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. TheLiterary Outlook in England & America. | |
| IV. | The Celtic Renascence, Ossian, Matthew Arnold,The Ancient Celtic Writers. | |
| V. | The Celtic Renascence. Contemporary. TheSchool of Celtic Ornament. | |
| VI. | The Science of Criticism: What it is, what it isnot. 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.