacht wherein I and my dear friend and confrère of whom you know were sailing, off Skye.... How good of you to write to me as you did. Believe me, I am grateful. There is no other writer whose good opinion could please me more—for I love your work, and take an endless delight in your poetry, and look to you as not only one of the rare few on whose lips is the honey of Magh Mell but as one the dark zone of whose mind is lit with the strange stars and constellations of the spiritual life. Most cordially I thank you for your critical remarks. Even where I do not unreservedly agree, or where I venture to differ (as for example, in the matter of the repetition of the titular words in “The Washer of the Ford” poem) I have carefully pondered all you say. I am particularly glad you feel about the “Annir Choille” as you do. Some people whom I would like to please do not care for it: yet I am sure you are right in considering it one of the most vital things I have been able to do.
With what delight I have read your lovely lovely poem “O’Sullivan Rue to the Secret Rose!” I have read it over and over with ever deepening delight. It is one of your finest poems, I think: though perhaps it can only be truly appreciated by those who are familiar with legendary Celtic history. We read it to each other, my friend and I, on a wonderful sundown “when evening fed the wave with quiet light,” off one of the Inner Hebrides (Colonsay, to the South of Oban).... I cannot quite make up my mind, as you ask, about your two styles. Personally, I incline not exactly to a return to the earlier but to a marriage of the two: that is, a little less remoteness, or subtlety, with a little more of rippling clarity. After reading your Blake paper (and with vivid interest and delight) I turned to an early work of yours which I value highly, Dhoya: and I admit that my heart moved to it. Between them lies, I think, your surest and finest line of work—with the light deft craft of The Celtic Twilight.
I hope you are soon going to issue the promised volume of poems. When my own book of verse is ready—it is to be called From the Hills of Dream—it will give me such sincere pleasure to send you a copy. By the bye, I must not forget to thank you for introducing my work to Mr. Arthur Symons. He wrote to me a pleasant letter, and asked me to contribute to the Savoy, which I have done. I dare say my friend (who sends you comradely greetings, and says he will write in a day or two) will tell you more from me when he and you meet.
I had a strange vision the other day, wherein I saw the figure of a gigantic woman sleeping on the green hills of Ireland. As I watched, the sun waned and the dark came and the stars began to fall. They fell one by one, and each fell into the woman—and lo, of a sudden, all was bare running water, and the drowned stars and the transmuted woman passed from my seeing. This was a waking dream, an open vision: but I do not know what it means, though it was so wonderfully vivid. In a vague way I realise that something of tremendous moment is being matured just now. We are on the verge of vitally important developments. And all the heart, all the brain, of the Celtic races shall be stirred. There is a shadow of mighty changes. Myself, I believe that new spirits have been embodied among us. And some of the old have come back. We shall perish, you and I and all who fight under the “Lifting of the Sunbeam”—but we shall pioneer a wonderful marvellous new life for humanity. The other day I asked an old islesman where her son was buried. “He was not buried,” she said, “for all they buried his body. For a week ago I saw him lying on the heather, and talking swift an’ wild with a Shadow.” The Shadows are here.
I must not write more just now.
My cordial greetings to you,
Sincerely,
Fiona Macleod.
No sooner had W. S. returned to London than he fell ill with nervous prostration, and rheumatism. It was soon obvious that he could not remain in town, and that for a short time at any rate he must cease from pen-work. It therefore seemed an opportune moment for him to go to New York, and attend to his publishing interests there, especially as Messrs. Stone & Kimball had recently failed.
Before starting he had read and reviewed with much interest a volume of poems by the American poet, Mrs. Elizabeth Stoddard, and had received a pleased acknowledgment from her husband Richard A. Stoddard:
New York,
Oct. 30, 1896.
My dear Sharp,
I am greatly obliged to you for what you have written about my wife’s poetry, any recognition of which touches me more nearly than anything that could be said about my own verse.... My wife has told you, I presume, how much I enjoyed your wife’s Women’s Voices, just before I went into the Hospital, and how I composed a bit of verse in my head when I couldn’t see to feed myself. Do you ever compose in that silent way? I have taught myself to do without pens, ink, and paper, in verse; but I can’t do so in prose, which would print itself in the thing I call my mind. Give my kindest regards and warmest good wishes to your Elizabeth, whose charming book is a favourite with my Elizabeth as well, as with
Yours sincerely,
R. H. Stoddard.
Later, Mr. Stedman wrote an account of a dinner given to Mr. Stoddard to which W. S. was invited:
Bronxville, N. Y.,
Feb. 17, 1897.
My dear Sharp,
I have received your long letter of the 25th Jany, and also a shorter one of the 30th written at Mr. George Cotterell’s house. I will say at the outset that I feel guilty at seeing the name of that loveable man and true poet; for although a year has passed since the completion of my (Victorian) “Anthology” I have been positively unable to write the letter which I have in my heart for him.
... The most important social matter here this winter relating to our Guild will be a large important dinner to be given on March 25th by the Author’s Club and his other friends, to Richard Henry Stoddard. We are going to try to make an exception to the rule that New York is not good to her own, and to render a tribute somewhat commensurate with Stoddard’s life long services, and his quality as poet and man. A few invitations are going to be sent to literary men abroad, and I have been able to write about them to Besant, Dobson, Garnett and yourself. Of course I do not expect that you will come over here, and I am quite sure you will write a letter which can be read at the dinner, for I have in mind your personal friendship with Stoddard and affectionate comprehension of his genius and career....
On the 13th of April Mr. Stedman wrote again to report on the proceedings:
Your letter to the Stoddard Banquet was by far the best and most inclusive of the various ones received, and it was read out to the 150 diners and met with high favour. I mailed you the full report of the affair, but believe I have not written you since it came off. It proved to be the most notable literary occasion yet known in this city—was brilliant, magnetic, enthusiastic throughout. I felt a pride in my office as Chairman. The hall was one of the handsomest in America, the speaking of the most eloquent type, and full of laughter and tears. The Stoddards were deeply gratified by your letter.
E. C. S.
My husband arrived in New York on All Hallow E’en and went direct to the hospitable house of Mr. Alden whence he wrote to me:
Metuchen, N. J.,
1st Nov., 1896.
... Of course nothing can be done till Wednesday. All America is aflame with excitement—and New York itself is at fever-heat. I have never seen such a sight as yesterday. The whole enormous city was a mass of flags and innumerable Republican and Democratic insignia—with the streets thronged with over two million people. The whole business quarter made a gigantic parade that took 7 hours in its passage—and the business men alone amounted to over 100,000. Everyone—as indeed not only America, but Great Britain and all Europe—is now looking eagerly for the final word on Tuesday night. The larger issues are now clearer: not merely that the Bryanite 50-cent dollar (instead of the standard 100 cent) would have far reaching disastrous effects, but that the whole struggle is one of the anarchic and destructive against the organic and constructive forces. However, this tremendous crisis will come to an end—pro tem. at any rate—on Tuesday night....
During his absence, F. M.’s romance, Green Fire, was published. The title was taken from a line in ‘Cathal of the Woods,’ ‘O green fire of life, pulse of the world, O Love!’ And the deeper meaning of the expression ‘Green Life’—so familiar to all who knew ‘Fiona Macleod’—is suggested in a sentence at the close of the book: “Alan knew that strange nostalgia of the mind for impossible things. Then, wrought for a while from his vision of green life, and flamed by another green fire than that born of earth, he dreamed his dream.”
To me, the author wrote from New York:
“ ... I am indeed glad you like Green Fire so well. And you are right in your insight: Annaik is the real human magnet. Ynys is an idealised type, what I mean by Ideala or Esclarmoundo, but she did not take hold of me like Annaik. Alan, too, is a variation of the Ian type. But Annaik has for me a strange and deep attraction: and I am sure the abiding personal interest must be in her. You are the only one who seems to have understood and perceived this—certainly the only one who has noticed it. Some day I want to tell Annaik’s story in full....”
The author had read much Breton lore during his study of French Literature, and as his interest had for a time been centred on the land of the kindred Celt, he determined to make it the setting of a new Romance. He had never been there, so drew on his imagination for the depiction of the places he knew of by hearsay only. The result, when later he judged the book in cool criticism, he considered to be unsatisfactory as to structure and balance. He realised, that although the Fiona impetus produced the first chapter and the latter part, the plot and melodramatic character of the Breton story are due to W. S.; that the descriptions of nature are written by F. M. and W. S. in fusion, are in character akin to the descriptions in “The Children of Tomorrow,” written by W. S. in his transition stage. Consequently, when in 1905, he discussed with me what he wished preserved of his writings, he asked my promise that I would never republish the book in its entirety.
In order to preserve what he himself cared for, he rewrote the Highland portion of the book, named it “The Herdsman” and included it in The Dominion of Dreams. (In the Uniform Edition, it is placed, together with a series of detached Thought-Fragments from Green Fire, in The Divine Adventure, Vol. IV.) He never carried out his intention of writing Annaik’s story in full. Had he done so it would have been incorporated in a story, partly reminiscent of his early sojourn among the gipsies, and have been called The Gypsy Trail.
Some months later Mr. W. B. Yeats wrote to W. S.:
“I have read ‘Green Fire’ since I saw you. I do not think it is one of your well-built stories, and I am certain that the writing is constantly too self-consciously picturesque; but the atmosphere, the romance of much of it, of ‘The Herdsman’ part in particular haunts me ever since I laid it down.
‘Fiona Macleod’ has certainly discovered the romance of the remote Gaelic places as no one else has ever done. She has made the earth by so much the more beautiful.”
And Mr. George Russell (A. E.) wrote to F. M. from Dublin:
Dear Fiona Macleod,
My friend, Willie Yeats, has just come by me wrapt in a faery whirlwind, his mouth speaking great things. He talked much of reviving the Druidic mysteries and vaguely spoke of Scotland and you. These stirring ideas of his are in such a blaze of light that, but for the inspiration of a presence always full of enthusiasm, I would get no ideas at all from him. But when he mentioned your name and spoke of the brotherhood of the Celts and what ties ought to unite them, I remembered a very kindly letter which I had put on one side waiting for an excuse to write again. So I take gladly Yeats’ theory of what ought to be and write....
Thoughts inspired by what is written or said are aimed at the original thinker and from every quarter converge on his inner nature. Perhaps you have felt this. It means that these people are putting fetters on you, binding you to think in a certain way (what they expect from you); and there is a danger of the soul getting bent so that after its first battle it fights no more but repeats dream upon dream its first words in answer to their demand and it grows more voice and less soul every day. I read Green Fire a few weeks ago and have fallen in love with your haunted seas. Your nature spirit is a little tragic. You love the Mother as I do but you seem for ever to expect some revelation of awe from her lips where I would hide my head in her bosom. But the breathless awe is true also—to “meet on the Hills of Dream,” that would not be so difficult. I think you know that? Some time when the power falls on me I’ll send a shadow of myself over seas just to get the feeling of the Highlands. I have an intuition that the “fires” are awakening somewhere in the North West. I may have met you indeed and not known you. We are so different behind the veil. Some who are mighty of the mighty there are nothing below and then waking life keeps no memory of their victorious deeds in sleep. And if I saw you your inner being might assume some old Druidic garb of the soul, taking that form because you are thinking the Druidic thought. The inner being is protean and has a thousand changes of apparel. I sat beside a friend and while he was meditating, the inner being started up in Egyptian splendour robed in purple and gold. He had chanced upon some mood of an ancient life. I write to you of these things judging that you know of them to some extent here: that your inner nature preserves the memory of old initiations, so I talk to you as a comrade on the same quest. You know too I think that these alluring visions and thoughts are of little import unless they link themselves unto our humanity. It means only madness in the end. I know people whose lamps are lit and they see wonderful things but they themselves will not pass from vision into action. They follow beauty only like the dwellers in Tyre whom Ezekiel denounced “They have corrupted their wisdom by reason of their brightness.” Leaving these mystic things aside what you say about art is quite true except that I cannot regard art as the “quintessential life” unless art comes to mean the art of living more than the art of the artists.... Sometime, perhaps, if it is in the decrees of the gods (our true selves) we may meet and speak of these things. But don’t get enslaved by your great power of expression. It ties the mind a little. There was an old Hermetist who said “The knowledge of It is a divine silence and the rest of all the senses....”
You ask me to give my best. Sometimes I think silence is the best. I can feel the sadness of truth here, but not the joy, and there must always be as exquisite a joy as there is pain in any state of consciousness....
A. E.