And according to The Contemporary Review:
“Fiona Macleod’s prose baffles description. It is perhaps hardly prose at all. It is melody in words suggesting scenes as much by sound as by the passage of ideas. The ideas conveyed by the actual words are supplemented by the rhythm or melody conveyed by the sequence of words. But it is, when all analysis is ended, something quite alone: pure music of a strange and curious quality that is neither prose nor poetry, but thrilling with the pain and passion of a Gaelic chant. It conveys to the mind and heart the scenes and sounds of nature with almost magical accuracy.”
The immediate object of our short visit to New York and Boston was that I should know in person some of the many friends my husband valued there, and I was specially interested to make the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Stedman, who gave me a warm welcome, of Mr. and Mrs. Alden, Mr. and Mrs. R. Watson Gilder, Mr. John Lafarge, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and Miss Caroline Hazard whom we visited at Wellesley College. But winter set in with December. The cold proved so severe that we sailed for and reached Naples in time to spend Xmas Day with friends at Bordighera whence W. S. wrote to Mr. Murray Gilchrist: “We are back from America (thank God) and are in Italy (thank Him more).... For myself I am crawling out of the suck of a wave whose sweep will I hope be a big one of some months and carry me far.”
In Rome we took rooms at the top of Fischer’s Park Hotel, whence from the balconies we had a superb view over Rome. There we saw a few friends—in particular Mr. Hichens who was also wintering there; but my husband did not feel strong enough for any social effort. As he wrote to Mr. Mosher:
11th Feb., 1905.
Dubious and ever varying health, with much going to and fro in quest of what is perhaps not to be found (for mere change of climate will not give health unless other conditions combine to bring about the miracle) have, among other causes, prevented my writing to you as I had intended, or, indeed, from doing much writing of any kind. I have written a few articles for Country Life—and little else, published or unpublished. The days go by and I say “at night”—and every night I am too tired or listless, and say “tomorrow”: and so both the nights and the morrows go to become thistles in the Valley of Oblivion. But with the advancing Spring I am regathering somewhat of lost energy, and if only I were back in Scotland I believe I should be hard at work! Well, I shall be there soon, though I may be away again, in the remote isles or in Scandinavia for the late spring and summer....
F. M.