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

by Elizabeth A. Sharp

THE DOMINION OF DREAMS

For the January number of The Fortnightly Review for 1899 “Fiona” wrote a long study on “A Group of Celtic Writers” and what she held to be “the real Celticism.” The writers specially noted are W. B. Yeats, Dr. Douglas Hyde, George Russell (A. E.), Nora Hopper, Katherine Tynan Hinkson, and Lionel Johnson. With regard to the Celtic Revival the writer considered that “there has been of late too much looseness of phrase concerning the Celtic spirit, the Celtic movement, and that mysterious entity Celticism. The ‘Celtic Renascence,’ the ‘Gaelic glamour,’ these, for the most part, are shibboleths of the journalist who if asked what it is that is being re-born, or what differentiating qualities has the distinction of Gaelic from any other ‘glamour,’ or what constitutes ‘glamour’ itself, would as we say in the North, be fair taken aback.... What is called ‘the Celtic Renascence’ is simply a fresh development of creative energy coloured by nationality, and moulded by inherited forces, a development diverted from the common way by accident of race and temperament. The Celtic writer is the writer the temper of whose mind is more ancient, more primitive, and in a sense more natural than that of his compatriot in whom the Teutonic strain prevails. The Celt is always remembering; the Anglo Saxon has little patience which lies far behind or far beyond his own hour. And as the Celt comes of a people who grew in spiritual outlook as they began what has been revealed to us by history as a ceaseless losing battle, so the Teuton comes of a people who has lost in the spiritual life what they have gained in the moral and the practical—and I use moral in its literal and proper sense. The difference is a far greater one than may be recognised readily. The immediate divergence is, that with the Celt ancestral memory and ancestral instinct constitute a distinguishable factor in his life and his expression of life, and that with his Teutonic compatriot vision, dream, actuality and outlook, are in the main restricted to what in the past has direct bearing upon the present, and to what in the future is also along the line of direct relation to the present.... All that the new generation of Celtic or Anglo-Celtic (for the most part Anglo-Celtic) writers hold in conscious aim, is to interpret anew ‘the beauty at the heart of things,’ not along the line of English tradition but along that of racial instinct, coloured and informed by individual temperament.”

Naturally the article was favourably commented upon in Ireland. The immediate result in the English press was the appearance in The Daily Chronicle of January 28th of a long unsigned article entitled “Who is Fiona Macleod: A Study in two styles” to suggest that in response to the cry of “Author!” so repeatedly made, “we may, in our search for Miss Macleod, turn to Mr. William Sharp himself and say with literal truth ‘Thou art beside thyself!’”

The writer advanced many proofs in support of his contention, drawn from a close study of the writings and methods of work of W. S. and F. M.; and asked, in conclusion: “Will Mr. Sharp deny that he is identical with Miss Macleod? That Miss Macleod is Mr. Sharp, I, for one, have not a lingering doubt and I congratulate the latter on the success, the real magic and strength of the work issued under his assumed name.” At first the harassed author ignored the challenge; but a few months later F. M. yielded to the persuasion of her publishers—who had a book of hers in the press—and wrote a disclaimer which appeared in The Literary World and elsewhere.

In April 1899 The Dominion of Dreams was published by Messrs. A. Constable & Co.

To Mr. Frank Rinder the author wrote:

My dear Frank,

Today I got three or four copies of The Dominion of Dreams. I wish you to have one, for this book is at once the deepest and most intimate that F. M. has written.

Too much of it is born out of incurable heartache, “the nostalgia for impossible things.” ... My hope is that the issues of life have been woven to beauty, for its own sake, and in divers ways to reach and help or enrich other lives.... “The Wells of Peace” must, I think, appeal to many tired souls, spiritually athirst. That is a clue to the whole book—or all but the more impersonal part of it, such as the four opening stories and “The Herdsman”; this is at once my solace, my hope and my ideal. If ever a book (in the deeper portion of it) came out of the depths of a life it is this: and so, I suppose it shall live—for by a mysterious law, only the work of suffering, or great joy, survives, and that in degree to its intensity....