ul is apparent in both, and
that she is singing the same tune; the only difference being, as it
were, in the quality of the voice, Fiona Macleod singing in high
soprano, and Mr. Yeats in deep and most heart-searching contralto.

The Fiona Macleod side of Sharp never throve well in London. Hers was
the fate of those who in this busy world have retained the faculty and
the need for dreaming. So Sharp had to get away from London--driven of
the spirit into the wilderness--that his other self might live and
breathe. One feels the power of this second self especially in certain
words that recur over and over again, until the reader is almost
hypnotised by their lilting, and finds himself in a kind of sleep. That
dreaming personality, with eyes half closed and poppy-decorated hair,
could never live in the bondage of the city cage. The spirit must get
free, and the longing for such freedom has been well called "a barbaric
passion, a nostalgia for the life of the moor and windy sea."

There are two ways of loving and understanding nature. Meredith speaks
of those who only see nature by looking at it along the barrel of a gun.
The phrase describes that large company of people who feel the call of
the wild indeed, and long for the country at certain seasons, but must
always be doing something with nature--either hunting, or camping out,
or peradventure going upon a journey like Baal in the Old Testament. But
there is another way, to which Carlyle calls attention as characteristic
of Robert Burns, and which he pronounces the test of a true poet. The
test is, whether he can wander the whole day beside a burn "and no'
think lang." Such was Fiona's way with nature. She needed nothing to
interest her but the green earth itself, and its winds and its waters.
It was surely the Fiona side of Sharp that made him kiss the grassy turf
and then scatter it to the east and west and north and south; or lie
down at night upon the ground that he might see the intricate patterns
of the moonlight, filtering through the branches of the trees.

In all this, it is needless to say, Mr. Yeats offers a close parallel.
He understands so perfectly the wild life, that one knows at once that
it is in him, like a fire in his blood. Take this for instance--

"They found a man running there;
He had ragged long grass-coloured hair;
He had knees that stuck out of his hose;
He had puddle water in his shoes;
He had half a cloak to keep h