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

by Elizabeth A. Sharp

Grant Allen.

Unfortunately, there was an imperative reason for bringing our residence at Rudgwick to a close. The damp, autumnal days in the little cottage on its clay soil, and the fatigue of constantly going up and down to town in order to do the work of the Art critic for the Glasgow Herald—which I for some time had undertaken—proved too severe a strain on me, and I found that in the winter months I could not remain at Phenice Croft without being seriously ill. So with great reluctance we decided to give it up at midsummer. I was anxious that we should seek for another cottage, on a main line of railway, and on sandy soil; but my husband feared to make another experiment and preferred that we should make our headquarters in London once again, and that he should go into the country whenever the mood necessitated. But his regret was deep. Phenice Croft had seen the birth of Fiona Macleod; he had lived there with an intensity of inner life beyond anything he had ever experienced. He knew that life in town would create difficulties for him, yet it seemed the wisest compromise to make. Our difficulty of choice was mainly one of ways and means; a considerable part of the ordinary work was in my hands, and I found it difficult to do it satisfactorily away from London. He expressed his regret in a letter to Mr. Murray Gilchrist:

Phenice Croft,

27th March, 1894.

My dear Gilchrist,

You would have heard from me before this—but I have been too unwell. Besides, I have had extreme pressure of matters requiring every possible moment I could give. My wife’s health, too, has long been troubling me: and we have just decided that (greatly to my disappointment) we must return to Hampstead to live. Personally, I regret the return to town (or half town) more than I can say: but the matter is one of paramount importance, so there is nothing else to be done. We leave at midsummer. As for me, one of my wander-fits has come upon me: the Spring-madness has got into the blood: the sight of green hedgerows and budding leaves and the blue smoke rising here and there in the woodlands has wrought some chemic furor in my brain. Before the week is out I hope to be in Normandy—and after a day or two by the sea at Dieppe, and then at beautiful and romantic Rouen, to get to the green lanes and open places, and tramp ‘towards the sun.’ I’ll send you a line from somewhere, if you care to hear.

And now, enough about myself. I have often meant to write to you in detail about your Stone-Dragon....

I believe in you, camerado mio, but you must take a firm grip of the reins; in a word, be the driver, not the driven. I think you ought to be able to write a really romantic romance. I hope The Labyrinth may be this book: if not, then it will pave the way. But I think you should see more of actual life: and not dwell so continually in an atmosphere charged with your own imaginings—the glamour through which you see life in the main at present.

Probably you are wise to spend the greater part of each year as you do: but part of the year should be spent otherwise—say in a town like London, or Paris, or in tramping through alien lands, France or Belgium, Scandinavia, or Germany, or Italy, or Spain: if not, in Scotland, or Ireland, or upon our Isles, or remote counties.

It is because I believe in you that I urge you to beware of your own conventions. Take your pen and paper, a satchel, and go forth with a light heart. The gods will guide you to strange things, and strange things to you. You ought to see more, to feel more, to know more, at first hand. Be not afraid of excess. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” says Blake, and truly.... Meanwhile let me send you a word of sunshine. To be alive and young and in health, is a boon so inestimable that you ought to fall on your knees among your moorland heather and thank the gods. Dejection is a demon to be ruled. We cannot always resist his tyranny, but we can always refuse to become bondagers to his usurpation. Look upon him as an Afreet to be exorcised with a cross of red-hot iron. He is a coward weakling, after all: take him by the tail and swing him across the moor or down the valley. Swing up into your best.