William Sharp (Fiona Macleod): A Memoir Compiled by His Wife Elizabeth A. Sharp

by Elizabeth A. Sharp

Sunday 6th. Sept. 1891.—Blanche Willis Howard, or rather, the Frau Hof-Arzt Von Teuffel, arrived last night. She sent round word that she could conveniently receive me in the afternoon, but as it was not to have our first talk-over about our long projected joint novel, Elizabeth came with me so as to make Frau Von T.’s acquaintanceship.... She is a charming woman, and I like her better than ever. As I am here to write a novel in collaboration with her, and not to fall in love, I must be on guard against my too susceptible self....

Monday 7th.—At 3 o’clock I went to Frau Von Teuffel’s, and stayed till 5.45. We had a long talk, and skirmished admirably—sometimes “fluking” but ever and again taking our man: in other words, we gained what we were after, to some extent—indirectly as well as directly. She agrees to my proposal that we call the book A Fellowe and His Wife. The two chief personages are to be Germans of rank, from the Rügen seaboard. I am to be the “faire wife,” and have decided to live at Rome, and to be a sculptor in ivory, and to have rooms in the Palazzo Malaspina. Have not yet decided about my name. My favourite German name is Hedwig, but Frau Von T. objected that English and American readers would pronounce it ‘Hed-wig.’ She suggested Edla: but that doesn’t ‘fetch’ me. I think Freyda (or perhaps Olga) would suit.

Tuesday, 8th.—This morning I began our novel A Fellowe and His Wife. I wrote some nine pages of MS. being the whole of the first letter written by Freia (or Ilse) from Rome.

Thursday, 10th.—In the evening I went round to Môrike Strasse. We had a long talk about the book and its evolution, and ultimately decided to attempt the still more difficult task of telling the whole story in the letters of Odo and Ilse only. Of course this is much more difficult: but if we can do it, so much the more credit to our artistic skill and imaginative insight.... (It was also decided that Frau v. Teuffel should write Odo’s letters, and her collaborator, Ilse’s. In addition to the novel W. S. dramatised the story in a five-act play.)

1st October, 1891.—Wrote to-day the long first scene of Act III. of A Fellowe. In afternoon E. and I went out in the town. I bought Maurice Maeterlinck’s La Princesse Maleine and Les Aveugles, and in the late afternoon read right thro’ the latter and skimmed the former. Some one has been writing about him recently and comparing him to Webster. In method greatly, and in manner, and even in conceptive imagination, he differs from Webster: but he is his Cousin-German. It is certainly hopelessly uncritical to say as Octave Mirbeau did last year in a French paper or magazine that Maeterlinck is another Shakespeare. He is not even remotely Shakespearian. He is a writer of singular genius; and I shall send for everything he has written. Reading these things of his excited me to a high degree. It was the electric touch I needed to produce my Dramatic Interludes over which I have been brooding. I believe that much of the imaginative writing of the future will be in dramatic prose of a special kind....

Friday, 2nd.—I went to bed last night haunted by my story “The Summons.” To-day at 10.30 or nearer 11 I began to write it, and wrote without a break till 5.30, by which time “A Northern Night,” as I now call it, was entirely finished, ‘asides’ and all. Both there and when I issue the Dramatic Interludes (five in all) I shall send them forth under my anagram, H. P. Siwäarmill. The volume will be a small one. The longest pieces will be the “Northern Night,” and “The Experiment of Melchior van Hoëk”: the others will be “The Confessor,” “The Birth of a Soul” and “The Black Madonna.”

Saturday 3rd.—... This late afternoon wrote the Dramatic Study, “The Birth of a Soul.” Though not ‘picturesque’ it touches a deeper note than “A Northern Night,” and so is really the more impressive.

Tuesday, 6th.—... P. S. After writing this Entry for Tuesday, shortly before 12, I began to write the opening particulars of Scene II. of Act IV., and went on till I finished the whole scene, shortly before 2 A.M.

Wednesday, 7th. Finished before 1 A.M. my Play, A Fellowe, by writing the longish Scene III. of Act IV. Went out with Lill in the afternoon. The town all draped in black for the death of the King of Saxony. Wrote to Frank Harris (from here, as H. P. Siwäarmill) with “The Birth of a Soul.” ...

Friday, 9th.—In late evening thought out (but only so far as leading lines and general drift) the drama “The Gipsy-Christ.” (Being The Passion of Manuel van Hoëk)....