G. Rossetti. The story of his literary
struggles is brimful of courage and romance, and the impression of the
book is mainly that of ubiquity. His insatiable curiosity seems to have
led him to know everybody, and every place, and everything.
At length Fiona Macleod was born. She arose out of nowhere, so far as
the reading public could discover. Really there was a hidden shy self in
Sharp, which must find expression impossible except in some secret way.
We knew him as the brilliant critic, the man of affairs, and the wide
and experienced traveller. We did not know him, until we discovered that
he was Fiona, in that second life of his in the borderland where flesh
and spirit meet.
First there came _Pharais_ in 1893, and that was the beginning of much.
Then came _The Children of To-morrow_, the forerunner of Fiona Macleod.
It was his first prose expression of the subjective side of his nature,
together with the element of revolt against conventionalities, which was
always strongly characteristic of him. It introduced England to the
hidden places of the Green Life.
The secret of his double personality was confided only to a few friends,
and was remarkably well kept.
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