that his work as "Fiona Macleod" that is
really distinguished is in stories of prehistoric Scotland and Ireland,
and of Scotland and Ireland in the earliest historic time. In these
tales of the Gaels of old time he for the first time breaks ground for
others. Before he wrote "Silk o' the Kine," and "The Harping of
Cravetheen," "The Annir Choile," and "Enya of the Dark Eyes," there were
no short tales of like temper and content and style in literature.

To me little is significant in the early verse of "Fiona Macleod," as
little was significant in all the verse of William Sharp until the time
of "Sospiri di Roma." And for all the beauty of these pictures in words
of the Campagna it is but a transient beauty. It was not until he was
mastered by the new beauty that Mr. Yeats brought into English poetry
that the verse of William Sharp won to itself abiding beauty and glamour
and inevitable phrase. "The House of Usna" (1900) brought to me "Dim
face of beauty haunting all the world," and the 1901 edition of "From
the Hills of Dream," "The Enchanted Valleys,"; but it was not until
after his death that I came upon his best verse of all, the verse of his
last five years, which was gathered together posthumously in the 1907
edition of "From the Hills of Dream," and included as "The House of
Beauty" in "The Poems and Dramas" of 1911. Who does not know these sets
of verses and "The Dirge of the Four Cities," does not know the ultimate
accomplishment of William Sharp in poetry.

That the "'Fiona Macleod' mystery" ended with the death of William Sharp
is, then, my belief, as it is that it began before he conceived of
exploiting a feminine sub-self he had long been aware of in himself. The
beginnings of that sort of writing that made "Fiona Macleod" a
reputation are to be found very early in his writing, in "The Son of
Allan" of 1881, in the "Record" of 1884, in the preface to the "Romantic
Ballads" of 1888, in the "Vistas" of 1894. That these earlier
expressions of "spiritual" states and guesses at mysteries are not,
except for certain parts of "Vistas," so well written as the best
writing of similar kind by "Fiona Macleod," is true, and perhaps, at
first glance, a matter of wonder. It is, however, I think, not difficult
to find an explanation of the better quality of the later work, and that
explanation is afforded, firstly and most largely, by the Celtic
Renaissance. A man of thirty-five, to all who know him a very vital
force, a