William Sharp (1855-1905) was one of those denizens of the literary world who resist categorisation. A Glasgow-born writer in many fields, from novels and short stories to essays, poetry, plays and criticism, he was also a biographer and translator, a friend of artists and poets — and a mystic, who adopted the name of Flora Macleod for his romances of Celtic life. As this pseudonym (or, rather, alternative persona) suggests, his broad vision of societal change encompassed gender equality, which he could see coming — and, he believed, none too soon. Here, while providing usefully broad context for the movement, he focuses on one of its "standard-bearers." — Jacqueline Banerjee
n his essay on Balzac, Sainte-Beuve speaks of the "topsy-turveydom of human worthlessness.” The sentiment underlying this phrase is common to many writers, of all periods and of all nations. But there is a sense in which it is intensely modern; - and it is significant that the keenest literary realisation of it is on the part of women. That life is “topsy-turvey”—in other words For we that — as Théophile Gautier, I think, says somewhere — chance is a treasure-house of atrocious combinations; that the lords of misadventure seem paramount; that the unexpected is, so to say, all that we can safely depend upon — all this is part of that universal worldly wisdom sung by the Omars and demonstrated by the Schopenhauers of every age. But that there is a radical topsy-turveydom, a blind struggling, a confused array of baffled forces, below the mere general mischance of circumstance, is a fact which, though foreshadowed by Hamlet and all his kin, is only now being realised with that poignancy of apprehension which is certainly the most characteristic note of our fin-de-siècle imaginative literature. At no time has the inner life of woman been so clearly, some will say so ruthlessly revealed. There are, for those whose eyes are opened, signals of profound import along the advancing line of humanity; and the most eager, the most intent, the most determined of the standard-bearers of the army of the coming generation are seen to be women. It is difficult for those who have not pondered the literary expression of the problems which are now still further dividing, and at the same time drawing to a closer union, men and women — for those who are ignorant of the ccnclusions of such iconoclasts as Strindberg, Nietzsche, and other dreamers of salvation through anarchy, as well as of the more disguised but not less significant writings of women throughout Europe and the Americas: a Matilde Serao in Italy, an Emilia Pardo Bazan in Spain, a "Rachilde" in France, a "George Egerton" (among others) in England — it is difficult for those unobservers to realise that we are not only on the possible verge of a conflict of utmost moment, but that the frontiers of "What is"? have been already crossed at a hundred places, and that the pioneers of "What is to be" are fighting and falling, slaying stealthily, encroaching steadily, a score hurrying in the steps of every "faithful failure."
This New Spirit, as it is vaguely called, demonstrates itself seriously, even in fiction. Certainly no more significant book of its kind than Keynotes has appeared recently, In the clever work of John Oliver Hobbes, of Sarah Grand, of Mrs. W.K. Clifford, and of other women novelists of the new dispen- sation, this spirit is conspicuous, though not with the same absolute unreserve, the same straightforward frankness of both thought and expression, as in the book now under review. For there can be no question as to the sex of "George Egerton." The touch of a woman is recognizable throughout. The time is, of course, past when a statement of this kind would convey a breath of condescension, if not of actual disparagement. The very qualities that are commonly taken to distinguish the work of a man from that of a woman — logical directness of thought, firmness of handling, conciseness, and a vigorous individuality in either the use or the voluntary renunciation of verbal graces — are the qualities pre-eminently possessed by "George Egerton." With the exception of Mr. George Meredith, there is no writer of our day who is more masculine in the quality of her wit, in her peculiar insight and directness of style, than John Oliver Hobbes; yet in Some Emotions and a Moral, in The Sinner's Comedy, in A Bundle of Life, there is the unmistakable suggestion, breath, atmosphere, call it what one will, which reveals the sex of the author. I read somewhere the other day that, while the first of the stories in Keynotes, "A Cross Line," is much more like the work of a woman than of a man, the three grouped under the general title "Under the Northern Sky," could not possibly be written by anyone but a man, and a man of exceptional, almost brutal vigour. This reminds one of the remarks made some fifty years ago, when the dramatic conception and the still more dramatically vigorous exposition of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre was held to be conclusive evidence as to the male sex of the author. If "George Egerton" is not a woman's woman, still less is she a man's woman. Not only does she go as far in outspokenness as is within reason; but in the matter of cynical recognition of what to her seem plain facts and obvious deductions, "goes one further," in this fashion: "The qualities that go to make a Napoleon — superstition, want of honour, disregard of opinion, and the eternal I — are oftener to be found in a woman than aman." It is only fair to add that this bitter saying is to a great extent redeemed by the rider: "Lucky for the world that all these attributes weigh as nothing in the balance with the need to love if she bea good woman, to be loved if she is of a coarser fibre." The story in which these words occur is the first, "A Cross Line." It is, on the whole, the most representative in the book: in its delicate literary art, its suggestiveness, its cynicism, its exaggeration of general deductions from the particular instance, and also in its obliquity of moral vision, by which the writer (unless I apprehend her meaning wrongly) conveys the suggestion that spiritual redemption is merely the outcome of a fortuitous happening of circumstances. In this story the realisation of the mystery of maternity and the instinctive stability of womanhood, though triumphant in the person of the heroine, are called into actuality by the merest hazard. Had a physical warning happily not intervened, had a serving-maid not been confidential, "the something white on the lilac-bush near the gate" might never have been flaunted in farewell, with the result that two lives would have been ruined, and one depraved. For the real truth of the matter is that the heroine of "A Cross Line" acts worthily and beautifully at the last, not so much out of womanly dignity and duty as from a sudden diversion of her mind from ennui to a new and engrossing interest. This may be a true deduction from the particular instance: as a typical generalisation, it is obviously false.
Of the first five stories, "A Cross Line" and "Now Spring has Come" are the most carefully wrought. Their insight, their nimble movement, their surety of touch convince one that in this writer's work we may confidently look for the charm of creative art — the spell that no dexterity, no mere technical excellence can simulate [143/144]
The "White Elf," the "Grey Glove," the "Empty Frame" are slighter; but the slightness of the third is as of flexible steel, and of the first as of the flawless ware of Murano. The "Grey Glove" is the least satisfactory study in this book of studies: not only on account of its inadequately fulfilled motive, technically speaking, but because of something lacking in the perfect wholeness of the primary conception. The three remarkable closing sketches, for they are sketches rather than stories, collectively called "Under Northern Sky," have a vigour that is almost brutal, an intensity that has in it something barbaric. The whole series of stories in Keynotes might have been grouped under the same epithet, for the pervading sentiment is "northern" to an exceptional degree. "George Egerton" has not only been influenced by Björnsterne Björnson and other Scandinavian writers, but has herself been won by the witchery of the North — a witchery that is like none other, whose appeal, when felt at all, is irresistible, and which to those who love it seems the most beautiful, the most alluring thing in literature. Keynotes has something of this spell brooding over its pages. But, after all, the volume is of the nature of an introduction. After so remarkable a prelude, we must all expect in due time an ampler and complete, a really notable book from the pen of "George Egerton." Experience, of course, suggests doubt, but I find it impossible not to be sanguine of high achievement on the part of this new writer.
Bibliography
Sharp, William. "Keynotes. By George Egerton. (Elkin Mathews & John Lane)." The Academy Vol. 45 (17 February 1894): 143-44. Internet Archive. Web. 30 October 2025.
Created 30 October 2025