While William was in New York Mr. Stedman was asked by Mr. J. W. Young to approach his guest with a request that he should “lecture” at Harvard upon a subject of contemporary Literature. “Quite a number of Harvard men are anxious to see and hear Mr. Sharp if he will consent to come to Cambridge.”
It was with genuine regret that, owing to his doctor’s strict prohibition, William felt himself obliged to refuse this flattering request. He had also been asked by Mr. Palmer “the leading theatrical Boss in the States to sell to him the rights of my play on ‘A Fellowe and his Wife,’” a proposal which he declined.
On his return to England he wrote to Mr. Janvier:
“Dear Old Man,
“I have read your stories (as I wrote the other day) with particular pleasure, apart from personal associations. You have a delicate and delightful touch that is quite your own, and all in all I for my part fully endorse what Mr. Howells wrote about you recently in Harpers’ and said as emphatically in private. So—amico caro—“go in and win!”
I am settling down in London for a time, and am more content to abide awhile now that the writing mood is at last upon me again—and strong at that!
I have not yet put my hand to any of the commissioned stories I must soon turn to—but tell la sposa that I have finished my “Dramatic Vistas” (two or three of which I read to her), and even venture to look with a certain half-content upon the last of the series—“The Lute-Player”—which has been haunting me steadily since last October, but which I could not express aright till the other day....”
The immediate outcome of his visit to America was the publication, by Messrs. Chas. Webster & Co., of his Romantic Ballads and Sospiri di Roma in one volume entitled Flower O’ the Vine. It was prefaced by a flattering Introduction by Mr. Janvier, to whom the author wrote in acknowledgment:
Paris, 23d April, 1892.
... Many thanks for your letter, my dear fellow, and for the “Introduction,” which I have just read. I thank you most heartily for what you say there, which seems to me, moreover, if I may say so, at once generous, fittingly reserved, and likely to win attention. You yourself occupy such a high place in Letters oversea that such a recommendation of my verse cannot but result to my weal. I have been so deep in work and engagements, that I have been unable to attend to any correspondence of late—and have, I fear, behaved somewhat churlishly to friends across the water, and particularly to my dear friends at 27th Avenue. But now the pressure of work is over for the moment: my London engagements or their ghosts are vainly calling to me d’Outre-Manche: I am keeping down my too cosmopolitan acquaintanceship in Paris to the narrowest limit: and on and after the second of May am going to reform and remain reformed. If you don’t object to a little “roughing,” you would enjoy being with me and mes camarades this coming week. We like extremes, so after a week or so of the somewhat feverish Bohemianism of literary and artistic Paris, we shall be happy at our ‘gipsy’ encampment in the Forest of Fontainebleau (at a remote and rarely-visited but lovely and romantic spot between the Gorge de Franchard and the Gorge d’Apremont). Spring is now here in all her beauty: and there is a divine shimmer of green everywhere. Paris itself is en fête with her vividly emerald limes and sycamores, and the white and red spires of the chestnuts must make the soul of the west wind that is now blowing rejoice with gladness. The Seine itself is of a paler green than usual, and is suggestive of those apple-hued canals and conduits of Flanders and by the ‘dead cities’ of north-east Holland. I forget if you know Paris—but there is one of its many fountains that has an endless charm for me: that across the Seine, between the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Bld. St. Germain—the Fontaine St. Michel—I stood watching the foaming surge and splash of it for some time yesterday, and the pearl-grey and purple-hued doves that flew this way and that through the sunlit spray. It brought, as it always does, many memories of beloved Rome and Italy back to me. I turned—and saw Paul Verlaine beside me: and I was in Paris again, the Paris of Paris, the Aspasia of the cities of the World, the only city whom one loves and worships (and is betrayed by) as a woman. Then I went round to Leon Vanier’s, where there were many of les Jeunes—Jean Moréas, Maurice Barrès, Cazals, Renard, Eugène Holland, and others (including your namesake, Janvier). To-night I ought to go to the weekly gathering of a large number of les Jeunes at the Café du Soleil d’Or, that favourite meeting place now of les décadents, les symbolistes, and les everything else. But I can’t withstand this flooding sunshine, and sweet wind, and spraying of waters, and toss-toss and shimmer-shimmer of blossoms and leaves; so I’ll probably be off. This won’t be off if I don’t shut up in a double sense.