“ ... The last two days have been days of great enjoyment to me. First and foremost they have been heavenly warm, with cloudless ardent blue skies—and everything is beginning to look fresh and green. Well, on Monday I drove with Mrs. Smillie away out of the Porta San Frediano till we came in sight of Scanducci Alto, and then of the Villa Farinola. There I left her, and went up through beautiful and English-like grounds to the house, and was soon ushered in to Ouida’s presence. I found her alone, with two of her famous and certainly most beautiful dogs beside her. I found her most pleasant and agreeable, though in appearance somewhat eccentric owing to the way in which her hair was done, and also partly to her dress which seemed to consist mainly of lace. A large and beautiful room led into others, all full of bric-a-brac, and filled with flowers, books, statuettes and pictures (poor), by herself. We had a long talk and she showed me many things of interest. Then other people began to arrive (it was her reception day).

Before I left, Ouida most kindly promised to give me some introductions to use in Rome. Yesterday she drove in and left three introductions for 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.”

“ ... 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.”

“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 the day in wandering about the latter, and watching the sunset over the far-stretching Umbrian country. I made the acquaintance of some nice people at the Hotel, and we agreed to share a carriage for a day—so early on Friday morning we started in a carriage and pair for Assisi. About 3 miles from Perugia we came to the Etruscan tombs, which we spent a considerable time in exploring: I was much struck with the symbolism and beauty of the ornamental portions, Death evidently to the ancient Etrurians being but a departure elsewhere. The comparative joyousness (exultation, as in the symbol of the rising sun over the chief entrance) of the Etruscans contrasts greatly with the joylessness of the Christians, who have done their best to make death repellant in its features and horrible in its significance, its possibilities.

Only a Renaissance of belief in the Beautiful being the only sure guide can save modern nations from further spiritual degradation—and not till the gloomy precepts of Christianity yield to something more akin to the Greek sense of beauty will life appear to the majority lovely and wonderful, alike in the present and in the future.

After leaving the Tombs of the Volumnii we drove along through a most interesting country, beautiful everywhere owing to Spring’s feet having passed thereover, till we came to the Church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli—on the plain just below Assisi. We went over this, and then drove up the winding road to the gray old town itself, visiting, before ascending to the ruined citadel at the top of the hill, the Chiesa di Santa Chiara. Lying on the grass on the very summit of the hill, we had lunch, and then lay looking at the scenery all round us, north, south, east, and west. Barren and desolate and colourless, with neither shade of tree nor coolness of water, these dreary Assisi hills have nothing of the grandeur and beauty of the barrenness and desolation of the north—they are simply hideous to the eye, inexpressibly dreary, dead, and accursed. I shall never now hear Assisi mentioned without a shudder, for picturesque as the old town is, beautiful as are the Monastery, the Upper Church, the paintings and the frescoes—they are overweighted in my memory with the hideousness of the immediate hill-surroundings. It made me feel almost sick and ill, looking from the ruined citadel out upon these stony, dreary, lifeless, hopeless hills—and I had again and again to find relief in the beauty of more immediate surroundings—the long grasses waving in the buttresses of the citadel, the beautiful yellow (absolutely stainless in colour) wallflowers sprouting from every chink and cranny, and the green and gray lizards darting everywhere and shining in the sunlight. Here at least was life, not death: and to me human death is less painful than that of nature, for in the former I see but change, but in the latter—annihilation. These poor mountains!—once, long ago, bright and joyous with colour and sound and winds and waters and birds—and now without a tree to give shadow where grass will never again grow, save here and there a stunted and withered olive, like some plague-stricken wretch still lingering amongst the decayed desolation of his birthplace—without the music and light of running water, save, perhaps twice amidst their parched and serried flanks a crawling, muddy, hideous liquid; and without sound, save the blast of the winter-wind and the rattle of dislodged stones.

Yet the day was perfect—one of those flawless days combining the laughter of Spring and the breath of ardent Summer: but perhaps this very perfection accentuates the desert wretchedness behind the old town of St. Francis. Yet the very day before I went I was told that the view from the citadel was lovely (and this not with reference to the Umbrian prospect in front of Assisi, which is fine though to my mind it has been enormously exaggerated)—lovely! As well might a person ask me to look at the divine beauty of the Belvedere Apollo, and then say to me that lovely also was yon maimed and hideous beggar, stricken with the foulness of leprosy.

The hills about Assisi beautiful! Oh Pan, Pan, indeed your music passed long, long ago out of men’s hearing....”

“On either Wednesday or Thursday last we started early for Monte Oliveto, and after a long and interesting drive we came to a rugged and wild country, and at last, by the side of a deep gorge to the famous Convent itself. The scenery all round made a great impression on me—it was as wild, almost as desolate as the hills behind Assisi—but there was nothing repellant, i. e., stagnant, about it. While we were having something to eat outside the convent (a huge building) the abbÉ came out and received us most kindly, and brought us further refreshment in the way of hard bread and wine and cheese—their mode of life being too simple to have anything else to offer.

Owing to the great heat and perhaps over-exposure while toiling up some of the barren scorched roads, where they became too hilly or rough for the horses—I had succumbed to an agonising nervous headache, and could do nothing for a while but crouch in a corner of the wall in the shade and keep wet handkerchiefs constantly over my forehead and head. In the meantime the others had gone inside, and as Mrs. S. had told the abbÉ I was suffering from a bad headache he came out to see me and at once said I had had a slight touch of the sun—a frequent thing in these scorched and barren solitudes. He took me into a private room and made me lie down on a bed—and in a short time brought me two cups of strong black coffee, with probably something in it—for in less than twenty minutes I could bear the light in my eyes and in a few minutes more I had only an ordinary headache. He was exceedingly kind altogether, and I shall never think of Monte Oliveto without calling to remembrance the AbbÉ Cesareo di Negro. I then spent about three hours over the famous 35 noble frescoes by Sodoma and Signorelli, illustrating the life of Saint Benedict, the founder of the convent. They are exceedingly beautiful—and one can learn more from this consecutive series than can well be imagined. While taking my notes and wondering how I was to find time (without staying for a couple of days or so) to take down all particulars—I saw the abbÉ crossing the cloisters in my direction, and when he joined me he said, “la Signora” had told him I was a poet and writer, and that I thought more of Sodoma than any of his contemporaries, and so he begged me to accept from him a small work in French on the history of the convent including a fairly complete account of each fresco. A glance at this showed that it would be of great service to me, and save much in the way of note-taking—and I was moreover glad of this memento; he inscribed his name in it....

The more I see of Sodoma’s work the more I see what a great artist he was—and how enormously underrated he is in comparison with many others better known or more talked about. After having done as much as I could take in, I went with the abbÉ over other interesting parts and saw some paintings of great repute, but to me unutterably wearisome and empty—and then to the library—and finally through the wood to a little chapel with some interesting frescoes. I felt quite sorry to leave the good abbÉ. I promised to send him a copy of whatever I wrote about the Sodomas—and he said that whenever I came to Italy again I was to come and stay there for a few days, or longer if I liked—and he hoped I would not forget but take him at his word. Thinking of you, I said I supposed ladies could not stay at the Convent—but he said they were not so rigorous now, and he would be glad to see the wife of the young English poet with him, if she could put up with plain fare and simple lodging. Altogether, Monte Oliveto made such an impression on me that I won’t be content till I take you there for a visit of a few days....”

“ ... I came here one day earlier than I anticipated. What can I say! I have no words to express my delight as to Venice and its surroundings—it makes up an hundredfold for my deep disappointment as to Rome. I am in sympathy with everything here—the art, the architecture, the beauty of the city, everything connected with it, the climate, the brightness and joyousness, and most of all perhaps the glorious presence of the sea.... From the first moment, I fell passionately and irretrievably in love with Venice: I should rather be a week here than a month in Rome or even Florence: the noble city is the crown of Italy, and fit to be empress of all cities.

All yesterday afternoon and evening (save an hour on the Piazza and neighbourhood) I spent in a gondola—enjoying it immensely: and after dinner I went out till late at night, listening to the music on the canals. Curiously, after the canals were almost deserted—and I was drifting slowly in a broad stream of moonlight—a casement opened and a woman sang with as divine a voice as in my poem of The Tides of Venice: she was also such a woman as there imagined—and I felt that the poem was a true forecast. Early this morning I went to the magnificent St. Mark’s (not only infinitely nobler than St. Peter’s, but to me more impressive than all the Churches in Rome taken together). I then went to the Lido, and had a glorious swim in the heavy sea that was rolling in. On my return I found that Addington Symonds had called on me—and I am expecting W. D. Howells. I had also a kind note from Ouida.

Life, joyousness, brightness everywhere—oh, I am so happy! I wish I were a bird, so that I could sing out the joy and delight in my heart. After the oppression of Rome, the ghastliness of Assisi, the heat and dust of Florence—Venice is like Paradise. Summer is everywhere here—on the Lido there were hundreds of butterflies, lizards, bees, birds, and some heavenly larks—a perfect glow and tumult of life—and I shivered with happiness. The cool fresh joyous wind blew across the waves white with foam and gay with the bronze-sailed fisher-boats—the long wavy grass was sweet-scented and delicious—the acacias were in blossom of white—life—dear, wonderful, changeful, passionate, joyous life everywhere! I shall never forget this day—never, never. Don’t despise me when I tell you that once it overcame me, quite; but the tears were only from excess of happiness, from the passionate delight of getting back again to the Mother whom I love in Nature, with her wind-caresses and her magic breath.”

The weeks in Venice gave my correspondent the crowning pleasure of his Italian sojourn; Venetian art appealed to him beyond that of any other school. The frequent companionship of John Addington Symonds, the long hours in the gondola, in the near and distant lagoons were a perpetual joy to him. June he spent in the Ardennes with my mother and me—at Dinant, at Anseremme and at La Roche. They were happy days which we spent chiefly in a little boat sailing up the Lesse, dragging it over the shallows, or resting in the green shade of oak and beech trees.

In July he was once more in London and hard at work. Among other things he had contributed a series of articles on the Etrurian Cities to the Glasgow Herald, and followed them with letters descriptive of the Ardennes, then relatively little known. In August he packed all his Italian notes, and joined his mother and sisters at Innellan on the Clyde, and later he visited Sir Noel Paton in Arran, whence he wandered over many of his old loved haunts in Loch Fyne, in Mull and in Iona.

On his way back to London—where he was to take up his work as Art Critic to the Glasgow Herald—a serious misadventure befell him. His portmanteau with all his precious Italian photographs, notes and other MSS. was lost. Nowhere could he trace it, and he had to return without it. He was in despair; for it meant not only the loss of material for future commissions, but the loss of work already finished, and in process.

It was a wet August; and his search through the various places he had passed on the Clyde was made in pouring rain. Again and again on the steamers and on the piers he was soaked during those miserable days. He settled in London at 13 Thorngate Road, Sutherland Gardens, in deep depression; his persistent appeals to the Railway Company were unavailing. As the autumn advanced his old enemy rheumatism took hold of him, and he was laid low again with rheumatic fever, which this time attacked his heart mainly. His sister Mary came up to town and she and I nursed him. The best tonic however toward recovery was the reappearance of the lost portmanteau with its much mourned over contents in a soaked and sodden condition, but still legible and serviceable.

In the Introduction to a selection of Philip Marston’s Poems my husband relates that:

“During the spring months of 1884 I was residing at Dover, and in April Marston came down from London to spend a week or so with me. The weather was perfect, and our walks by shore and cliff were full of delight to us both. Once or twice we crossed to Calais for the sake of the sail, and spent a few hours in the old French port, and returned by the afternoon boat. In the evenings, after dinner, we invariably adjourned to the beach, either under the eastern bluffs, or along the base of Shakespeare’s Cliff, for the music of the sea, in calm or tidal turbulence or tempest, had an unfailing fascination for him.

“He took keen pleasure in learning how to distinguish the songs of the different birds, and all spring’s sounds and scents were sources of exquisite pleasure. How well I remember the rapt expression of puzzled delight which animated his face, as one day we crossed some downs to the westward of Folkestone. ‘Oh, what is that?’ he cried eagerly; and to my surprise I found that what had so excited him was the crying of the young lambs as they stumbled or frisked about their mothers. He had so seldom been out of London in early spring that so common an incident as this had all the charm of newness to him.

“A frisky youngster was eagerly enticed alongside, and the blind poet’s almost childlike happiness in playing with the woolly little creature was something delightful to witness. A little later I espied one which had only been a few hours in the world, and speedily placed it in his arms. He would fain have carried it away with him: in his tender solicitude for it he was like a mother over her first-born.

“As we turned to walk homeward we met a boy holding a young starling in his hand. Its feeble strident cries, its funny little beak closing upon his finger under the impression it was a gigantic worm, delighted him almost as much as the lambkin. ‘A day of days!’ was his expressive commentary, as tired and hungry we reached home and sat down to dinner, with the deep boom of the sea clearly audible through the open window.”

What remains of me after to-day’s heat now writes to you. This morning I spent half an hour or so in M. Bourget’s study—and was flattered to find a well-read copy of my Rossetti there. He had a delightful library of books, and, for a Frenchman, quite a respectable number by English writers: amongst other things, I was most interested in seeing a shelf of about 30 volumes with letters or inscriptions inside from the corresponding contemporary critics, philosophists, etc. M. Bourget is fortunate in his friends.

I then went to breakfast with him at a famous CafÉ, frequented chiefly by hommes de lettres. At our table we were soon joined by Hennequin and two others. After breakfast (a most serious matter!) I adjourned with Bourget to his club, La SociÉtÉ Historique, Cercle St. Simon, and while there was introduced to one or two people, and made an honorary member with full privileges. I daresay Bourget’s name is better known to you as a poet, but generally his name is more familiar as the author of “Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine”—an admirable series of studies on the works and genius of Baudelaire, Renan, Gustave Flaubert, Taine, and Stendhal. He very kindly gave me a copy (which I am glad to have from him, though I knew the book already) and in it he wrote

À William Sharp

de son confrÈre

Paul Bourget.

After leaving him I recrossed the Champs ElysÉes—perspired so freely that the Seine perceptibly rose—sank exhausted on a seat at the CafÉ de la Paix—dwelt in ecstasy while absorbing a glace aux pistaches—then went back to the Grand Hotel—and to my room, where after a bit I set to and finished my concluding Grosvenor Gallery Notice.

On Sunday, if I can manage it, I will go to Mdme. Blavatsky.

On Monday Bourget comes here for me at twelve, and we breakfast together (he with me this time)—and I then go to M. Lucien Mariex, who is to take and introduce me to M. Muntz, the writer of the best of the many books on Raphael and an influential person in the BibliothÈque Nationale. Somebody else is to take me to look at some of the private treasures in the École des Beaux Arts. In the course of the week I am to see Alphonse Daudet, and Bourget is going to introduce me to Émile Zola. As early as practicable I hope to get to Neuilly to see M. Milsand, but don’t know when. If practicable I am also to meet FranÇois CoppÉe (the chief living French poet after Victor Hugo)—also M. M. Richepin, F. Mistral (author of MirÉio), and one or two others. Amongst artists I am looking forward to meeting Bouguereau, Cormin, Puvis de Chavannes, and Jules Breton. As much as any one else, I look forward to making the acquaintance of Guizot to whose house I am going shortly with M. Bourget. There is really a delightful fraternity here amongst the literary and artistic world. And every one seems to want to do something for me, and I feel as much flattered as I am pleased. Of course my introductions have paved the way, and, besides, Bourget has said a great deal about me as a writer—too much, I know.”

I might say “Why do you call just when we are out?” only that you might retort “Why are you out just when I call?”

Thank you very much for your new volume and yet more for the kindness which enriches the gift. Be sure my Mother and I retain you in friendly remembrance.

An imperfect acquaintance with your text inclines me for the present to prefer “the Thames” amongst rivers, and the “West” among winds, and the “Thrush” among song-birds. So also “Deserts” to “Cornfields.”

Of course all the pieces which memorialise our dear Gabriel interest us.

And “Ah Sin” I like and sympathise with: and I fear it is only too lifelike. Shall I or shall I not say anything about “Madre Natura”? I dare say without my taking the liberty of expressing myself you can (if you think it worth while) put my regret into words.

Allow me first to congratulate you on your marriage, and settlement in London. You will remember that I was privileged at Venice to see a volume of your “Transcripts from Nature,” in relation to which you told me of your engagement. I am therefore interested to hear of the happy event, and wish both you and Mrs. Sharp all the prosperity, which it is possible for mortals to enjoy! When I come to London (which I hope to do next year) I shall not forget your kind invitation.

I must give you most hearty thanks for the enjoyment of a rare delight in your post-card and letter about my Sonnets. I have so high an esteem of your own original work in poetry that to be appreciated by you is no common pleasure. Such words as yours are more than many of the ordinary reviews, even if kindly; and they take the annoyance away, which some unjust and ignorant critiques leave upon a sensitive mind.

If it were not that men like yourself, who have the right and power to judge, speak thus from time to time, I do not think I should care to go on publishing what I take pleasure in producing, but what has hitherto brought me no gains and caused me to receive some kicks. It is indeed very good of you amid your pressing literary occupations and the more delightful interests of your life at present, to find time to tell me what you really value in my work. Thank you for noticing the omission of the comma after islands in Sonnet on p. 38 of Vag: Lit:

It has fallen out accidentally; and if such a remarkable event as a 2nd. edn. occurs, it shall be replaced. So also will I alter what you rightly point out as a blemish in the Sonnet on p. 200—the repetition of deep deep and sleep in the same line. That was questioned by my own ear. I left it thus because I thought it added a sort of oppressive dreaminess to the opening of the Sonnet, striking a keynote. But if it has struck you as wrong, I doubt not that it should be altered; since it will not have achieved the purposed effect. And those effects are after all tricks.

I shall also attend to your suggestions about future work. I have had it in my mind to continue the theme of “Animi Figura,” and to attempt to show how a character which has reached apparent failure in moral and spiritual matters may reconstruct a life’s philosophy and find sufficient sources of energy and health. There is no doubt great difficulty in this motif. But were it possible to succeed in some such adumbration of what the Germans call a VersÖhnung, then the purgation of the passions at which a work of art should aim would be effected. Believe me, with renewed thanks, to be very sincerely yours,