WILLIAM SHARP (FIONA MACLEOD) A MEMOIR COMPILED BY HIS WIFE ELIZABETH A. SHARP, ELIZABETH A. SHARP [bill gates best books .txt] 📗
- Author: ELIZABETH A. SHARP
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me which may be of good service—one to Lady Paget, wife of the British
Ambassador, one to the Storys, and one to Tilton, the sculptor....
Yesterday I perhaps enjoyed more than I have done since I came to
Italy. In the morning Arthur Lemon, the artist, called for me, and
being joined by two others (Lomax, an artist, and his brother) we had a
boat carried over the weir and we got into it at the Cascine and rowed
down stream past the junction of the Mugnone and Arno, till Florence
and Fiesole were shut from view, and the hills all round took on extra
beauty—Monte Beni on the right and Monte Morello on the left glowing
with a haze of heat, and beyond all, the steeps of Vallombrosa in
white—and Carrara’s crags also snow-covered behind us. We passed the
quaint old church and village of San Stefano and swung in-shore to get
some wine....
We rowed on and in due course came in sight of Signa. We put on a
spurt (the four of us were rowing) and as we swept at a swift rate
below the old bridge it seemed as if half the population came out to
see the unusual sight of _gentili signorini_ exerting themselves so
madly when they might be doing nothing. We got out and said farewell
to the picturesque-looking fellow who had steered us down—had some
breakfast at a Trattoria, where we had small fish half-raw and steeped
in oil (but not at all bad)—kid’s flesh, and delicious sheep’s-milk
cheese, bread, and light, red, Chianti wine. We then spent some two
or three hours roaming about Signa, which is a beautifully situated
dreamy sleepy old place—with beautiful “bits” for artists every here
and there—old walls with lizards basking on them in numbers—and lovely
views.
We came back by Lastia, a fine ancient walled town, and arrived in
Florence by open tramcar in the evening, finally I had a delicious
cold bath. The whole day was heavenly. If the river has not sunk too
low when I return from Rome, Arthur Lemon and some other artists and
myself are going on a sketching trip down the Arno amongst the old
villages—the length of Pisa—taking about two days.”
ROME.
“ ... It is too soon to give you my impressions of Rome, but I may say
that they partly savour of disappointment.... Of one thing however,
I have already seen enough to convince me—and that is that Rome is
not for a moment to be compared to Florence in beauty—neither in its
environs, its situation, its streets, nor its rivers. Its palaces
may be grander, the interiors of its churches more magnificent, its
treasures of art more wonderful, but in beauty it is as far short as
London is of Edinburgh. But it has one great loveliness which can never
tire and which charms immeasurably—the fountains which continually and
every here and there splash all day and night in the sunlight or in
green grottoes in the courts of villas and palaces. I am certain that I
should _hate_ to live here—I believe it would kill me—for Rome is too
old to be alive—unless indeed a new Rome entirely overshadows the past.
I don’t suppose you will quite understand, and I cannot explain just
now—but so I feel. Florence (after the cold has gone) is divine—air,
atmosphere, situation, memory of the past, a still virile present—but
Rome is an anomaly, for what is predominant here is that evil mediæval
Rome whose eyes were blind with blood and lust and hate. Ancient Rome
is magnificent—but so little remains of it that one can no more
live in it than in Karnak or Thebes: as for modern Rome, everything
seems out of keeping—so that one has either to weary with the dull
Metropolitanism of the capital of Italy or else to enter into the life
of the mediæval ages....
I expect and believe that I shall find Rome beautiful in many things,
even as she is already majestic and wonderful—and that the more one
becomes acquainted with the Eternal City the more one loves or at least
reverences and delights in it.
Meanwhile, however, with me, it is more a sense of oppression that I
experience—a feeling as if life would become intolerable unless all
sense of the past were put away. I hate death, and all that puts one
in mind of death—and after all Rome is only a gigantic and richly
ornamented tomb....
How I hate large cities! Even Florence is almost too large, but there
at least one can always escape into open space and air and light and
freedom at will—and the mountains are close, and the country round on
all sides is fair, and the river is beautiful. Do not be provoked with
me when I say that Signa, for instance, is more beautiful to me than
Rome—and that the flashing of sunlight in the waters of the fountains,
the green of Spring in the flowered fields and amongst the trees, and
the songs of birds and the little happy-eyed children, mean infinitely
more to me than the grandest sculptures, the noblest frescoes,
the finest paintings. This is my drawback I am afraid, and not my
praise—for where such hundreds are intensely interested I am often but
slightly so. Again and again when I find myself wearied to death with
sight-seeing I call to mind some loch with the glory of morning on it,
some mountain-side flecked with trailing clouds and thrilling me with
the bleating of distant sheep, the cries of the cliff hawks, and the
wavering echoes of waterfalls: or, if the mood, I recall some happy and
indolent forenoon in the Cascine or Monte Oliveto or in the country
paths leading from Bellosguardo, where I watched the shadows playing
amongst the olives and the dear little green and grey lizards running
endlessly hither and thither—and thinking of these or such as these
I grow comforted. And often when walking in the Cascine by myself at
sunset I have heard a thrush or blackbird call to its mate through the
gloom of the trees, or when looking toward Morello and the Appenine
chain and seeing them aglow with wonderful softness, or, on the Arno’s
banks I have seen the river washing in silver ripples and rosy light
to the distant crags of Carrara where the sun sank above the Pisan
sea—often at such times my thrill of passionate and sometimes painful
delight is followed by the irrepressible conviction that such things
are to me more beautiful, more worthy of worship, more full of meaning,
more significant of life, more excelling in all manner of loveliness,
than all the treasures of the Uffizi and the Pitti, the Vatican and the
Louvre put together. But whenever I have expressed such a conviction I
have been told that the works of man are after all nobler, in the truer
sense lovelier, and more spiritually refreshing and helpful—and though
I do not find them so, I must believe that to most people such is the
case, perhaps to the infinite majority.
And, after all, why am I to be considered inferior to my fellows
because I love passionately in her every manifestation the mother who
has borne us all, and to whom much that is noblest in art is due!...
Yet I would not be otherwise after all. I know some things which few
know, some secrets of beauty in cloud, and sea and earth—have an inner
communion with all that meets my eyes in what we call nature, and am
rich with a wealth which I would not part with for all the palaces in
Rome. Do you understand me, Lill, in this?... Poor dear! I had meant
to have told her all about my visit to Orvieto (alone worth coming to
Italy for—if only to behold the magnificent Cathedral) but instead I
have only relieved my mind in a kind of grumbling....
What fascinates me most in Rome is the sculpture. Well as I knew all
the famous statues, from copies and casts, some of them were almost
like new revelations—especially the Faun of Praxiteles, of which I had
never seen a really good copy. Can’t say, however, I felt enthusiastic
about the Capitoline Venus.”
ROME, 16th April, 1883.
“ ... I have just come in from the Campagna where I have spent some of
the happiest hours I have yet had in Rome. I went for some three miles
across the glorious open reaches of tall grass, literally dense with
myriads of flowers—not a vestige of a house to be seen, not a hint
of Rome, nothing but miles upon miles of rolling grassy slopes till
they broke like a green sea against the blue-purple hills, which were
inexpressibly beautiful with their cloud-shadows athwart their sides
and the lingering snows upon their heights. There was not a sound to
be heard save those dear sounds of solitary places, the endless hum of
insects, the cries of birds, the songs of many larks, the scream of an
occasional hawk, the splash of a stream that will soon be dried up, and
the exquisite, delicious, heavenly music of the wind upon the grass and
in the infrequent trees.... And a good fairy watched over me to-day,
for I was peculiarly fortunate in seeing one or two picturesque things
I might have missed. First, as I was listening to what a dear spark
of a lintie was whistling to its mate, I heard a dull heavy trampling
sound, and on going to a neighbouring rise I saw two wild bulls
fighting. I never realised before the immense weight and strength these
animals have. Soon after, a herd of them came over the slope, their
huge horns tossing in the sunlight and often goring at each other. I
was just beginning to fancy that I had seen my last of Rome (for I had
been warned against these wild cattle especially at this season) when
some picturesquely-attired horsemen on shaggy little steeds came up at
full speed, and with dogs and long spears or poles and frantic cries
urged the already half furious, half terrified animals forward. It
was delightful to witness, and if I were a painter I would be glad to
paint such a scene. I then went across a brook and up some slopes (half
buried in flowers and grasses) till I came to a few blackthorn trees
and an old stone-pine, and from there I had a divine view. The heat
was very great, but I lay in a pleasant dreamy state with my umbrella
stuck tentwise, and I there began the first chapter of the novel I told
you before I left that I intended writing. I had been thinking over
it often, and so at last began it: and certainly few romances have
been begun in lovelier places. Suddenly, through one eye, as it were,
I caught sight of a broad moving shadow on the slope beyond me, and
looking up I was electrified with delight to see a large eagle shining
gold-bronze in the sun. I had no idea (though I knew they preyed on the
lambs, etc., further on the Campagna and in the Maremma) that they ever
came so near the haunts of men. It gave one loud harsh scream, a swoop
of its broad wings, and then sailed away out of sight into the blue
haze beyond the farthest reaches I could see. Away to the right I saw a
ruined arch, formerly some triumphal record no doubt, and near it was a
shepherd, clad in skins, tending his goats. No other human sign—oh, it
was delicious and has made me in love with the very name of Rome. Such
swarms of lizards there were, and so tame, especially the green ones,
which knew I wouldn’t hurt them and so ran on to my hands. The funniest
fly too I ever saw buzzed up, and sat on a spray of blackthorn blossom
and looked at me: I burst out laughing at it, and it really seemed to
look reproachfully at me—and for a moment I felt sorry at being so
rude. I could have lain there all day, so delicious was the silence
save for these natural sounds—and all these dear little birds and
insects. What surprised me so much about the flowers was not only their
immense quantity, but also their astounding variety. At last I had to
leave, as it is not safe to lie long on the Campagna if one is tired
or hungry. So I strolled along through the deep grasses and over slope
after slope till at last I saw the clump of stone pines which were my
landmark, and then I soon joined the road....”
SIENA, 30th April, 1883.
“You will see by the above address that I have arrived in this
beautiful old city.
I left Rome and arrived in Perugia on Thursday last—spending the rest
of
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