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diff --git a/old/64001-0.txt b/old/64001-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9a743e3..0000000 --- a/old/64001-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5643 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of J. Comyns Carr, by Alice Vansittart Carr - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: J. Comyns Carr - Stray Memories - -Author: Alice Vansittart Carr - -Release Date: December 10, 2020 [EBook #64001] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Image source(s): https://archive.org/details/jcomynscarrstray00carrrich - -Produced by: Fay Dunn, Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. COMYNS CARR *** - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - -This ebook was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders 20th Anniversary. - -Changes made are noted at the end of the book. - - - - -J. COMYNS CARR - - - - -[Illustration] - -MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED -LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS -MELBOURNE - -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY -NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO -DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO - -THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. -TORONTO - -[Illustration] - -J. COMYNS CARR - -_Stray Memories_ - -BY -HIS WIFE - -MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED -ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON -1920 - - - - -_COPYRIGHT_ - - -GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS -BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. - - - - -TO -OUR GRANDSONS -RICHARD AND JOHN COMYNS CARR - - - - -FOREWORD - - -My husband wrote his own Reminiscences in his two books--_Some Eminent -Victorians_ and _Coasting Bohemia_, and it might justly be brought up -against me that I could have nothing to add to what he has said himself. - -But a critic remarked at the time that there were few “Reminiscences” -in which the pronoun “I” occurred so seldom; and it is upon this ground -that I venture to take my stand. - -His friends meant so much to him that his talk is all of them. But they -also loved him, and the few who are left among those of whom he wrote, -as well as the many more of the younger generation who testify to-day -to the exhilaration of his presence and the tonic of his humour may, I -hope, find in my effort something which may recall to them his urbane -and inspiring personality. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - I. COURTSHIP 1 - - II. THE HOME OF BOYHOOD 10 - - III. MARRIAGE 16 - - IV. HOME LIFE AND DRAMATIC CRITICISM 28 - - V. JOURNALISM AND LETTERS 43 - - VI. BOOKS AND TRAVEL 63 - - VII. GROSVENOR AND NEW GALLERIES 76 - - VIII. DRAMATIC WORK AND MANAGEMENT 83 - - IX. SOCIAL OCCASIONS 115 - - X. FOREIGN HOLIDAYS 129 - - XI. FISHING HOLIDAYS 156 - - XII. EARLY VERSE 175 - - -_Frontispiece_ - -J. COMYNS CARR - -From a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Co. Ltd. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -COURTSHIP - - -It was in June of the year 1873 that I first saw my husband. - -Aimée Desclée was beginning a memorable season of French Plays at the -Royalty Theatre, and it was in the capacity of dramatic critic to _The -Echo_--a post to which he had recently been appointed--that “Joe -Carr,” as his friends called him, sat awaiting the curtain to -rise on that remarkable performance of _Frou-Frou_ which set the -cosmopolitan world of London aflame in its day. - -He was twenty-four years of age; but he looked more, for though he had -the complexion almost of a girl and that unruly twist in his fair, -curling hair which belongs to early youth, he was broad-shouldered and -had the strong build of the Cumberland statesmen from whom he was as -proud to claim ancestry on his father’s side as he was of the -Irish blood that came to him from his mother. - -Not that I could have described him that evening: the stalls were too -ill lit and my excitement over the play was too great. - -I had but lately arrived from Italy--having cajoled my father, then -English chaplain at Genoa, into letting me “see London” -under the care of my brother, resident there; so that I had just -been shot from the socially restricted life of a parson’s -daughter in the small English colony of a small foreign town into the -comparative Bohemianism of the artistic set in the London of that day -best described by my husband himself in the introduction to his book -_Coasting Bohemia_. - -There was much that must have been, unconsciously to myself, of -rare educational advantage in the lovely scenery and picturesque -surroundings of my childhood’s life on the Riviera and in the -Apennines; and my parents so loved both Nature and Art that they gave -us constant change of opportunity in these directions. Yet I must -confess that as I grew up, the chestnut groves of the Apennines and -the shores of the blue Mediterranean became empty joys to me, and -even the comparative excitement of wearing my own and criticizing my -friends’ frocks in the Public Gardens of Genoa or the keener -delight of an occasional dance in a stately palace, was insufficient -to fill my cravings; and I longed for freedom and the attractions -of the world--more especially in London, which I only knew through -visits to relatives during the holidays of a short period of my life -at a Brighton school. And it was from the house of specially strict -relatives that I definitely escaped that evening, to come to the wicked -French play with my brother and his friend and housemate, Mr. Frederick -Jameson, an architect by profession, but incidentally a distinguished -musician--in later years the translator of the Wagner libretti. - -Mr. Comyns Carr, to whom they introduced me, sat behind us; and, though -he often told me that he marked me down as I came in, and somehow -associated me with the personality of Aimée Desclée herself, I took -small heed of him then, and when, as we sought a cab at the close of -the performance, he volunteered to go back and search for a valueless -brooch which I had lost, I did not have the grace to insist on waiting -for his return before we hurried off. - -But I was not to be punished; that very incident furnished occasion for -a next meeting. - -Through my brother he tracked me to a Bloomsbury boarding-house, -whereto insubordination to the deserved reproof of the conventional -relatives had made me condemn myself. - -Oh, that boarding-house--with the city clerk’s _bon mot_, -“Why are you like the spoon resting in your tea?” And the -spinster convinced that the Italian Stornelli I sang in the evening -must be “improper!” Could I have endured it if Mr. Jameson -and my brother had not started the glorious idea of theatricals in -their rooms hard by in Great Russell Street? And if, on the second day -of my sojourn, the lodging-house slavey had not burst into the wee -bedroom looking out to the backyard where I was putting on my hat, with -the news that a gentleman was asking for me at the front door? - -I never guessed who it was, but, through the sunshine that struck into -the dingy hall, I saw a strong figure on the door-step and, as I -advanced out of the dimness, a mouth hidden in a fair beard--thick and -long according to the fashion of the hour--parted in a smile; then I -recognised the young man whom I had seen two nights ago at the play. - -He had brought my lost brooch, but I don’t think the excuse -was needed. I knew why he had come, though at the moment an unwonted -shyness had fallen on me, and I think I did not know whether to be -pleased or frightened. - -He said, “Mayn’t I come in?” - -And I recollect my vexation as I answered, “There’s nowhere -to come to! The drawing-room is full of old ladies--the sort who tell -one that a waterproof and an umbrella are the safe dress for a girl in -London.” - -How he laughed! the laugh that many knew and loved him for: and any who -recollect the speckled-hen variety of the waterproof of the seventies -will not wonder. - -Then he said: “But you are going out. Which way are you -going?” - -My reply so well betrayed utter ignorance of London thoroughfares that -his next remark was natural. - -“Well, as I know you’re a stranger, I won’t say -you’ve a small bump of locality!” he said. And how often -did he say it again in after years! “But you had better let me -take you along. I’m going that way.” - -He told the lie unblushingly--and unblushing I did as he bade me and -followed him into the street. - -I had been brought up with the strictness not only of my -father’s cloth but of Italian customs, and I felt I was doing a -bold thing: in those days my whole English adventure was considered -bold by Mrs. Grundy, and my poor father had already come over on a -hasty visit from Italy to place me with those relatives from whom I had -escaped; but on that occasion I was simply overborne. Long afterwards, -at a crush where Royalty was present, my husband won a bet that he -would sup in the Royal room merely by the way in which he bade the -footman drop the dividing red rope, and by the same way of bidding a -porter put his valise on a cab, he won another with J. L. Toole as to -his luggage passing unexamined on a return from abroad. So it was by -some kindred “way” that he led me forth that day--whither -I knew not. And honestly, I forget where we went. I only knew that he -took me a long way--in more senses than one--and showed me many things -that were new and told me many that were more Greek to me than I chose -to admit at the time. - -I was an ignorant girl--the smattering of a brief boarding-school -education counting probably far less than the companionship of refined -parents in a land of beauty, and of the sort of cultivation in which -Joe lived and revelled I knew absolutely nothing. - -I don’t know that, at that stage in my career, I ever had so much -desire to learn as I pretended--and I am not sure that Joe cared. - -Yet he was in those days of his youth at the height of his enthusiasm -on matters of Art; he had just written those articles on living -painters--specially noting the so-called Pre-Raphaelites--which had -drawn considerable notice to his pseudonym of “Ignotus,” -and he was, at the moment, one of Rossetti’s favoured young -admirers. - -But I knew nothing of all this; nor of his having already begun his -career of a “wit” as Junior of the Bar on the Northern Circuit. In -fact, what I recall of him then is not his wit but his tenderness. -He was the ardent pursuer, the first man I had met with whom I was -afraid to flirt, because--in spite of some tremulousness in his eager -insistence--there was something that said: “I mean to succeed.” - -So I stood dreaming before the masterpieces of the National Gallery, -and he, I am bound to say, was content with much silence as we sat in -the large, cool rooms on that hot May day. - -Later on, when he was showing me what to admire, I would teaze him by -pointing to some atrocity in Art, and say: “That is what I really -like.” But not that day. - -And when the hour came for me to return to the boarding-house, I think -his sole thought was upon the contriving of our next meeting. As we -passed the British Museum--he looked up at the windows of my brother’s -rooms facing it, and said: “Sheridan Knowles’ ‘Hunchback,’ you said.” - -“Yes,” I replied. “And I do Julia and Mr. Jameson Master Walter. But it -may all fall through because he can’t find a man for the lover. It is -desolating.” - -I can recall the slow look he gave me; but then he smiled and said: -“Is that what you would say in your foreign tongues?” - -I got cured of such expressions later on, but that day I think I was -ashamed of my careless speech, for I knew better; and I shook hands -with him with a sense of disappointment as the slavey opened the door -into the dingy brown hall. Had I been too flippant and free to please -such a clever man? - -That evening, however, when I went to the rehearsal in Great Russell -Street, Mr. Comyns Carr was there; of course he had offered himself to -play that lover’s part. He was busy enough--though not so busy -as he had been before I knew him, when reading for his Law Scholarship -at the London University. He had, in fact, if I remember rightly, just -returned from his first experience on the Northern Circuit and was -beginning to supplement his earnings at the Bar by literary efforts. -But he was not too busy for this adventure, and there followed three -weeks of rehearsals under Mr. Jameson’s management, during which -my assets for the stage were calmly discussed, Mr. Jameson declaring -that they were good, and finally winning my brother’s consent to -the bidding of his theatrical friends--John Hare among them--to decide -the question. - -But Joe always pooh-poohed the notion. - -And when I said: “Well, I’m going to earn enough to keep -me in London somehow. I’m not going back to that dead-alive -life at home!” he only said cryptically, “There are other -ways.” - -I think I was a bit huffed at the time and crowed when a lightly spoken -word of praise came to me presently from a very authoritative quarter. - -For one day, as we sat resting from our labours in one of the window -seats of the beautiful Adams room where Burne-Jones had once painted -and that Whistler had not long left, a light rap fell on the door and a -voice long loved by us all called out: “Anybody at home?” -as the radiant face of Ellen Terry peeped merrily in upon us. - -There was little work done that day; but our stage manager, whose old -friend she was, bade me speak one of my speeches, and she said: “A -good carrying voice, and she finishes her words.” No merit to me, who -had been bred in a land where folk open their throats and where I had -heard cultivated English only; but I was naturally flattered and, when -“the night” came and I was awkward and terrified and John Hare smiled -pleasant nothings and my kindly, ambitious stage-manager’s ardour was -damped, I might have been sore cast down but that a new excitement and -glamour had flashed into my life. - -Joe Carr’s “way” was carving its straight course. - -Many a time I had been caught wandering aimlessly up Gower Street -pretending a shopping excursion and swearing that I had not seen him on -the opposite pavement, and many a half-hour had we both pretended to -enjoy the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, but in truth it was only -three weeks after that theatrical performance when I put my key one day -into the door of the Dispensary over which were those historic rooms -and felt rather than saw a figure behind me, and knew that the great -moment had come for me and that I was to be carried off my feet. - -As once before he said: “May I come in?” And I answered -nothing and left the key in the door (of which I never heard the end), -and he followed me up to the big studio where we were to spend the -first year of our wedded life. - -I had come there that day for a singing lesson from Mr. Jameson and, -when he returned presently, I am sure he guessed no more than we did -that in four months he would be in America and would have rented his -rooms to us for our first home. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE HOME OF BOYHOOD - - -So from that day there was no more dingy boarding-house for me: my -betrothed took me to his parents’ house at Clapham, where I well -remember the courtly words: “I hear I have to congratulate my son -Joe” with which I was received by his father. - -Small blame would it have been to parents, ambitious for the -advancement of their children, had they only seen in me a foreign -adventuress without credentials coming to snatch one of the flowers of -their flock; yet instead of that, most generously was I welcomed to a -home of which I have never seen the like; and if sometimes bewildered -and always non-plussed by the free-and-easy give and take and the -wonderful argumentative capacity of that large and variously gifted -family--I felt out of it--my lover was always unobtrusively protecting, -and the artist-sister who had always shared his tastes and sympathized -with his ambitions, often held out a kindly hand to help me up the -steep places. - -But they were few: the sunny places, full of real romance, of utter -confidence in our future--rash as it might appear to prudent -elders--bright with his radiant enthusiasms and his fine ambitions, are -the things that cannot fade from my memory. - -In those days much verse was written not then intended for publication, -but some of which has seen the light since. - -The typical gathering, of the large family, presided over by the wise -father whose “Landmarks, boys”! from the head of the table -generally calmed any storm, was most often one of obstinate argument -and fierce word-fights, and stands out now as the proper school where -the keen critical faculty and the gift of ready repartee for which many -friends now remember Joe Carr, were first forged and perfected. - -And, be it noted, that however sanguinary the fight, there was never -any malice, never any after ill-will among the combatants: generous -natures and a Celtic sense of humour prevented that--not a little -helped by the complete freedom of arena left by the parents. - -The mother ruled her household as Victorian mothers did, and spared -neither pains nor expense for her son’s ambitions and her -daughters’ proper advancement in the world; she welcomed -their friends with courteous Irish welcome, however little many of -their tastes might be in harmony with her own; but she let them -talk unmolested and was content to keep her own counsel, while she -ministered lavishly to their creature comforts; and the father--a man -of few words but of strong character and clear insight--kept his own -views undisturbed. He had nevertheless more deeply, though probably -unconsciously, impressed them on his children, than his children then -guessed. He was a broad Liberal, and it is interesting to note that, in -days when we were even more insular than we are now, no fighter in the -cause of freedom was forbidden his house because he was a foreigner. -Under the auspices of Mr. Adam Gielgud--the son of a great Polish -refugee--patriots from many lands who had sought our shelter, found -their way to that hospitable roof. Pulski and Riciotti Garibaldi are -the only other names that recur to me, but there were more and they -were all welcome. Men of after note in the art world and in journalism -came also as friends of Joe’s or of his sister’s--shaken -together with charming Irish and hard-headed North country cousins. - -Many were the times when dinner had been ordered for six, and sixteen -would sit down at the long mahogany table, the polishing of which Mrs. -Carr supervised daily, laden with homely but abundant fare. - -But Joe made many other friends in town who never found time to -visit Clapham. In spite of his recent appointment as dramatic critic -to _The Echo_ his new friends were less among actors than among -painters--Burne-Jones and perhaps chiefest just then, Rossetti, -whose friendship he describes himself in _Some Eminent Victorians_. -Nevertheless he had met Henry Irving through the son of the Lyceum -manager, Mr. Bateman, and had often passionately praised him. - -To the girl fresh from the small English colony abroad it was all -vastly entertaining, though I did not realize then how much of a -figure my betrothed already was among the men of his time. Even the -gayer part of my girlhood--the summers spent at S. Moritz, which -my father had discovered, as a homely village in his yearly Alpine -tramp--bore little resemblance to London excitements. I had but rarely -seen the inside of a theatre and never a fine English actor, and my -first vision of Henry Irving in “The Bells,” is a haunting -memory still. - -This was in July, 1873. - -But this engrossing first season of mine had to be interrupted; for -Joe, having at last obtained a commission from one of the dailies for -holiday articles which would bring in a sum just sufficient to pay -his expenses, was whirled off to the Engadine by my brother to be -introduced to my parents as my suitor. - -In some ways a strange meeting on both sides: to Joe the restrictions -of a parson’s home--though greatly modified by the manner of -a foreign life--must have seemed a contrast to the methodical yet -easy-going Clapham household; to my parents the reckless courage -of my lover’s plan of life, his bold enthusiasms and gay -self-confidence must have been--to my father, at all events--somewhat -startling. But my brother was a bit of an autocrat in the family -circle and knew the position which Joe was likely to win in the London -world of letters; my sister, a very young girl, kept the ball rolling -merrily on the lighter side, while my mother quickly discovered deep -points of sympathy with her would-be son-in-law, and the two would sit -on the terrace of our mountain home, looking on the green lake with -the snow-capped peaks cleaving an indigo sky, and quote Wordsworth -contentedly. To the end of her life they understood one another; but -even my father came to recognise the value of a fine character above -creeds. Certain it is that Joe was as much pleased with the Italian -cooking of the maid who sat on the sofa with the dish in her hands -while waiting for him to ask for a second helping, as he was surprised -at my brother advising him not to borrow a postage stamp when five -minutes later my father proposed to settle a small yearly sum upon me -which would enable us to marry as soon as Joe had any fixed income -whatsoever. - -As often later, his personality had won, his incurable optimism and -self-confidence had inspired the confidence of my parents, and it was -not misplaced. They made the speedy marriage which, he insisted, could -alone lead him to success, just possible: economy and courage did the -rest--the courage which never forsook him. For as I look over his -letters--written to me in later years when some one of his many bold -ventures had not succeeded like another--I find the cheerful phrase -recurring: “Don’t be afraid; there’s a lot of fight left in me yet.” - -Upon that--safest and most enduring of all incomes--we set sail without -a vestige of misgiving upon the sea of life; and I’m thankful to -say that I never was “afraid.” - -But it was this early marriage that led Joe for a second time, as he -tells in his _Reminiscences_, to change his profession, and gradually, -and to the distress of his legal friends, to forsake the Bar for the -more immediately remunerative work of literature. I well recollect his -joyful announcement to me of his appointment as Art Critic to the _Pall -Mall Gazette_--the beginning of a long period of many-sided association -with Frederick Greenwood; and that slender certainty of income provided -the condition imposed by my father: our wedding day was fixed. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -MARRIAGE - - -We were married in Dresden, where my father had taken a temporary -chaplaincy. - -Joe had a merry journey out from England with Mr. Jameson and a gentle -but less intellectual friend who was to act as best man. - -I was told later of this friend’s innocent boast of conversion to free -thought and of Joe’s quick reply: “Why, then, you’ll have plenty of -time to think.” But this sterner remark was not in his usual vein, -and much oftener I think he pleased his two friends by his immediate -sympathy with free foreign manners, most especially those of the -French, who always had the first place in his affections as contrasted -with “bulgy-necked Germans whose poverty-stricken tongue” forced -them to call a thimble a “finger hat” and a glove a “hand-shoe,” and -decreed that three men must order their baths as “drei.” I must add -in his defence that he never could speak or read the language; it was -his mother wit that pulled him through difficulties. Once when alone -in Dresden he was driven to ask his way in the words of a well-known -song and, even at that time, was probably set down as an insolent -Englishman for the intimate pronoun in his “Kennst du das Sidonien -Strasse”? - -What treatment would he receive now and how would he take it? - -But his two friends were German scholars and good cicerones, and led -him safely to the Hotel de Saxe on the morning of December 15th, 1873, -where my father married us in the presence of a newly arrived British -ambassador. - -There was some obvious raillery, to which Joe nimbly responded, in -consequence of that pleni-potentiary remarking, with grim humour, that -he wondered if these marriages were really valid; but the gentleman -took the best precautions available in requiring the legal part of -the ceremony to take place on the “British ground” of his -small, temporary hotel room, and there, both of us kneeling on two -little sofa cushions, the ring was put upon my finger. - -My father, however, naturally wanted to “finish us off” in -the English Church, and I remember my shyness when I saw the uninvited -crowd which had assembled there--I was told afterwards to see what a -high-art wedding dress would be like! - -Joe declared that they expected it to be scanty; if so they must have -been disappointed that the folds of my soft brocade, fashioned after my -artist sister-in-law’s design and approved by my husband, were -much more ample than was the mode of the day. - -How much have we changed since the Morris vogue! - -I don’t think I minded then being the centre of observation, even -though I may have guessed it was fraught with adverse criticism--not -wholly, as I now think, undeserved. - -But in the friendly little party that assembled in our modest home to -wish us God-speed there was no adverse criticism, and we went off to -Leipzig for our honeymoon _en route_ for England and work, without any -of the fatiguing excitement of a society assembly. - -Joe’s graceful little speech in reply to congratulations was -quite the merriest note of the simple festivities. - -I daresay the wine at that table was not wholly worthy of the palate -for which Joe had already acquired a reputation among his London -friends; but when we reached Leipzig I remember his ordering a bottle -of the celebrated Johannesberg for our wedding dinner. Possibly he may -have told a sympathetic _bon viveur_ of this afterwards; anyhow our -first dinner invitation on our return to London was to the house of a -wealthy bachelor who produced a bottle of the (ostensibly) same wine -with the dessert. Unluckily, Joe, on being pressed to praise it, said -with his usual candour: “Well, my dear fellow, you gave us such -excellent claret during dinner that you have spoiled my palate for -this!” - -The laugh that followed compensated for an ominous frown on the brow of -our rather peppery host, who was however placated by one of the guests -recalling an occasion on which Joe had mortified the famous proprietor -of a famous eating-house by forcing him to admit a mistake in serving, -later in the dinner, an inferior brand of the wine supplied at first. - -Two days of lazy sight-seeing in the fine old German town, and then on -we travelled; and a cold journey we had of it! But Joe’s spirits -were equal to every _contretemps_: even when we were turned out at a -dreary frontier junction in the middle of the night to await a slow -train, although we had paid first class fare and had been told there -was no change. - -There was but one other passenger in the train--a quiet, elderly -German, and when I translated to Joe the bullying official’s -assurance that this gentleman had agreed to waive his rights if we did -the same, he made me ask our fellow-traveller if this was the case. -Unwarily the gentleman admitted that he had been told the same thing -of us, and although I was unable to put all the epithets which Joe -applied to the lying official into colloquial German, I was buoyed up -to persuade the traveller to use some of them, with the result that a -special engine and first class carriage took us all three on to Paris -by the morning. Perhaps our unknown companion was a person in power. - -But in Paris fresh delays awaited us. When after two arduous but -cheerful days of some sight-seeing and a good deal of aimless and -delightful wandering and strange but equally pleasant meals in tiny -restaurants--we came to the Gare du Nord on our last day, Joe found -that he had not money enough to pay for tickets and luggage, and we -were obliged to return ignominiously to the hotel and borrow from our -best man--happily for us just arrived there on his own homeward route. - -Somehow we minded little, but we reached Clapham one day late for the -family Christmasing--arriving, indeed, when the turkey was already -on the table, and I think it took all Joe’s tact to win his -mother’s forgiveness. - -So that was the end of our one week’s wedding trip; it was back -to work and a busy time we had of it till our son Philip was about nine -months old. Then, by dint of Joe’s unceasing work and my economy -we found that we could allow ourselves a journey to Italy to stay with -the various friends of my girlhood. - -We called it our honeymoon--a belated one, like the gift of -a portrait-bust of our boy at three years old, which Joe -chaffed Miss Henrietta Montalba for presenting to us as a -“wedding-present.” But none the less a honeymoon for that, -though not of the conventional and luxurious type. - -Many a funny experience attended Joe’s efforts to pursue in travel the -economy which I had sternly sought to instil at home, and I am afraid -that he never again fully resumed the good habit from which he then -first broke away. Economy was not one of his virtues--was he not the -son of an Irish-woman? But, then, generosity was. Burne-Jones once -asked him why he took a cab to drive down the Strand, and he said it -came cheaper, because if he walked he was sure to give half a crown to -some former “stage-hand.” Yet when another day Burne-Jones himself was -deceived by a plausible story and Joe cried in reproof: “Can’t you see -that it’s only acting?” Burne-Jones replied: “Well, my dear, I’ve paid -ten-and-six to see worse.” - -But in the days of our first foreign trip my extravagant husband was -still “trying to be good.” - -I remember his taking the English prescription for a sedative to a -small chemist on Lago Maggiore, whom he described as the alchymist in -_Romeo and Juliet_; but when the dose, which at home represented about -two tablespoonfuls, arrived in a straw covered quart “fiasco,” he -preferred a night’s toothache to venturing on it. - -As representing his sympathetic understanding of one side of the -Italian character, I might cite our going into the quaintest of -curiosity shops in an old town where we had to wait at a junction, and -his tendering a cheque in payment of a trifling purchase. I am bound -to say he confessed afterwards that he had only bought me the trinket -in the faint hope of getting the change he needed and that he was -as surprised as I was to see the ox-eyed little hunchback unearth a -beautiful ancient casket and hand him from it the gold required. - -Possibly the timid request having come from me in the man’s own dialect -may have helped to confirm the impression of “good faith” given by -Joe’s candid countenance; but he did naturally count on me; and on a -different occasion when he was obstinately trying to drive a bargain -with an unwisely grasping _vetturino_, his delight was great at the -sudden drop of five francs in the demand of the astounded plunderer -upon hearing his own vernacular from my indignant English lips. - -There were many times when Joe would have none of my help. When we -were staying on the Riviera he would go every day into the town in the -rattling little omnibus that plied along the dusty road, succeeding -by sheer kindred _bonhomie_ in making friends with the drivers and -rejoicing at the abusive epithet of “ugly microbe” suggested by some -late epidemic, with which they used at the time merrily to bombard one -another. - -His best crony amongst the friends of my childhood was the old priest -of our Apennine village who had taught me the piano when I was a little -girl, in exchange--as he always averred--for my instruction in my own -tongue. - -I’m afraid his conversational English was little credit to me -and not much better than Joe’s Italian, although the old man was -a scholar and had taught himself enough, with occasional help from my -father, to read Shakespeare in the original. - -He pronounced the name with every vowel broad and separate, as in his -Latin; this was easy in that case, but when he wanted to tell which -were his “four favourite poets”--in which list he included -musicians--he was sore put to it for the pronunciation of Byron, -Beethoven and Bach. - -But Joe taught him more than I had done at ten years old, for which the -old man upbraided me again as he would have done in my baby days. - -I can see him standing in his shabby cassock beneath his pergola with -the sun filtering through the vines on to the hanging bunches of purple -fruit, and shaking his finger at me with mock solemnity as of yore. - -“When she was four years old she told me I spoke English like a -Spanish cow,” said he, quoting a Genoese proverb. “But she -taught me badly.” - -And then he related--what I refused at first to translate--how he had -had to whip me for stealing his currants. - -“Grapes she might have had--but English currants, they require -_watering_.” - -And grapes _we_ had too, as many as we could devour. In their natural -form Joe could pluck and eat them gladly too; but when it came to -the sour wine which the _Prevosto_ had made from them and with which -he served him at table, I am bound to confess that my husband risked -disgracing me by spilling it on the brick floor when his host’s -back was turned; and on one occasion he even went so far as to pour -a whole half _fiasco_ through the little window which separated the -refectory from the church, where he bespattered the marble pavement -behind the high altar. - -But these delinquencies remained a secret, and “Giò” became -the old man’s loved and patient instructor and friend. - -“Tor bay or not tor bay,” I seem to hear him painfully enunciating: -and then Joe finishing Hamlet’s familiar soliloquy in slow, even tones -as they passed up the vineyards. Pleasant climbs they were through -sweeping chestnut-woods and beside trickling trout-streams that grew -to rushing torrents after a thunderstorm; climbs that ended perhaps at -some mountain sanctuary whence the white cities of the plain could be -seen beyond a sea of gently lowering ridges and crests; or sometimes -only at some hamlet beside the stony bed of the wandering river, -where the old man would bid him wait while he mumbled his “Office” or -went in “to see an ill” in one of the thatched cottages adorned with -hanging fringe of golden maize-cones that cluster around the village -fountain. It was here that one evening, when I had been my husband’s -companion, the village sempstress came forth to greet us--she who had -made my own and my sister’s new cotton frocks on that great occasion -when the _Prevosto_ had begged for us, as the “cleanest children in the -village,” to strew flowers before the Archbishop when he came for the -Confirmation. - -I reminded the old priest of it and he said: “Yes, yes! -And the Archbishop asked if you were Protestants and I answered -‘Certainly! but their parents did not refuse because we are -Catholics: we all pray to the same God.’” - -The sempstress was old when Joe saw her and so stout that the great -scissors that hung from her vast apron bobbed as she moved; but she was -handsome still and gracious with the graciousness of a duchess; I well -recollect Joe’s comment on it. - -The laughing girls who clustered round us in wonder pinched his calves, -perhaps to see if they were padded, though their excuse to old Teresa’s -sharp and quick reprimand was that they only wanted to feel “the -beautiful real English wool” of his shooting stockings. - -Joe had not objected, but she was not placated, and bade the hussies be -off while she invited us into her dwelling. - -A girl sat at the hand-loom, rapidly moving her bare brown feet and -flinging the shuttle to and fro for the weaving of the sheeting, a -completed length of which lay beside her ready to be bleached on the -stones by the river. - -Joe wanted to hear about it from her, for her eyes were “like the -fish pools of Heshbon”; but she jumped up at the mistress’s -bidding and he lost interest in weaving; I think he would even have -tasted the sour wine which she presently brought on a copper tray if I -had not quickly invented a polite fiction to the effect that Englishmen -never drink anything but tea in the afternoon. - -A slice of chestnut cake we were forced to accept from the elder -woman’s hospitable hand as she asked my husband’s name. I remember the -charming bow with which she turned to him after she had heard it and -said: “_O che bel San Guiseppe!_” and his equally charming recognition -of her pretty compliment. - -Irish and Italian--there was some subtle affinity always between -them--the grave and the gay, the superstitious and the Pagan, as _he_ -said--and he was positively confused when she observed that his golden -beard and fair, curling hair were just like the St. Joseph’s in -the Church. It was a merry run we had down through the chestnut woods -and a sweet walk by the river in the sunset, back to the Presbytery. - -Graver but none the less satisfactory was the appreciation given to -him by my old nurse, when we arrived presently in Genoa. She was of a -different type--refined, sensitive, serious even to sadness--with the -blight always on her of a foundling’s ignorance of parentage; but -devoted beyond all words and of a rare intelligence: Joe was impressed -with her and likened her to a female Dante. - -Yet the brighter types were more in accordance with his holiday mood: -when we were on a visit later at a mediaeval castle whose battlements -stand sheer above the sea and whose olive groves slope to a transparent -bay, he spent all the time not occupied by eating figs off the tree on -the Castle keep to playing with half-naked brown urchins on the quay of -the tiny fishing-port below. - -His first acquaintance with one of them was at dead of night when we -were alone in the weird old place and a hollow bell clanged suddenly -through the hot air. - -Joe got out of bed--his chief fear being lest the mosquitoes should -take the chance to get in under the sheltering net--and made his way -down a dark, vaulted passage to the outer gateway and what was once -the portcullis. A ragged boy stood there with a telegram: it was an -invitation which should have been delivered six hours before, but the -boy had walked five miles along a cliff in the dark and Joe rewarded -him so well that his fame was spread in the village and he never more -walked peacefully abroad. - -The little girls, however, were his chief pilferers: he could never -refuse their appealing black eyes. And some of them were fine -coquettes. I can see him now dancing a hornpipe on the quay with a -half-clad little maiden who presently signed to him to take off his -hat; the elaborate bow with which he did so, bidding me apologise to -her for the omission, was worthy of the producer of many subsequent -plays. - -The little incident recalls another of later date. - -Then it was in the Engadine that we were holiday-making. Mr. and Mrs. -Bancroft--as they then were--had invited us to lunch at the Campfer -Hotel and we had walked over from S. Moritz where we were lodged. - -As we came up the path through the pine-wood beside the rushing stream -we saw the famous little lady standing on the dusty road above to -welcome us; and Joe--his hat in his hand this time--began advancing -towards her executing his hornpipe step. - -To the entranced amazement of a few loungers, she picked up her -skirts in the prettiest way imaginable and immediately responded with -a pas-seul of her own--her little feet nimble as ever, till the two -met, laughing immoderately, in the middle of the highway just as the -diligence hove in sight. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -HOME LIFE AND DRAMATIC CRITICISM - - -These latter incidents occurred some time after 1873. When we got -back to England after our Dresden wedding we took up our abode almost -immediately in the old Adams house in Great Russell Street. The two -rooms which Mr. Jameson sub-let to us were all that we could at first -obtain above the Dispensary, but they were large and quite sufficient -for the Bohemian life which was all that we could then afford; anyway -no subsequent home of ours was pleasanter and nothing was ever again so -little burthensome. - -At a long table by the door of the one large dwelling-room the old -couple who had been our predecessor’s factotums served our meals; and -around the handsome Adams chimney-piece at the other end, or in the -panelled window-seats looking on the restful façade of the British -Museum, we gathered Joe’s friends--they were all Joe’s friends--for a -“pipe and a chat.” - -And what chats they were! - -James Sime, the historian, kindliest of men with his Teutonic -philosophies and his deep Scottish sentiment and enthusiasm; Churton -Collins richly capping his host’s poetical quotations and -sometimes boldly challenged for an inaccuracy; W. Minto, afterwards -Professor of Literature at Aberdeen, who was just starting his -Editorship of _The Examiner_, and pressing Joe into the ranks of his -contributors; Camille Barrère, now French Ambassador in Rome, but then -a Communist refugee earning a living by London journalism, and of whose -friendship and instruction in French Joe tells himself; Frederick -Jameson and Beatty Kingston with their friends at piano and violin, -to say nothing of the colleagues with whom my husband had just become -associated in his work on _The Globe_ and of whom he again tells in his -_Eminent Victorians_. - -Dare I recall the evening when my husband proudly named me to Minto as -the writer of a little descriptive article which he had read in the -_Pall Mall Gazette_ and the consequent suggestion that I should do the -series of Italian sketches for _The Examiner_ which were afterwards -reprinted in a volume with Randolph Caldecott’s illustrations. - -Of course I should never have done even as much without their kindly -encouragement, but to the end of his life I think a good review of any -small effort of mine pleased Joe far more than one on his own serious -work. But I must admit criticism affected him little--never when it was -adverse and, in fact, only when it showed real insight. - -In his own merry manner he would say: “People always mean blame when -they talk of criticism. But I can _blame_ myself; all I want from -others is praise--fulsome praise.” And so it was! He had the need of it -which came of the Celtic blend of self-confidence and apprehensiveness. -Often have I heard him say of another of like blood: “He couldn’t -swim across the stream if he hadn’t our native conceit.” And then add -gravely: “Believe me, praise is the only sort of criticism that ever -helped a man on his road.” - -And in his own opportunities as critic and editor he always acted up to -this belief. - -In these rosy days of our early struggles and joys, the “first -nights” at which Joe was due in his capacity of dramatic critic -were red-letter days to me. - -The occasion when Ellen Terry first played Portia under the Bancroft -management of the famous little House in Tottenham Court Road was -one of them; I can see her again in her china-blue and white brocade -dress with one crimson rose at her bosom. Neither the fashion of the -dress or of the coiffure were perhaps as correct to the period as the -costumes which I designed for her later on for the better remembered -run of _The Merchant of Venice_ at the Lyceum; but how lovely she -looked and how emphatically Joe picked her out as the evening’s -star beside Coghlan’s Jew! Our hearts beat with pride at the -laurels often gathered by our friend, even in those early days before -her long list of triumphs with Henry Irving; and Joe, as we made our -way home, took some credit to himself for the vehement advice as to -her resuming her temporarily suspended career, which he had given her -a short while before. There were never any first-nights quite like the -Ellen Terry ones to us; but there were many pleasant and exciting -evenings--notably the nights of Irving’s remarkable performances -at a time when he was playing under the Bateman management in _The -Bells_, _The Two Roses_, and many other of his early successes; also -the famous runs of Robertson comedies at the little _Prince of Wales_ -theatre, where the charming Marie Bancroft was at the top of her long -popularity and John Hare’s delicate impersonations vied with his -manager’s carefully studied portraits of the dandy of the day. -Mrs. Kendal was also then at the height of her brilliant career, and -last but not least, the first performances of the Gilbert and Sullivan -operas were nights when the privilege of seats was not easily won. - -I can recall the first performance of _Iolanthe_, and the laughter that -shook the house when the wild applause at the close of the chorus: -“_Oh! Captain Shaw, true type of love kept under_,” at last -brought the Head of the Fire Brigade to the front of his box for an -instant. - -Yet all our first nights were not “great nights,” when--as a -fellow-critic once remarked to Joe--“Strong men shook hands with -strangers.” Sometimes they were even dull; on one occasion so much so -as to draw from one of the critics an unusually caustic bit of advice: -“We are told that so-and-so is a promising young actor,” he wrote, -“personally I don’t care how much he promises so long as he never again -performs.” - -For my part I confess that the theatre was still so new to me that I -looked forward to any first night with pleasant palpitation, though -my best frock was no doubt reserved for the choicest prospects. But -to Joe, possibly the duty of writing the prescribed amount on a -thoroughly poor piece grew irksome; and when, as on the occasion of -the production of F. C. Burnand’s _The Colonel_, his friends and -their serious work were the butt of boisterous hilarity, I know his -loyalty found it difficult not to retort, as he apparently did in the -article alluded to in the following correspondence. - -It must have been written at the moment when the campaign against -so-called “high art” was at its zenith, and had amused the -public as it would probably not do to-day; I should not quote it, but -for the urbane humour of Joe’s rejoinder to the (temporarily) -incensed author. - - _Feb. 22, 1881._ - - “DEAR CARR, - - I have heard that you do the _Saturday Review_ theatrical criticisms. - Did you do that on _The Colonel_? if so I am anxious to know if - you ever read _Un Mari à la Campagne_; also to ask where the puns - are in my piece? I admit three, put in _carefully_ into the right - peoples’ mouths--the right puns in the right places. - - Why is it a farce? Unless _She stoops to Conquer_ is a farce. Where - are the evidences of high animal spirits in my play? I don’t - pretend to quote your article verbatim but this is my impression of - its purport. Had I known at the time that it was your writing I should - have tackled you at once; first because I think you are wrong, second - because if you are not, I am, and I wish to be put right. I should - like to hear your suggestions for the improvement of Act III. where - you think I have bungled ‘into seriousness.’ - - I shouldn’t have taken the trouble to write if I hadn’t - been told that you were the critic who in a friendly way - pooh-pooh’d the notion of _The Colonel_ being a comedy. I - am aware that Dr. Johnson set down _She stoops, etc._ as a farce, - and farcical to a degree its plot is, but not its characters. - _The Colonel_ I contend is comedy--farcical neither in plot _nor_ - characters. - - Yours truly, - F. C. BURNAND (anxious to learn).” - - 19, BLANDFORD SQUARE, N.W., - _February 24th, 1881_. - - “DEAR BURNAND, - - I do not as a rule write the Dramatic Criticism for the _Saturday - Review_, only when the regular critic is away; but you are right in - supposing that I am the author of the article on _The Colonel_. - - Your letter was a surprise to me. I liked _The Colonel_ and thought I - had said as much: but I liked it in my own way and I am not going to - be bullied out of my admiration by the modesty of the author. - - I thought it a brightly written farce with a rather weak last act. You - tell me, and of course you ought to know, that it is not a farce but a - comedy: but if I were to adopt your classification I should not like - it at all, and I want to like it if you will let me--in my own way. - - You ask where the puns are and in the same breath you tell me where - they are. There are three of them you say, and they are all in the - right places. But I never hinted, my dear fellow, that they were not - in the right places. On the contrary it was your gravity not your - humour I found to be in the wrong place. You ask me again where are - the evidences of high animal spirits in your play; after your letter I - shall begin to doubt my recollections, but I had certainly thought the - interest of the play was mainly supported by its high spirits. To be - able to keep a wildly extravagant notion alive for the space of three - acts, demands I think an ample supply of animal spirits. But is it a - crime to have high animal spirits? I thought it was only the gloomy - apostle of high art who loathed hilarity. - - I haven’t the faintest objection to your tackling me, as you - call it, but you must give me leave to speak freely. When I hear you - say that _The Colonel_ is farcical neither in plot nor characters, I - begin seriously to wonder whether your letter is not altogether a form - of practical joke. - - I will not let myself be diverted by your allusions to _She Stoops to - Conquer_. The suggested resemblance had not, I confess, occurred to - me; there seem to me many differences between the two works but this - is rather a question for posterity. - - If, however, you insist on taking Goldsmith into your skiff it will - not be thought presumption on my part if I choose my place in Dr. - Johnson’s heavier craft. I would prefer, however, to take - your own account of your work. Not farcical in plot or character! - Surely your career as a humourist has been fed by the rarest and most - delightful experience, if it has brought you into contact with the - kind of man who would be driven to the verge of immorality by a dado! - No, I can’t think you serious!” - -Here my copy--the rough one of the letter sent--comes to an end; and I -have not F. C. Burnand’s further reply. - -But it is good to remember that there was never any breach between -the friends; I find a scenario by Burnand for a children’s -Christmas play--evidently sent to Joe about the time when he produced -Buchanan’s version of the _Pied Piper of Hamlin_ at the Comedy -Theatre with Lena Ashwell--still a student at the Royal Academy of -Music--acting and singing the girl’s part. - -And from a much later period I can quote the following further proof of -unimpaired friendship in a letter written to thank Joe for having been -largely instrumental in getting up the dinner given to Burnand on his -withdrawal from the editorship of _Punch_. - - - GROSVENOR HOTEL, - LONDON, S.W., - _June 11th, 1911_. - - “MY DEAR CARR, - - I cannot thank you sufficiently for all you have done in this matter - which would never have resulted in the great success it undoubtedly - achieved but for the first generous impetus which set the ball in - motion, and for the continued well directed shoves that kept it - rolling. - - Without your speech the entertainment would have been comparatively - flat; but your speech opened a fresh bottle and infused a fresh life. - - Yours most sincerely, - F. C. BURNAND.” - - -Apropos of Lena Ashwell, I may say that Joe was then so much struck -with her talent for acting that he persuaded her to leave the musical -profession, for which she was being trained, and gave her the part of -_Elaine_ in his _King Arthur_, shortly afterwards produced by Henry -Irving at the Lyceum Theatre. - -I set down these trivial memories as they recur to me, sprinkled over -many a year of work and of anxieties, but of much merriment and many -joys. But, taking up the thread of the first year of our married life, -I recall an amusing incident which bore some pleasant consequences. - -Joe, as was often the case, had sat up writing his dramatic criticism -after I, tired with the still thrilling excitement of some “first -night,” had gone to bed. - -He had posted his article and was sleeping the sleep of the just, when -our hoary retainer mercilessly awakened him early next morning with the -words: “Gentleman on business, Sir!” - -He donned a dressing-gown and went down none too willingly, to find an -unknown little Scot below, who briefly stated that he was empowered by -the proprietors of some Encyclopaedia to offer him a goodly fee for -a short life of--I think it was--Rossetti; but that owing to another -writer having disappointed the Editor at the eleventh hour the copy -must be delivered in three days. - -Joe was full of work, but the sum was too princely to be refused by a -man who knew that shortly he would have to feed an extra mouth; the -impossible was achieved, there was not even time to see a proof--and I -well remember Joe, when telling his tale to a friend, confessing his -relief that he had never come across that volume, and could only hope -that no one else ever had either. - -The cheque, at all events, he _did_ see, and with a part of it we went -to Derbyshire for our first country holiday. And a wild, happy holiday -it was! - -We lodged in the roughest of cottages in a tiny village near the Isaac -Walton Hotel, where Joe had contrived to get some fishing rights. With -what enthusiasm did he show me the haunts of his boyish holidays, the -scenes of fishing adventures and of great walks with early comrades! - -But that cheque from the Scottish publishers contributed to other -things besides a holiday. In the November of that year our son, Philip, -was born. Strange now to think that he, who was in France throughout -the Great War, should have had a German for his first nurse, and that -before he could speak he could hum many a Volkslied--an accomplishment -which his proud nurse and mother made him show off to our musical -friend, Mr. Jameson, who indeed even insisted on testing his intonation -on the piano. - -Other distinguished folk gathered around his cradle in the big studio. -I can see Ellen Terry nursing him in one of the wainscoted window-seats -and so apparently carelessly in one arm while she made wide gestures -with the other to emphasize some point she was discussing with my -husband--that I, nervous young mother, was forced to cry out at last: -“Oh, Nell! Take care of my baby.” - -Upon which she, in a tone of commiserating reproof, replied: -“Now, Alice, do you suppose I need teaching how to hold a -child?” - -Anyone who has seen her do it--even on the stage--knows very well that -she did not. - -So the discussion went on and I even remember the subject: for it was -just when she was weighing the offer of a fresh engagement on the -stage, upon which she had only then appeared in extreme youth. Joe gave -his advice emphatically, though he had never seen her act then and did -not know upon what a future that door would open. - -The opportunity was to be the production of her old friend Charles -Reade’s _Wandering Heir_. The caste was not strong, and it was -not wonderful that “Nell” scored a success; but I think -Joe saw more than most people in that first night at the Queen’s -Theatre when he rushed out between the acts and returned with a rather -damaged bouquet, the only one left in Covent Garden, which he presently -threw at her feet. - -It was the first of many a “first night” when he watched -her--critical, as it was his business to be, but sympathetic and -enthusiastic always. There was no limit to his praise, for instance, of -her pathetic portrayal of _Ophelia_: nor of his immediate appreciation -of that moment in her otherwise tender impersonation of _Olivia_ -in _The Vicar of Wakefield_ when she strikes the young Squire on -discovering his treachery. But these were only two out of many -thrilling “first nights” of her earlier engagements when -I sat beside him, my perfect enjoyment not even hampered, as in later -years at the Lyceum, by my anxiety respecting the proper finishing and -donning of the dresses which I had designed for her. - -But that day in Great Russell Street, even Joe, always nervous about -the children, thought more of our first born. To me her reproof -had been convincing; I never again feared Ellen Terry as the safe -and tender guardian of my children; indeed she first taught me -much delicate observation of infants, but Joe--often terrified -about them--believed in no advice save that of his mother, who had -borne thirteen and reared eleven; yet upon one point my shrewd -Irish mother-in-law, with her always wise but sometimes wittily -caustic advice, and the more indulgent artist were agreed, viz. -that--as our country butcher delighted Joe by saying about his -live “meat”--babies, though disciplined, should be “humoured -not druv.” - -Although nervous in moments of crisis Joe was, however, always calm and -competent; but he generally managed to relieve the situation with his -own irrepressible spirits at the earliest possible moment, and many a -comic tale hangs round the strange doings of an incapable old Gamp who -tended me at the birth of my second child. - -He would lure her with the seemingly innocent question: “Sweetened or -unsweetened gin, Mrs. Peveril?” knowing well that the spirit was needed -for friction and that “Peveril of the Peak” (otherwise hook-nosed) as -he had named her, would “rise” every time and answer demurely: “I’m -sure _I_ don’t know, Sir. I never tasted neither.” - -Luckily the old lady was neither sharp enough to see nor thin-skinned -enough to mind; but who ever minded Joe’s wit? Though it was keen -enough at times, the urbanity behind it shone through too well. - -Even his wife was a willing target--and a good one. As Edward -Burne-Jones used kindly to say when they had both tried me on their -favourite theme and taken me in over a Dickens quotation: “There -never was anybody who rose better than the dear lady.” Yet I -maintain that it needs a profound student of the master to know that he -has created an obscure character named “Pip,” other than -the human boy in _Great Expectations_. - -Well, many is the _bon mot_ to which I helped my husband. - -When I declared myself nervous over my part in private theatricals at -my father’s house in Canterbury, I can hear him say: “You -are surely not bothering your head about two half-pay officers and a -rural dean?” - -And one day at a picnic, commenting on a criticism of a sturdy -Irish uncle as to “not wanting these slight figures at all, -at all,” Joe gave me the sound advice not to sit upon a rock -“lest diamond cut diamond.” - -We were all young then and things that may seem truly foolish now made -the company laugh; it is more remarkable that the radiant personality, -the inexhaustible animal spirits and rare sense of humour should -have survived years of hard work and still have shone forth after the -prostration of illness. - -When scarcely recovered from a serious attack, Joe told me -one morning of a dream that he had had, which--as Mr. W. J. -Locke has remarked--contained such a “lightning flash of -characterization” that it is hard to believe it came to him in -sleep. - -“I dreamed,” he said, “that Squire Bancroft brought -me some grapes,” and as he removed the paper from the basket he said, -“White, Joe; when the case is serious I never bring black.” - -All through his illness, when increasing weakness and the -inconveniences arising from the Great War forced him to an uncongenial -life at sea-side resorts, his wit still bubbled up unbidden, as the -following letter testifies. The boarding-house in which it was written -did not afford exactly sympathetic society, yet on the Christmas -Day that we spent there he offered to give the company a little -“talk” if they cared to listen; and from his armchair, he -chatted for half an hour to a crowded lounge on the eminent men whom -he had known, interspersed with many a flash of fun appropriate to the -hour and received with bursts of laughter by the simple circle. - -“ ... We are comfortable enough here,” he wrote to his -daughter, “and there is entertainment furnished by some of the -types, both in their physique and in their intellectual equipment. Some -of the older females are designed and constructed with “dangerous -salients in their lines,” everything occurring in unexpected -places, and only dimly suggesting the original purpose of the Creator. -One or two are of stupendous girth with hollows and protuberances that -suggest some primeval landscape subjected to volcanic action.” - -Thus with the same humorous and kindly eye on the world as when he -had been the welcome entertainer of a more brilliant society, he -lightened the days--very heavy to him--of national anxiety, and with a -contentment rather wonderful in the typical Londoner, alternated the -few possible hours of patient literary labour with a cheerful delight -in the beauties of the place. - -“I wonder if the present difficulty in getting out of England -will make us appreciate it better,” he said as we stood one -evening on the pier looking towards old Hastings. “If we were -abroad we should say that medieval castle against the sunset was a -wondrous fine sight.” - -So did he still exemplify his life-long belief often expressed in the -words: “How can people be dull when they’re alive?” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -JOURNALISM AND LETTERS - - -My husband has given some account of his days at the Bar in his own -_Reminiscences_. I shall, therefore, not touch on that part of his -career, as it was practically ended before I knew him--the necessity of -earning daily grist for the mill having carried him entirely into the -ranks of journalism. - -I believe he got through a quite unusual amount of work in that -profession. Many an evening did I put back our little dinner while -he rushed off to Euston to give his copy of Art Criticism for the -_Manchester Guardian_ into the hands of the guard for early morning -delivery: he wrote on the same subject for the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and -the _Art Journal_, and what with criticism and social articles for the -_Saturday Review_ and _World_, he was never in bed till long after -midnight. - -It must have been about this time that he took me with him to Paris for -a short so-called holiday while he wrote his criticism for the _Pall -Mall Gazette_ on the _Salon_ of the year. - -A gladsome time it was in that most smiling of cities in spring. There -was a day on which a cry of dismay arose from our party--including his -fellow-worker and old friend, Adam Gielgud with his wife--when a letter -arrived from Edmund Yates refusing to let Joe off his weekly article in -the series of Skits on the London newspapers which were then attracting -attention in the _World_--I think the topic for that week was _The Old -Maid of Journalism_ (“The Spectator”) and perhaps that dignified lady -received a more caustic drubbing than she would otherwise have had -because of the distaste with which he set to his task. - -Cheerful meals in the humblest of restaurants--whenever we could run -to it, in the excellent Café Gaillon--now the fashionable _Henry_, but -then of far simpler ambitions; merry meetings at the house of that good -comrade of Joe’s of whom he tells the tale of exchanged French -and English lessons at _Kettner’s_ restaurant in London, and -lastly a gorgeous feast in the suburban home of a fellow contributor -to _L’Art_, to both of which festivities my sister, Mrs. -Harrison--then Alma Strettell--was bidden as being of our party. - -Both occasions were a pleasant peep into Parisian bourgeois life. Our -first host was eager to show that he could give us a _gigot_ of mutton -as well roasted as in London, and sorely crestfallen was the poor -man when the little joint came to table black as a cinder and blue -when cut. Joe quickly made capital out of the catastrophe, however, -by declaring that one didn’t come to Paris to eat home fare, -and that it served his friend right for putting his cook to such an -unworthy task. - -Our second entertainment, though we did not meet such intellectual -company as the distinguished writers on the _Temps_ and the _Débats_, -who so courteously helped Joe to express brilliant ideas in daringly -lame French and paid such charming court to my sister and myself, -was more typical of its class; for, although the young couple of the -house were our entertainers, the old couple were our hosts, and it was -wondrous and delightful to see the respectful attitude of the son and -his wife to the parents and the undisputed supremacy which they held -from their two ends of the long table set out under the trees of the -flower-laden May. - -A rushing week it was, into which my sister and I crammed much -enthralling shopping. I can see now Joe’s reproachful face at the door -of the café where we had kept him waiting half an hour for _déjeuner_ -after his hot and tiring morning’s work at the _Salon_. I made a -shameless excuse to the effect that we had secured many “occasions” -(bargains). And as I gave him a toothbrush which he had asked me to -buy, he said: “Is this an ‘occasion’ too? I’d rather have a punctual -meal than an occasional toothbrush!” - -Merry hours but very far from idle ones, and he reaped an additional -and unexpected reward for his labours when we got home. - -We had been bidden to a cricket match at his old school the day after -our return, where, in virtue of his old rank of Captain of the Eleven, -he was to play as a visitor; and I seem to see the boyish blush of -satisfaction with which he told his beloved master--Dr. Birkbeck -Hill--that it was he and no leader-writer on the _Times_, as was -rumoured, who was writing those humorous articles on the newspapers for -the _World_. - -My husband has told so much of the tale of his early journalistic days -in his _Eminent Victorians_ that I find little to add; but I remember -a curious incident in the fine old room at Great Russell Street when -George Hake--Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s secretary--came one day, -ostensibly “on his own,” to have a talk with him on the -series of papers on painters of the day, appearing above the signature -of “Ignotus,” but of which the authorship had leaked out. - -Joe has told, in _Coasting Bohemia_, of the rift in his friendship with -Rossetti over these articles, and a sad tale it is. Mr. Hake fancied -that Rossetti would like to see his friend’s bride, but, alas! -he was taking too much on himself, for the visit never came off. But -Rossetti was at that time already an invalid and was not to be counted -upon. - -It must have been some time after this that the French proprietors of -that luxurious publication, _L’Art_, invited Joe to run a London -office for its sale, in connection with which he afterwards started -an English version--_Art and Letters_--edited and largely written by -himself. - -Many funny incidents group themselves around the person of the French -proprietor, whose English, though insistently fluent, was of the -lamest, and I think Joe sometimes led him on in the expectation of some -pleasant malapropism. - -“How are you now?” he would ask, when the poor gentleman had “suffered -the sea.” - -“Only ’alf and ’alf, my friend,” the Frenchman would reply. “But I -must back tonight. I make my trunk at four.” And his apt _mots_ on the -super-sensitive lady-assistant who “always begin to tear for nothing” -and “forgive never man that he ’ave not married her” afforded Joe -continual delight. - -But a courtlier host than that Frenchman never existed. He would -entertain us royally at the old _Maison Dorée_ when we went to Paris -though he ate but little himself and always preferred the humbler Café -Duval; so little, in fact, was he in accord with most men of his nation -upon the food question that, when Joe gave him the usual fish dinner at -Greenwich, he was naturally dismayed at the explanation, after several -courses had been passed by, of “_Mon ami, je ne mange jamais du -poisson_.” - -_Art and Letters_, though an artistic was not a financial success, -but it may have led to the one of his many adventures of which he -was perhaps the most proud: the planning and editing, at the request -of Messrs. Macmillan, of their beautiful magazine, the _English -Illustrated_. - -He has spoken so well himself of his pleasant intercourse with the men -who worked for him--struggling men in those days but known to fame -since--that there is little left for me to record, save to note that -among the many tributes from his many friends I prize not least those -of his collaborators of that time, with the oft-repeated testimony to -his having helped them to the first-rung on the ladder of success. - -Mr. Stanley Weyman, whose first book, _The House of the Wolf_, was -published in those pages, comes first to my mind, and those who -have read my husband’s _Eminent Victorians_ will recollect -the striking proof of the accuracy of his critical faculty in the -incident of Mr. Weyman’s bringing him two letters--written -with an interval of many years--in which he criticized a play of -that brilliant novelist’s in almost identical words, although -the first letter was written openly to the author and the second--in -forgetfulness of the fact--to a theatrical agent who had not divulged -the playwright’s name. - -Robert Louis Stevenson was one of his cherished contributors, and I -recall an angry rebuke from that great man to the Editor, who had -dared to strike out a word in the title of one of his articles at the -moment of going to press; it is pleasant to add that a placated and -highly amused reply followed on Joe’s deft and short method of -extricating himself from the position: “My dear Stevenson--You -see, I knew that the extra word was a slip of the pen,” he wrote, -“for I should as soon have expected you to talk of female bitches -as of male dogs. Yours etc.” - -Sir James Barrie wrote one of his early essays for the _English -Illustrated Magazine_, and in a kindred branch of the adventure--that -of illustration--Mr. Hugh Thomson was discovered by Joe--a poor Irish -lad living on the scanty pay of advertisements for a business firm, -and devoting all his leisure to flights of fancy in the most delicate -realms of the humorous eighteenth century subjects in which he has -always excelled. Joe confessed to me on the day when the boy sought an -interview, with his portfolio under his arm, that he did not at first -believe he had done the drawings himself. But he gave him a subject, -and when he returned with it after a day or two his doubts were set -at rest, and he offered him the post which he held for so long with -distinction. - -The relations between editor and artist were always affectionate and I -have two letters from the latter--one to Joe and one to myself--full -of a touching gratitude such as perhaps only an Irishman could have -expressed. The one quoted below is of later date. - - - 27, PERHAM ROAD, - WEST KENSINGTON, - _February 5th, 1909_. - - DEAR MR. COMYNS CARR, - - It is only now that we have contrived to get a reading of your - delightful book “Some Eminent Victorians,” and it has - literally staggered me (with delight) to find myself in such company. - I so rarely see a soul that I was entirely ignorant, and never dreamt - of it. We had of course read such reviews of the book as came our way - and had rejoiced in the whole-hearted pleasure with which the notices - were charged but we never suspected that in a corner of the book you - had propped me up. My wife is more than ever confirmed in her opinion - that you are the most delightful author that ever lived, and she is - already looking forward, frugally, to the time when the libraries will - be selling off their soiled copies of books when she hopes to secure - Some Eminent Victorians and ME for her very own. Possibly you might - think it forward in me if I told you what a genuine delight it is to - read the book for the way it is written. Your pages on Bright and the - orators are as eloquent as they. But it is all the most entertaining - book we have read for ages. Below is a memory of the famous interview - you had with the suspicious character from Ireland. I think I have - caught the bannisters well, as also Lacour waiting outside. - - Your delighted - HUGH THOMSON. - - -So much for the affectionate reverence in which one held him who was -starting life’s race when that “famous interview” took place. Joe was -comparatively young himself then, but as the years went on there were -many of greater disparity in age, who did not fail to pay him the same -tribute; indeed, I don’t think there was ever any sense of difference -in this respect between him and the many good comrades in many classes -of society who rejoiced to _work_ with him because he always lightened -labour with kindness and good humour--who rejoiced to _play_ with him -because he was never afraid of, or at a loss for, the right word at -the right moment, were it grave or gay, appreciative or pungent as the -occasion required. - -He was always the encourager, never the discourager, of sincere and -patient effort: bombast and a pandering to mere popularity, he could -censure with words of biting wit, but he never laughed at those who -sent their arrows at the moon though he knew well enough that such -might not achieve financial prosperity. His unfaltering advice was -always that everyone should stick to what he best loved to do. - -“My dear,” I remember his saying to me one day, when I had -tried and signally failed to write a popular farce, “it takes a -more competent fool than you to know just what kind of foolishness the -public wants. Don’t you be put off what you _can_ do because you -fancy it is not what they want.” - -And in a letter written perhaps in a more serious spirit to one often -oppressed by a sense of failure I find the words: “There is no -such thing as failure--excepting the failure to see and love the beauty -of life.” - -These are among the graver memories of him: his generation will -remember him most readily for what Sir James Barrie, writing to me -of him as “a man for whom I had a mighty admiration,” appreciatively -describes as “his positive genius for conversation.” The latter word is -so apt because it perceives that the Celtic gift of repartee was the -most finely pointed of his arrows: he was generally at his best when -some might have fancied that he was going to be non-plussed. - -One day he told me of a dinner at which King Edward VII., then Prince -of Wales, was the honoured guest. Someone had whispered to the Prince -that my husband was a Radical, and he, turning to him, asked if such a -thing could be true. - -“I _am_ a Radical, Sir,” replied Joe, and after a -little pause added: “but I never mention it in respectable -society.” - -The table was silent for an instant, but the Prince led the way with a -laugh and all was well. - -A funny little incident, told me in the small hours when Joe came home, -described the dire discomfiture of one of his greatest admirers when, -having invited him to supper that he might silence “a conceited young -ass” by his superior wit, the “conceited young ass” so fancied himself -as to monopolize the whole conversation: this fiasco, though not to -his own glorification, caused Joe infinite delight; but the disgusted -host was only consoled after he had arranged a duel for my husband with -Robert Marshall, the playwright, a recognised wit--the condition being -that neither should think before speaking: I consider that here an -unfair advantage was taken--any one who was a friend of Joe’s knowing -full well that this was just the whip of which he loved the lash. Be it -added that this tilt between the two knights cemented their friendship. - -A host of these incidents took place in his well-loved Garrick Club, of -which--by the testimony of many friends--he was the heart and soul and -some add the good genius. I believe there were quarrels not a few that -he averted or headed by his tact and kindly humour--quarrels that might -sometimes have led to sorrowful decisions by the Club Committee to -which he belonged. He told me one day of a humorous end to an earnest -expostulation he had held with poor Harry Kemble--greatly beloved in -spite of his known weakness: “Every word you say is true, my -dear Joe,” the actor had replied with the tears streaming down -his great cheeks--“but what if I like it?” - -It is good to remember that that colossal figure--of which our -daughter, seeing it on the stage when she was a child, asked -tremulously, “Is it a human being?”--remained to the end an -honoured institution of the Club. - -Of Joe’s tactful capacity as a peacemaker I was a witness at the -home of my mother’s family--the beautiful Gothic Abbey of Bisham -near Marlow. We were staying with my cousin, George Vansittart, who -was then the owner. He was the kindest of men, but had a peppery and -ill-controlled temper, and nothing so inflamed it as the growing habit -with trippers on the Thames of landing upon his grounds. His gardeners -and keepers were sternly bidden to warn off these rash people, and he -himself, if walking or shooting in Bisham woods--quite a mile from the -Abbey--would angrily bid them begone. - -One day he and Joe were sitting in his ground-floor library facing the -river, when he espied a boat containing a lady and a man making across -stream towards the big trees shading his lawns. He jumped up--his face -flushed, and watched the man rise, a powerful figure, ship his sculls -and push into shore. “By----, the insolent brute! Under my very -nose!” shrieked the incensed squire. And, seizing a heavy stick -he strode out of the French window--Joe following somewhat alarmed. - -My cousin took no pains to soften the language with which he addressed -“the insolent brute” before he was half-way across the lawn, and Joe -hastened as he saw the big man step defiantly out of the boat while -the woman wept and implored him unavailingly to return. Joe caught my -cousin by the arm--he was getting on in years--for as he drew near he -saw that the intruder was an actor--of no great refinement--known in -the profession for a swaggering bully. - -“There’s a lady in the boat, Mr. Vansittart,” said -my husband. Instantly my cousin stopped, and the man, recognising -Joe, greeted him surlily and presently turned back to his companion -now fainting on the bank. Joe followed him, and George Vansittart, -returning to the house, called out to his butler, who was hastening -to the scene: “Take out some brandy and water for the lady and -see she needs nothing.” Joe brought back a message of thanks -from the poor thing, and was far too anxious lest the outbreak should -affect my cousin’s health to mind his remark that he was to be -congratulated upon his acquaintance. - -Recurring to that appreciation of him by the young in his last years, -which is one of the sweetest tributes to Joe’s memory, many -alert and boyish faces rise up before me; eager over some animated -discussion in which the give-and-take was always even between the older -man and the younger, or alight with laughter at his quaint wit and -merry censure of some foible of the day; for though he could laugh at -its foibles he was never out of heart with the world, which was always -to him a good world, even when he prophesied that, through _some_ -crucible, the crazes of the last twenty years would have to pass -for elimination. “They have got to have this epidemic,” -he would say of Cubist painter and eccentric poet, “but -they’ll get over it, and meanwhile the good old world will go -on quietly as usual and young folk will fall in love and want poets -to sing for them and so the best things must come to the top in the -end.” - -Apart from this sort of, as he called it, “half-baked” -thought, he was always ready to weigh and consider every new aspect of -life; and if no passing mode could deceive him or put him out of heart, -either with his life-long heroes or with his own methods of expression; -yet to the last hour he was always keen--not only for fresh work -himself, but to see the work of the world develop. In the words of Mr. -Stopford Brooke, quoted in the _Life_ by Prof. L. P. Jacks, he would -have said: “Whether in this world or another we will pursue, we -will overtake, we will divide the spoil.” - -And so, whether he were hanging over the garden gate of our holiday -home gathering information from the labourers who passed along the -road, or discussing ethical problems with his sons and their friends, -he was always “pursuing”--and the young were always at home -with him, for he never wanted to lead only to express his opinion and -listen to their reply. - -One of these younger men--Mr. Hammond, by no means an -“obscure” one--writes: “There have been few men -whose companionship was so delightful to all who had the privilege -of knowing him.... I always remember with gratitude that he allowed -even young and obscure people to enjoy the pleasure of his best -conversation--one of the rarest intellectual pleasures that I have ever -known.” - -And Mr. Hugh Sidgwick--killed in the prime of his own rare intellectual -career--follows with what might be called an echo: “I can’t -say how much I owe to him and to you for the many happy hours I spent -at your house. He never let the barrier of the generations stand -between him and us young men and we all of us looked on him as a real -friend and the most delightful of companions. There are memories of -many good talks and jovial discussions--with Mr. Carr always leading -and contributing more than his share of life and vivacity to them. And -it was inspiring to us--more perhaps than appeared--to meet one who was -so young in heart, so full of life and so sensitive to all the beauties -of all the arts.” - -The words of W. A. Moore--blessed with his own Celtic temperament and -eager fighting quality--sound the same note: - -“It was a great thing to have known him,” he writes -from Salonica, “I can never forget him for he was a most -radiant personality.” It is a curious thing that a kindred -epithet--“joyous personality”--was a favourite one of his -own, and he would maintain that you could see two men in the Seven -Dials--one lean, soured and scowling, his companion stout, merry, -humorous and full of vitality, though both dwelt on the same gutter and -wore the same threadbare garments. - -It is, of course, quite impossible to give on paper any idea whatever -of the charm and brilliancy which these and many more testimonies -prove; to quote some words spoken by our friend Sir Arthur Pinero, -“It is rather like trying to remember the summers of years -ago!” and he left so few letters, possibly because he possessed -that “genius of conversation,” that he has few words to say -for himself; but it may not be inappropriate here to quote two which he -wrote to an old friend who had affectionately watched his whole career -and highly appraised his powers and judgment. - -The first is in answer to an appeal as to whether it showed -“symptoms of senile decay” not to be able to admire _The -Hound of Heaven_ by Francis Thompson, which had been hailed with a -shout of praise from a section of the public. I quote it as showing -Joe’s own confession of faith in regard to the poetry that -endures. - - - “My dear--The Hound is a Mongrel. I know him of old and - have more than once driven him from my door. Several friends have - endeavoured to persuade me that he was of the true breed but I would - have none of him and will not now. Upon the provocation of your letter - I read the thing again and most gladly and willingly share your - symptoms of senile decay. The fabric of it I take to be pure fustian. - And there is not a line in it that does not debauch the language it - employs; not a phrase in it that does not seem to me to vulgarize by - its expression whatever innocent thought may underlie it. - - The more I ponder over the great verse which time has left - impregnable, the more I am impressed by the true poet’s - unfailing reverence for the sanctity of words in their relation to - sense and by his stern rejection of all melody that is not rooted - there: the tinkling cadence of an obvious tune is not for him. His - purpose might be taken to be no other than to express in final - simplicity the thought that is in him. Why it is, or how it is, - that in this process he achieves a result, in which the sense of - beauty banishes all remembrance of intellectual origin--that is the - poet’s secret: the mystery and the mastery of his craft. - - But I am getting into depths that cannot be plumbed on this tiny sheet - of paper. It is the old subject of many a long night’s talk with - you and concerns matters in which I think you and I are of accord.... - - As to Electra (Richard Strauss’ opera) of course I have no right - to plead before that tribunal; but the terms in which it is praised - make me suspect it is not praiseworthy. - - Yours ever, - J. W. COMYNS CARR.” - - -In relation to the above I cannot refrain from quoting an appreciation -of my husband written some little while later by the late Theodore -Watts Dunton. He had asked for news of his old friend after his first -serious illness, and the following passage occurs in his acknowledgment -of the reply: - -“Although he belongs to a later generation than mine, he and I -are as intimate as brothers and I deeply prize the intimacy. There is -no man on this earth whom I love more. Moreover I have always asserted -that he is a man of genius--a true poet, with wings clipped, for the -present, by the conditions of life.” - -As his intimates know, Charles Dickens was one of the brightest stars -in my husband’s firmament. During all the years of our marriage, I -never remember him without a volume of Dickens and one of Boswell’s -_Life of Johnson_ beside his bed. Many a “night’s talk” with the -life-long friend to whom he wrote as above had been devoted to -ineffectual attempts to converting him to a real appreciation of -Dickens--attempts which, as the following letters show, were finally -successful. - - - “MY DEAR,---- - - I am very much interested in your letter about Dickens.... [This was - in the early stage of conversion.] Curiously enough I have lately - been reading the whole of Macready’s Diary and was immensely - interested in it. His conceit of course is colossal, but the diary - struck me as affording a revelation of a real and virile creature of - great independence of character, gifted on occasion with striking - insight and vision. I was noticing as I read that Dickens was the only - one of all his friends of long date with whom he never quarrelled, - and it struck me that there must have been something innately fine - and magnanimous in Dickens’ nature to command this constancy of - friendship from a man so vain and irascible as Macready. - - But Macready sometimes sees far and I think his understanding of - Browning and his appreciation of the poet’s inherent limitations - in the field of drama are very illuminating. Evidently the drama was - the goal of Browning’s ambition and yet it has always seemed to - me--as it appeared to Macready--that he was not in essence a dramatist - at all. - - When you next come to London you should look in at the Grafton - Gallery and take a glance at the Post Impressionists. I saw most - of them in Paris, with something added of further extravagance and - crude indecency; but the Parisian critics, with few exceptions, took - small account of the matter. Here, on the contrary, nearly all the - younger critics are at their feet. It seems to me to indicate a wave - of disease, even of absolute madness; for the whole product seems to - breathe not ineptitude merely but corruption--especially marked in - a sort of combined endeavour to degrade and discredit all forms of - feminine beauty. - - Yours ever, - JOE.” - - -Later this was his great indictment of the Cubists also, well known to -his friends in the Club. - -The following letter is to the same correspondent written during the -last year of his life and in much more satisfied mood on the subject of -his hero. - - - HASTINGS, 1915. - - “MY DEAR,---- - - It gave me delight to get your letter--the greater in that you talk to - me of Dickens. I never tire of him nor of talking of him. But I was - not unprepared for your enthusiasm. I remember only the last time we - touched on the topic it was already brewing. I am struck above all by - what you feel about the composer’s gift in him, that unconscious - power of massing and moulding his material, the instructive adjustment - of varying currents in the narrative, so that--as he traces the - courses in which they run, we recognise in wonderment that they are - confluent streams though often seeming for the time to flow so far - asunder. Even the most modest of us are, I think, sometimes aware - that there is a force outside ourselves which holds the reins of our - fancy and that we must needs obey; but the exercise of that faculty in - Dickens approaches the miraculous. At times it would almost seem as if - he threw down the gauntlet to himself, directly challenging his own - powers of artistic control by flinging at his own feet the unsifted - harvest of the most prodigal invention with which man was ever endowed - and defying the artist in him to reduce it to order and harmony. - - And yet the artist invariably wins and by a victory so complete as - to cheat us into the belief that every obstacle he subdues was an - integral feature of the original design. Inexhaustible invention and - unfailing control, these are the things that always seem to me to set - Dickens on an eminence which he shares with no one in his own time and - with only a few in our creative literature of any time. Shakespeare - stands there--as he stands everywhere, no matter what the quality to - be appraised or what the arena in which it finds exercise, above all - rivalry; and Walter Scott most surely and securely too; and ... well, - I don’t feel able to be certain about any others!... - - I am not disposed to quarrel about _Bleak House_, I do not like it; - but that story and _Little Dorrit_ have always been my stumbling - blocks. - - On the other hand I heartily agree about _Our Mutual Friend_; I think - it illustrates a giant’s way with Nature which becomes a fawning - slave before the tyranny of genius. - - Yours ever, - JOE.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -BOOKS AND TRAVEL - - -Of work in volume form my husband left comparatively little, and all -the books of his earlier years were on Art. His criticisms on the -various exhibitions of Old Masters at Burlington House, chiefly written -at that time for the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the _Art Journal_, were -useful to him in a volume on _The Drawings of the Old Masters_ in the -British Museum, upon which subject he was a careful and enthusiastic -student; and at a somewhat later period--when he and Mr. C. E. Hallé -organized the famous exhibitions of those drawings at the Grosvenor -Gallery--a recognised connoisseur. - -It is interesting to note that much of the matter written in those -early years upon a subject on which he was always a master was echoed -involuntarily in my husband’s swan-song upon the same subject, -i.e. _The Ideals of Painting_, posthumously published in 1917; for -although he naturally acquired a deeper knowledge of individual -pictures as the years went on, bringing him opportunities of visiting -the great collections of Europe, he very rarely changed his opinion -of the characteristics of each painter; and his loving appreciation of -the subtlest qualities in his favourites was such that I remember a -gifted connoisseur saying to him once respecting a fellow art critic: -“So-and-so could tell you whether a picture was authentic or -not with his back to it, provided he had got its pedigree at his -fingers ends; but you don’t depend on books; you know the man -and his method and study the painter in the light of them, and if your -verdict is sometimes at variance with the alleged pedigree, by Jove, -you’re generally right.” - -So thoroughly had he steeped himself in the subject that when we went -on our belated honeymoon to the towns of Northern Italy, he always -knew exactly where every picture was that he wanted to see, and many -is the argument that I had in those less enlightened days with Italian -officials as to the existence of some particular work of Art which -they little knew was under their care, and many lovely things we found -in private places which, perhaps even now, are missed by the ordinary -tourist. - -I recollect the weary trip he made from Milan that he might study -the wonderful Luini frescoes at Saronno. Now the little town is on a -railway, but in those days it was only reached in a horse-omnibus, -slowly jogging, as only the poor starved Italian horses of that day -_could_ jog, across the sun-baked Lombard plains. The beautiful lunar -frescoes, some of them in sepia, in the sacristy of the Church of San -Maurizio Maggiore at Milan, were among the things which we should -never have seen if he had not made me insist on the sacristan opening -that closed door that he might examine for himself. And a really funny -incident occurred at Mantova--a town lying off the regular route, but -so picturesque, with its lovely Palazzo del Të raised on arcades built -into the marshes--that it is strange it should not be oftener visited -by the tourist. - -We lodged in a vast but dirty old Inn, waited on by a girl whose beauty -compensated, in _Joe’s_ eyes only, for slipshod methods; nothing but my -knowledge of the tongue would have procured us even the comfort of a -huge warming-pan with which I endeavoured to dry the damp sheets. After -a sleepless night and a tiring morning in the Castle looking at the -Mantegna portraits of grim Gonzagas and stooping to enter the “dwarf’s -apartments,” whence slits of windows peer upon the eerie marshland, -I was in no mood for an altercation. Yet an altercation was the only -means by which I finally succeeded in inducing the morose custodian of -a dark church in the town to do Joe’s will: he had come to Mantova to -see examples of Mantegna for some work that he was doing and he was not -going away without having unearthed this specially interesting one. He -led the way himself to the side-chapel where he believed the painting -to be, but lo! a hideous modern daub hung over the little altar and -his face fell. Then he had an inspiration: in spite of the man’s -remonstrances he went up the steps and peered behind the gaudy painting. - -“Tell him I’ll pay him to help me get this thing -down,” he said: “I believe what I want is at the back of -it.” - -Then my altercation began. - -We were mad English, and one couldn’t behave in a Church as if it -were a shop. - -But “mad English” or not we were also “rich -English” (in the custodian’s eyes), and a very little -English gold won the day: we saw the picture we wanted. - -These were only a few instances of the “tonic of a young man’s -conceit and obstinacy”--to use Joe’s own chaff of himself--in that -never-to-be-forgotten journey through the highways and by-ways of -Northern Italy. Everything was grist that came to his mill in this as -in each separate field of his activities; but Florence was the real -goal of all his desires, and this first visit to it, close on the study -which had made him long to see for himself the Masters whom he loved -and the fairest of towns which was their home, had a glamour which -was never quite reached in later visits. I can see again the poor -_Trattorìa della Luna_ where we lodged and the handsome waiter whom we, -in the wild enthusiasm of the hour, persuaded to follow us to England. -That he ever arrived at all was the marvel. He might well have spent -the journey-money given him on pastimes suggested by his reproach to -me in London afterwards as to engaging a cook who remembered the birth -of Christ: that he arrived weeping in a November fog and bitterly -resenting having been left to come “by sea when we had come by land,” -was not wonderful. Joe was patient with him for my sake and many a -funny tale did he forge out of the Italian’s vagaries. - -But when this unkempt Adonis had demoralized our maid, smashed our -pretty wedding gifts in fits of gloom, during which he would shake his -fist at the fog and say: “Goo’ nigh’,” and finally taunted us with not -providing sufficient wine at a humble entertainment to excuse one of -the guests for having left his hat behind, we felt it best he should -return to his native land--though not before he had inadvertently half -poisoned us with dried mushrooms sent by his relatives. - -Well, badly as Mario behaved subsequently in Great Russell Street he -was one of the features of our happy Florence holiday and directed our -steps towards many out-of-the-way places which Joe thirsted to explore -in search of Art treasures unknown to guide-books. - -My husband’s knowledge culled from many old books was of great -value to him, and with his bump of locality, joined to my knowledge of -the speech of the people, we penetrated into many lovely corners and -met with as many amusing adventures. - -Strange food did we eat too on that weird trip, for here, as elsewhere, -Joe insisted on exploring. - -“Tell him I’m a judge of the _cuisine_,” he would -say, “and only want the best.” And--with an instinct that -the rewarding tip would not be wanting--as it never was--cooks hastened -to concoct the spiciest of their national dishes for his criticism. - -The publication of Joe’s first book was quickly followed by an -illustrated volume on the Abbey Church of St. Albans from articles -written for the _Art Journal_; plenty of study on architecture and -on monkish lore was done for this in the Reading Room of the British -Museum. Later in life Joe used to say that, after the period of -ravenous and enthusiastic boyhood, he might never have opened a serious -book again--so much more enthralling to him was the daily intercourse -for work or play with living men and women--had it not been for the -necessity of boiling the pot; and that all that he read for a special -purpose stuck to him as no desultory reading did and became stored in -his mind for use and pleasure for the rest of his life. - -I can see myself how true this was in respect of the whole range of -Arthurian legend, on which subject he became an authority; he devoured -everything in English and French that he could find when he was writing -his plays of _King Arthur_ and _Tristram_, and never forgot any of it. - -The _Abbey of St. Albans_ was too special a subject to make a popular -book, and the first volume of Joe’s work which attracted -attention was _Essays on Art_, gathered together in 1879. - -I remember that, just as among his published work in verse he held -that his _Tristram and Iseult_ was his best, so he considered the -Essay--practically on Keats, who held, I think, the highest place with -him among the nineteenth century poets but entitled _The Artistic -Spirit in Modern English Poetry_, he judged to be among his most -satisfactory prose; with the exception of the _Essay on Macbeth_, -written as a pamphlet at the time of Henry Irving’s production of -the play, and now re-published under the title of _Sex in Tragedy_ in -his book _Coasting Bohemia_. - -A letter which he wrote me later from France, when he was studying the -provincial museums there for a series of articles in the _Manchester -Guardian_, bears out pleasantly the criticism in the article on _Corot -and Millet_ in _Essays on Art_. - - - LIMOGES, - _August 1882_. - - “ ... The landscape of the Loire somewhat disappointed me, - although the towns are full of interest. Very fruitful the country - seems to be, overflowing with corn and vine but far stretching and - unvaried with a vague sense of melancholy in it that is almost - oppressive. It is impossible to catch even a passing view of such - country as lies between Orléans and Nantes without turning in thought - from the landscape to the people who dwell in it; and the picture that - is left in the mind of the daily life of these peasants who labour - all day in fields that have no break or limit save where patches of - corn alternate with spaces of vine, is strangely touching and sad. - It wanted a France such as France is on the borders of the Loire to - produce the solemn and austere sentiment of Millet, and I hardly think - one understands the stern reality of his work until one has passed - through miles and miles of this fruitful and uneventful land. - - The later passages of to-day’s journey were a delightful change - in the character of the scenery; a narrower river (The Vienne) but - more sympathetic, with happy-looking green pastures and hilly banks. - - This place stands high and the air is delightfully fresh. It has an - industrial museum which is important in connection with my work. - - I visited Chambord also Chenonceau. They are both much restored and - inferior in interest to Blois, which is a most delightful place in - every way.” - -In respect of Blois he writes as follows in another letter: “This -town is more picturesque than any French town I have yet seen; most of -it, or the older part of it at any rate, is high up on a hill, and the -steps that mount up between the different streets are very beautifully -contrived. - -Tell Phil I should like him to read the parts of his French history -connected with Blois, particularly about Henri III. and the Duke of -Guise, and I will tell him about the wonderful castle when I get -back.” - -I remember he brought home some excellent photographs of that castle -and the lovely outer staircase of the tower. - -Another letter written during this French journey brings in a more -humorous note: “Toulouse is a real city of the south, its market -place covered with big red umbrellas reminding one of Verona, and the -old hotel having a pleasant shady courtyard with pots of oleanders.... -It is difficult to give you much news. I was thinking this morning -how funny it was how little I had spoken English since I left home, -once with the manager of a travelling English panorama at Limoges -and yesterday at Montauban where I met a Frenchman who insisted upon -speaking my native tongue to me. He declared that he knew English -‘au fond,’ but his mastery of the tongue was not complete. -‘Good voyage, have distraction,’ were his parting words to -me.” - -These good wishes were not entirely fulfilled. The day after his -arrival at Toulouse Joe had been overcome by the August heat and -mosquito bites, and had been obliged to take to his bed for a day -in the fine old inn, where he was admirably nursed by the motherly -landlady; and, as he sat in the cool courtyard next day he was vastly -amused by the discomfiture of a fat commercial traveller, awaiting -his _déjeuner_ with napkin tucked in ready under his chin, when a -one-legged old stork, who perambulated the garden, suddenly uttered -its raucous note: “Quel cri épouvantable!” exclaimed the -poor gentleman, and jumping up he overturned the small table on which a -succulent Southern dish now steamed ready for his consumption, and wept -afresh at the sight of gravy and red wine trickling together down the -coarse clean tablecloth! - -I think merriment must have hampered Joe’s offers of assistance, -and his French was not then as fluent as he made it in after years. - -Anyhow the commercial traveller appears to have been less genial than -was a gentleman in the train later on who thought to flatter him by -comparing him to the then Prince of Wales: “Les mêmes traits, la -même barbe, le même âge!” said he pleasantly, not thinking that -he was speaking to a man years younger than Edward VII. - -But if there was a momentary annoyance it was immediately forgotten by -Joe in a lively, if halting, conversation on the merits of a trout -stream which the train was skirting--Joe vehemently describing how -different was our view regarding poachers with the net, and mentally -despising his fellow-traveller for upholding the equal merits of perch, -gudgeon and trout. - -When they reached Lourdes the traveller again afforded Joe a fresh -cause for wonder--unfamiliar as he then was with what later he called -“the Frenchman’s unfailing desire to place himself in a -category.” - -The station was crammed with pilgrims to the Holy Wells, and Joe, -innocent of this, asked for what event the crowd was gathered; -whereupon the Frenchman, turning his head contemptuously from the -window, said loftily: “_Monsieur, dans ma qualité d’Athée -je ne connais rien de tout cela!_” - -Even in those early days he loved the French; their joy of living -appealed to him as it did in all the Latin races, and their wit--more -subtle and polished than the Italian’s child-like though not childish -high spirits--was akin to his own, and it was often wonderful how -swiftly he would “get the hang of it” even when sometimes he would -appeal to me for translation of a word; while their shrewd and clear -common-sense found an echo somewhere on another side of him, perhaps in -his Border ancestry. - -Yet I have heard him say that, in his opinion, the deeper courtesy of -an unspoiled Italian--were he peasant or peer--came out of a further -and finer civilization. - -These travelling conversations, even in a foreign tongue, were entirely -in keeping with Joe’s intensely human temperament. He had -none of the aloofness of the Britisher of that day; and I remember -his amusement at the talk of a party of English shop-keepers in a -second-class railway carriage on the Paris-Calais route. - -“To see them working men forced to sit and smoke their pipe in the -street for a breath of fresh air on a summer evening fairly flummoxed -me,” said one. “Why the poorest of _us_ ’ave got a bit of a -backyard.” - -Though he was the most reserved of men as regards deep, personal -matters, he found that sort of sentiment was utterly ridiculous to his -Irish sense of humour. - -I recollect hearing Joe whimsically tell a friend once that he would -far sooner confide his most intimate concerns to a man in a train than -to his nearest and dearest; and then he would recall (or invent?) the -most humorous conversations which he had overheard or in which he had -taken part, chiefly on the physical ills of life during long journeys -in dark railway carriages. I don’t suppose he went these lengths -in French; probably his vocabulary was not equal to it. - -He said he missed my help on that Loire journey although I think he -liked learning for himself too. I certainly, sitting in a tiny cottage -near Witley with my sister and the two children, missed my opportunity -and sighed to be with him, especially when his letter home contained a -passage like this: - -“Marseilles is a city with something of romantic suggestion -about it. One feels that it is one of the Avenues of the East, one -of the places also that connects the old world with the new. It was -terribly hot, but the sea tempered the sun and the sea-bath in the -evening was a delicious revenge for the heat of the day. The view -over the Mediterranean at sunset is delightful, with an atmosphere -that seems to be stained with rose colour floating over a sea of real -aquamarine.” - -I had to solace myself with taking Phil to sit for his portrait to -Edward Burne-Jones--delightful occasions when that most lovable of -great men would talk of my husband and of their kindred enthusiasms, -chaffing me gently as well for the “wicked travesties” of -classic myths with which I tried to keep quiet the “worst of -little sitters,” who would innocently ask why his standing pose -was called “sitting.” - -And at last Joe came home, only about a week before our son Arthur was -born. - -These travelling memories are a digression induced by their bearing -on my husband’s first published volumes. As to his subsequent -contributions to permanent literature I may mention his _Papers on -Art_--a sequel to the _Essays on Art_--published in 1885. - -After that, until the last years of his life, his many vocations so -entirely filled every hour of the day--and often of the night--that he -had no leisure for any more such ventures, excepting the publication of -his verse-plays as they appeared on the stage. - -And it was not until 1908 that he once more came before the -book-reading public. Then he wrote his two separate volumes of personal -recollections under the titles of _Eminent Victorians_ and _Coasting -Bohemia_; but these are of recent enough date to need no comment of -mine, for they are still before the world, as is also his posthumously -published volume, _The Ideals of Painting_. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE GROSVENOR AND THE NEW GALLERIES - - -In the autumn of the year 1876 we were invited to Sir Coutts Lindsay’s -Scottish seat at Balcarres, where Joe’s collaboration with Mr. C. E. -Hallé as Director of the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street was fixed and -led later to the long co-operation of these two friends in their New -Gallery Exhibitions. - -Sir Coutts’s venture was to start in the following May, and there was -much to discuss and settle at that shooting party; yet not so much as -to interfere with plenty of fun by the way. - -It was on this visit that Prince Leopold was a guest at the house -and I vividly recall a series of _tableaux vivants_ got up for his -entertainment, in which Joe played a part he was often to fill -later--that of stage manager, combined on this occasion with the office -of _Dresser_, in which capacity he “corked” a moustache on -His Royal Highness’ face for an impersonation of Charles I. - -There were anxious moments--such as when the Prince’s tights did -not arrive from Edinburgh, or when Sir Arthur Sullivan, after nobly -seconding Joe’s efforts with his incidental music, flatly refused to -abandon his cigar at a late hour to play waltzes; or again, on the -following Sunday morning when--the crimson cloth being laid ready -at the Episcopalian Church--a belated telegram arrived from Windsor -commanding H.R.H.’s attendance at Presbyterian worship. But I think -Joe’s unconventional and merry wit--even in those early days when he -might have felt strange in that kind of society--helped away many a -little ruction, and the fun that he made of himself as “one of the -lower middle class” little used to the ways of great houses was much -appreciated by Arthur Sullivan, “Dicky Doyle” and others claiming -kinship with the “Bohemians,” yet used to the habits at which he -pretended to be alarmed. - -I can see the twinkle in the eye with which he stoutly declared that a -French Chef did not necessarily beget a sure taste in the hosts, and -the corroboration given to his statement by the sight of some twenty -docile people eating a salad that had been mixed with methylated spirit -in mistake for vinegar without turning a hair. - -I think Arthur Sullivan--who was an _habitué_--expostulated with the -butler about it, when the cause of the “odd taste” was run -to earth and laid to the account of the kitchenmaid. - -These Balcarres days began for us that series of social gatherings so -well known later as the Grosvenor Gallery Sunday afternoons, at which -Lady Lindsay presided over a company including all the most notable -people in Literature and Art, to say nothing of the “beaux -noms,” courtiers and politicians in her more exclusive set. - -Those most entertaining parties and the Private Views both at the -Grosvenor Gallery and, later on, at the New Gallery in Regent Street, -were among the season’s features of that period, and invitations -to both of them were eagerly sought by all classes of Society. -Especially in the earlier years the vagaries in dress assumed by some -of the women of the “Artistic” and Theatrical Set were, and -I fear often justly, matters for merriment to those of the fashionable -world who fitly displayed the last modes from Paris; and I hear again -the softly sarcastic tones of a society lady commenting on the clinging -draperies of a pretty artist “finished by a pair of serviceable -boots.” - -Yet there were those among the leaders of the _élite_ who chose to -wear garments following the simpler and more graceful patterns of some -bygone era; and I am bound to say that these were often among the most -beautiful toilettes present and those which Joe then most admired. - -But much strenuous work preceded the days of the Private Views. Early -in the career of the Grosvenor Gallery, Joe, steeped in the work of the -Old Masters of which he had made such a special study, persuaded Sir -Coutts Lindsay to have an exhibition of their drawings--culled from the -great collections of England; and many a pleasant visit did he have to -fine country houses on this quest. - -Once he arrived after a night journey at the seat of Lord Warwick just -as the men of the house-party were met in the hall for the day’s -“shoot,” and I can fancy the merry excuse with which he -surely fitted the occasion as he presented himself bare-headed, having -left his hat in the train when he sleepily changed carriages at the -junction; luckily he was well provided with natural covering. - -Plenty of his Celtic persuasiveness must have come into play--both on -this occasion and on those when the fine shows of Paintings by Old -Masters were made--in cajoling the owners to lend their priceless -treasures, and I recollect one or two very anxious moments over -transport, etc. - -But this first ambitious Exhibition of _Drawings_ exceeded, both in -bulk and excellence, anything previously attempted in London and -attracted the enthusiastic attention of all connoisseurs; the hanging -and cataloguing involved immense labour, and I was proud to be allowed -to take a small share in the last part of the work--an opportunity in -which I learnt much which I have never forgotten. - -When, some few years later, my husband and Mr. Hallé started their -independent enterprise in Regent Street, their sole responsibility made -the work none the less arduous though naturally less hampered. - -The first task--exciting as it was--was a Herculean one, for the New -Gallery was practically built upon the site of an old fruit-market, and -an anxious winter was that, lest it should not be completed in time -for an opening with the other May Exhibitions. But completed it was -and handsomely; though the last touch, the gilding of the rails of the -gallery which overhung the Central Court, was only finished through Joe -inducing the frame-gilders to work with the builders’ men--an -infringement of custom which, it seemed, only the affection which they -bore him induced them to overlook. - -The effect of that Central Court with its fountain fringed with flowers -and its arcade panelled with fine, coloured marbles, was one of the -sensations of the day, and deserved the praise of a critic: “It -is an Aladdin’s Palace sprung up in the night.” Joe has -spoken of this first Exhibition in _Eminent Victorians_; suffice it, -therefore, to say that the Burne Jones and Watts’ pictures were -the distinguishing features, as they always were so long as these great -men survived. - -As years went on, the collecting of works among the lesser artists for -the modern yearly Exhibition became more and more irksome to Joe, and -the rounds that he and Mr. Hallé used to make to the artists’ -studios were something of a penance to him. - -Not only were they physically fatiguing, but the difficulties of -choice, of obtaining what they desired and of refusing what they -didn’t desire without undue offence to the artist, taxed the -patience of both directors and, I think, Joe’s wit was often -needed to turn a dangerous corner. - -“Good isn’t the word,” he once answered to a -sympathiser who asked him what he said when confronted with a -thoroughly bad picture; and, although this too transparent form of -salve may not really have been uttered, I am told that the kindly chaff -which he would sometimes expend upon the shameless offer of a poor -painting from a man who knew what he was doing but meant to send his -best work to take its chance elsewhere, was such as might not have -“gone down” from anyone else but Joe Carr. - -Yet there were pleasant hours even on these days of weary rounds. In -each of the districts visited the directors were sure to count at -least one firm friend, anxious to lighten the road; in Kensington -it was Burne Jones, who, speaking of his young daughter, wrote on -one occasion: “In my wife’s absence, Margaret dispenses middle-class -hospitality with a tact and finish worthy of a higher sphere.” In -St. John’s Wood it was Alma Tadema--most hospitable of hosts--always -ready with a bottle of his best wine and some funny tale uttered in -his quaint English, and admirably seconded by his charming wife at the -long, narrow table loaded with old Dutch silver and lovely curios. - -And upon the onerous occasions of the varnishing days when the -positions on the line were supposed to be the right of every exhibitor, -these and other leaders in the world of art would often “stand -by” even when some incensed young gentleman--these were usually -young gentlemen--would go the length of removing his picture in a -four-wheeler. - -Many were the humorous incidents that used to be told to me! A -favourite and out-spoken assistant was once asked what he thought of -the position of a small picture which was being tried above a larger -one; to which his reply was: “If you ask me, Sir, I think -it looks like a tom-tit on a round of beef.” Apparently the -directors thought so too for the picture was removed and hung in a -corner, or perhaps in the balcony above the Central Court--a place even -less coveted by the ambitious. - -Little however did _I_ know of these prickly passages, specially -at that momentous first opening, when a kind supporter of the new -enterprise presented me with a beautiful old brocade dress in which I -took my share of receiving the crowds of visitors at the entrance of -the Hall: and I don’t think that, when the varnishing day was -past, the two directors bothered their heads much about the prickly -passages or even about the Press opinions. Joe’s optimism was -always irrepressible and when his task at the New Gallery was over, he -would turn, on the following day--with something perhaps of relief--to -one of the many other sides of his full life. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -DRAMATIC WORK AND MANAGEMENT - - -It must have been somewhere about this period that the first impetus -was, funnily enough, given to Joe’s dramatic career by a request -from our dear friend, Ellen Terry, that I should make an English -adaptation for her from the famous French play of _Frou-Frou_. - -The thing was done, and played in Glasgow and other Northern towns -under the title of _Butterfly_, and great fun we had over our first -initiation into the mysteries of dress-rehearsals--not always perhaps -quite so funny in the more responsible circumstances of later years, -though it is a form of patient work electrified by the gambling spirit, -which never lost its attraction for Joe. - -My altered version of the French play was a poor one, but it had, I -suppose, sufficient merit to obtain me a commission from Mme. Modjeska, -the noted Polish actress, for a free translation of the same play, -which she performed first in London with Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson -and afterwards throughout the United States. - -The “youthful conceit” to which Joe was throughout his -life so lenient as even to consider a virtue, led me presently to try -my hand at a bigger task--no less than the dramatisation of Thomas -Hardy’s _Far from the Madding Crowd_. I was quite unequal to -the attempt, and I only mention it because it proved the beginning of -Joe’s dramatic work. He took the play in hand, refashioned the -plot, only keeping portions of the dialogue as I had adapted it to -stage necessity; and it was produced--with Marion Terry as the wilful -and charming Bathsheba--first in the provinces and then in London. - -Owing to circumstances needless to recall, the venture was a financial -failure; but it served to start Joe on a new road; and it was not long -before he scored a big success. He came home one night from a railway -journey and gave me a little book which he had bought to read in the -train: it was _Called Back_ by Hugh Conway. - -“See if you don’t think that an enthralling story?” -he said. - -There could be no doubt of this and the British public gave its verdict -promptly. The book began to sell like “hot cakes” and Joe -went down to Clifton, saw its clever author--until then unknown to -literature--and arranged with him for its dramatisation. - -The play was produced on May 20th, 1884, and I think there are still -people who remember its first success and that, in the rôle of the -Italian conspirator--Macari--Sir Herbert Tree scored one of his finest -early triumphs; the piece was revived several times in London and the -provinces and had the questionable compliment of being also pirated. -But I shall not easily forget the dress-rehearsal! - -I was comparatively new to such things then and I can well recall the -chill of heart with which we got home to Blandford Square in the early -hours and my inner conviction that the scenery could not possibly be -finished nor, one at least, of the principal actors, know his part -by the next night! But nothing could ever quell Joe’s hopeful -spirit; he plied his somewhat less optimistic colleague with cold -tongue and whisky-and-soda and made merry work of the stupidity of -lime-light men and scene-shifters, to say nothing of others of higher -degree; and then went to sleep at 6 a.m. and got up and returned to the -theatre at 10 a.m. without turning a hair. - -I wonder now if he was as strong as he seemed in those days or whether -it was only his gay and excitable Celtic temperament that carried him -through everything. Anyhow he enjoyed his life to the full and there -were never any dull moments, whether he was at work or at play. - -The radiant vitality which lasted him so long and so well--and to which -there is such frequent testimony in letters from the various friends -with whom he laboured in his many walks of life--seems to have had the -power of so communicating itself to his fellow-workers that they would -share his optimistic hopes and, if these were disappointed, generally -be ashamed to utter reproach in the face of his urbane acceptance of -failure. But on this occasion there was only rejoicing. - -In a letter of his, replying to Hugh Conway’s generous -recognition of help, I find these words: - -“I want to tell you how much touched I have been by your letters. -I say ‘letters’ for my wife read me as much of your note as -she thought good for me. Rest assured that I am delighted to have done -what I have done--also that the result has been fortunate for us both. -I don’t think I could have got through so well with any other -man; with you I have never had a shadow of worry or annoyance and I -have been able at all points to do my best--as far as I knew how.” - -This happy venture led to a friendship which had no let until the -untimely death of Hugh Conway in the very zenith of his fame; they -were, as dear old Sir Alma Tadema said in his quaint English: -“Very fat together--like two hands on one stomach.” - -Yet they did much work together, for not only did Joe collaborate again -with Hugh Conway in the adaptation of _Dark Days_ for the stage, but -he also published that gifted, ghoulish tale _Paul Vargus_ during his -editorship of _The English Illustrated Magazine_, as well as the serial -entitled _A Family Affair_, a humorous and urbane story with a plot -so delicately suggesting possible immorality, however, that it drew -down upon the editor a sharp reproach from Mrs. Grundy, who declared -that, although she believed all would “come right” she could never -again allow the magazine to lie on her drawing-room table lest her -well-brought-up daughters might open its pages. - -Does that Mrs. Grundy still live to-day? - -_Dark Days_ was Joe’s last bit of work with his poor friend -but by no means the last of his adaptations for the stage, the chief -of which number _Madame Sans Gêne_ for Sir Henry Irving; _My Lady of -Rosedale_ for Sir Charles Wyndham; _Nerves_ which ran with success -for some time at the Comedy Theatre, and last, but not at all least, -his fine play fashioned on Charles Dickens’ _Oliver Twist_ and -followed by one on _Edwin Drood_. - -The former, with Sir Herbert Tree as _Fagin_, Constance Collier as -_Nancy_ and Lyn Harding as _Sikes_, held the public for many months -both in London and the United States. - -At the height of its London success, a flaw in the architecture of the -central proscenium arch of His Majesty’s Theatre necessitated the -temporary transference of the play to another house. Joe was naturally -in despair, but the untoward incident in no way interfered with the run -of the piece which--in the words of the stage manager--had been kicked -up and down the Strand and only gathered force as it rolled. - -But although I have spoken first of his adaptations, it is of his -original plays that I hold the dearest memories; and first and -foremost of _King Arthur_ which contains some of the best of the -lyrics and blank verse for which Theodore Watts Dunton held him to be -a “true poet.” The _May Song_ and _Song of the Grail_ he -placed himself among his best verse and they were well appreciated. - -As the book was published by Messrs. Macmillan, it belongs to the -public. - -The production of _King Arthur_ was one of the most beautiful of Henry -Irving’s many Lyceum triumphs. Even in those far-removed days -Sir Edward Burne Jones’ exquisite designs for the armour and -dresses, as well as for the scenery, will be remembered by some, and -I am proud to think that I was allowed the privilege of carrying out -some of them in detail. It was a hard six months’ work but it was -well rewarded and I think Joe had no happier hours than those he spent -in the writing and in the producing of his two finest efforts--_King -Arthur_ and _Tristram and Iseult_. - -I cannot leave this subject without mention of the tender and lovely -impersonation of _Guinevere_ by Ellen Terry, and the touching tribute -to her which Joe himself gives in the following dedication, written on -the fly-leaf of the copy he presented to her. - - “To Guinevere herself from one who, after years of closest - friendship, looks to her now as always, for the vindication of what is - highest and gentlest in womanhood; and who would count this not too - poor a gift for her to take, could he but hope that some part of the - grace and charm of her spirit had found its way into the portrait of - Arthur’s Queen.” - -Following on this it would seem incongruous in connection with anyone -else but Joe to quote a funny tale bearing on the above; but Joe loved -the tale himself and often told it merrily and so will I. - -On his being presented to a newly-arrived prominent American at a -public dinner, this gentleman opened the conversation by saying that -he had been privileged, on the voyage with Sir Henry Irving and Ellen -Terry, to read _King Arthur_ in the lady’s own copy containing the -author’s charming dedication. A pause ensued, when Joe--thinking -himself on solid ground--said: “Well, sir, I hope you liked the play?” -What was his astonishment at the Yankee’s gentle reply! “Well, not very -much!” said he, “You see I had Lord Tennyson in my mind.” - -Silence ensued but I think Joe explained with urbanity that he had -taken an entirely different view of the old legend, founded in a -measure on Sir Thomas Malory’s version. - -_A propos_ of this old name, Joe has himself told of the arrival at -the theatre of a batch of press cuttings addressed to that knight of -the days of chivalry, the title tactfully supplemented by the affix of -“Bart.” - -Perhaps scarcely less funny and more unpardonable was the question of -the Society lady who asked him, in the case of _Tristram and Iseult_, -how he had obtained Mme. Wagner’s consent to tamper with her -husband’s book. - -A play--_The Lonely Queen_--on which he spent much care, still remains -to be performed when a suitable actress shall present herself for the -strong and sympathetic part of the girlish ruler over a wild land. - -The piece opens on a hillside overlooking an Eastern city--a scene -shewn again later on in sinister circumstances; and with dance and -laughter, a group of girls crown their wayward young mistress with -a wreath of flowers in merry mimicry of the weightier diadem she -will soon be called to wear. And presently, in a lonely mood of -apprehension, she meets as a stranger, the patriot-poet who is to be -both her bane and her salvation in the future. - -He enjoyed writing this play and was pleased with the following lyric, -which he read to me--as I am proud to think, he generally read anything -with which he was satisfied or on which he wanted such criticism as I -could give--on the very morning when he had written it. - - -THE POET TO A GIRL-QUEEN UNKNOWN. - - Oh Lady of the Lily Hand! - Whose face unseen we long to greet, - At whose command this desert land - Springs into flower about thy feet. - - Fair maiden whom we know not yet, - Yet know thy heart can know no fear, - Queen, who shalt teach us to forget - The wounds of many a wasted year. - - The curtains of the night are drawn, - Its shadows all have fled away, - For in thine eyes there dwells the dawn - And in thy smile the new born day. - - A people’s love that waits thee now - Is thine to take and thine to hold, - Till God shall set upon thy brow - A crown that is not forged of gold. - - Twixt Right and Wrong He yields thee choice, - Heed not the worship of the weak, - That in a maiden’s fearless voice - The clarion voice of God may speak. - - Be swift to strike and strong to save, - Steadfast in all! Till all the land - Shall hail thee ‘Bravest of the Brave’ - Oh Lady of the Lily Hand. - -It was a fair scene in which it was written--a hill-top under Monte -Rosa overlooking the lovely shores of Lugano--and, though he always -said that actual surroundings were never proper to be described in -the work of the moment but must be digested and crystallized in the -hidden corners of remembrance, I think that the spirit of a place did -influence him, so that the sun shone on the hillside of the first -Act of _The Lonely Queen_ as the lowering brow of the Black Mount, -at Rannoch, seemed to overshadow the halls of Camelot; he even said -himself that he could see the barge with Elaine’s body float -down the Hertfordshire stream where he was wont to fish after his -day’s labour. - -His poetical work was always that which lay nearest his heart, though -his friends often deplored that he did not devote himself more to -comedy; but strange to say, his humour, which was so inexhaustible -in colloquial intercourse, did not strike home so surely in his -stage dialogue: he needed the stimulus of conversation. Possibly he -felt this, which made him shyer of comedy-writing than he would have -been; in _Nerves_ he was witty enough and there is a very deft comedy -scene for two old ladies in _Forgiveness_, produced at the “St. -James’” Theatre by Sir George Alexander. His first attempts -at dramatic work, made on the tiny stage of German Reed’s, were -entirely in quaint comedy. - -I think a free rendering of a fancy of Hugh Conway’s on the -Blue-and-White China Craze was one of the first things he did for the -stage and it contained some charming lyrics after the Elizabethan -manner which won instant recognition. - -I quote three of them, for they were never printed for the public. - - -From _The United Pair_. - -DUET: SONG OF THE TWO CHINA-COLLECTORS. - -SEXTUS. - - A love like mine is far above - The thing that we are told is love, - In Shakespeare or in Chaucer. - For while they are content to praise - The famous forms of classic days, - I revel in the form and glaze, - Of one unrivalled saucer. - -VIRGINIA. - - Ah sir, I know the thought is vain, - Yet if a man were porcelain, - Then love would be the master; - If only in a single night - Your face could change to blue and white, - I think at such a glorious sight - My heart would beat the faster. - -VIRGINIA AND SEXTUS. - - And such a love were far above - The thing that we are told is love, - In Shakespeare or in Chaucer; - For while they are content to praise - The famous forms of classic days, - We revel in the form and glaze, - Of every cup and saucer. - -SEXTUS. - - Ah madam, if that dream were true, - How easy would it be to woo, - And never fear the winning; - If woman also could be graced - With all the silent charms of paste, - Then love could never be misplaced, - And hate have no beginning. - -VIRGINIA. - - Then every vase would find its mate, - Each dish would woo a neighbouring plate, - Each bowl would wed a beaker; - And if perchance, through pride or pique, - Some youth or maid should fail to speak, - Each bachelor would be unique, - And each old maid uniquer. - -VIRGINIA AND SEXTUS. - - And such a love were far above - The thing that we are told is love, - In Shakespeare or in Chaucer; - For while they are content to praise - The famous forms of classic days, - We revel in the form and glaze, - Of every cup and saucer. - -The following duet bore a charming promise of the maturer work that was -to follow in wider spheres. - - From _The United Pair_. - - Played at Mr. and Mrs. German Reed’s about 1880. - - - I. - - ADA. - - What Love was yesterday, we both could tell; - - JACK. - - What Love may be to-morrow, who can guess? - - ADA. - - What Love is now both Jack and I know well; - - JACK. - - But that’s a secret lovers ne’er confess. - - JACK AND ADA. - - But this we know, that Love is much maligned - By those who call him deaf, and dumb, and blind. - - -II. - -ADA. - - Yet Love was dumb: ’tis but an hour ago - I spied him ’mid the daisies as I passed, - Like a pale rose-leaf on new fallen snow - He lay with drooping lids and lips shut fast. - And though the birds sang, Love made no reply, - He had no message for the whispering stream, - He sent no echoing answer to the sky, - That laughed with dancing shadows o’er his dream. - Then kneeling down beside him where he lay, - I wept aloud for grief that Love was dead; - But when Jack came and kissed my tears away, - Love spoke one word: we both heard what he said. - -JACK AND ADA. - - Therefore we say that Love is much maligned, - For he is neither deaf, nor dumb, nor blind. - - -III. - -JACK. - - Yet Love was deaf: ’twas only yesterday - I found him fishing down beside the brook, - His rod a snowy branch of flowering may, - Whose spiny thorn he fashioned for a hook. - Small heed had he of any lover’s pain, - Who would not hear the cuckoo’s ringing note, - I cried to him, but cried alas in vain, - He only laughed to watch the dancing float; - And while I wept to see him laughing so, - I heard a voice that whispered one sweet word - Ah Ada, tell me was it “yes” or “no”? - She answered “yes” and then I knew Love heard. - -JACK AND ADA. - - Therefore we say that Love is much maligned, - For he is neither deaf, nor dumb, nor blind. - - -IV. - -JACK AND ADA. - - Yet Love was blind: for so he lost his way, - And so we found him when the day was done, - Within a wood where happy lovers stray, - There he had wandered weeping and alone. - Then wondering much, we thought to ask his name, - But Love replied: “Ah, surely ye should know!” - And as he spake, beneath his wings of flame - We saw Love’s arrows and his glittering bow, - “For you,” he cried, “the way is strewn with flowers, - You’ve found the path that I shall never find.” - Then looking up we saw Love’s eyes in ours, - And then we knew why men do call him blind. - - Therefore we know that Love is much maligned, - By all who call him deaf, and dumb, and blind. - - - - -From _The Naturalist_. - -A SONG OF PROVERBS. - - I know that truth’s stranger than fiction, - And I fancy I don’t stand alone, - If I cling to an old predilection, - For killing two birds with one stone; - I never shed tears that are bitter - Over milk that I know to be spilt, - And whenever gold happens to glitter - I make up my mind that its gilt; - Yet the riddle of life grows no clearer, - And still broken-hearted I yearn - For the season that never draws nearer-- - When a worm may take courage and turn. - - And if for a moment I wander - Into themes more profound and abstruse, - To note that the sauce for a gander - Is also the sauce for the goose; - That one man is free to steal horses, - While another is punished by fate, - Who shuns all such virtuous courses, - And dares to look over a gate,-- - It is but for the sake of forgetting - What gives me far greater concern, - It is but with a view of abetting - A worm in its efforts to turn. - - I could live and not care in the slightest - To know when a dog had his day, - And though the sun shone at its brightest, - I could let other people make hay. - I could perish without ascertaining - Why pearls should be cast before swine, - I could die without ever complaining - That one stitch will never save nine; - And though I once had the ambition - A candle at both ends to burn, - The old craving might go to perdition - If I knew that a worm had its turn. - -These little pieces were admirably rendered by Mr. Alfred Reed and his -company, and they won instant success. - -I can see Mr. Clement Scott’s delighted face just under my box on -the first night of _The United Pair_ and hear his burst of laughter at -the concluding line of the “Song of the China Collectors.” - -But the one of the three comediettas upon which Joe spent the most -pleasant care was _The Friar_--a little thirteenth century fancy of -his own invention and for which he wrote the following verses, giving -charming expression to the pique of a high-born damsel towards her -proud lover and the sorrow of the shepherd swain who becomes the -favourite of an hour. - - - - -THE LADY ISOBEL’S SONG. - - Oh, if I be a lady fair, - I’ll weep for no lord’s frown, - And if my lord should ride away, - I’ll put aside my silk array - And take a russet gown. - - I’ll wear a gown of russet brown, - And sleep on the grassy sward, - And when I meet a shepherd swain, - If he should sigh, I’ll sigh again, - And choose him for my lord. - - I’ll choose a shepherd for my lord, - Though I be a lady fair, - And when the woods are golden brown, - Of yellow leaves I’ll weave a crown, - And bind his golden hair. - - Then my false lord shall cry and weep, - And call his lady fair, - But though for love his heart should bleed, - His sighs and tears I will not heed, - Nor hearken to his prayer. - - - - -THE SHEPHERD AND THE LADY. - -ISOBEL. - - Shepherd, if thou wouldst learn to woo a maid - In Love’s own way, - Follow young Cupid to the hawthorn shade - Some day in May, - And bid him tell thee true - What way were best to woo; - What a poor swain should do - When maids say nay. - -HUBERT. - - Ah! could I find the bower where Love doth dwell - Beneath the May, - And could I plead to him, I know full well - What Love would say. - For he would bid me sigh, - And weep, and moan and cry, - And he would bid me die, - For that’s Love’s way. - -ISOBEL. - - Hast thou forgotten how in shepherd’s guise - One day in May, - Love taught a cruel maid with laughing eyes - To feel Love’s sway, - And when she thought to scorn - This lover lowly born - Love did not weep or mourn, - But laughed and turned away, - And singing when she sighed, - Love wept not when she cried - He cared not if she died - For that’s Love’s way! - -BOTH. - - O Love that came but yester eve, - If thou wilt go before to-morrow, - Then prithee go, but do not leave - My saddened heart to die of sorrow. - If thou wilt hide Love’s laughing eyes, - If we must lose Love’s magic spell, - Then take the burthen of our sighs, - And we will say Farewell! Farewell! - - -THE SHEPHERD’S SONG. - - Ah wherefore should I try to sing - Of Love that’s dead? - Of Love that came before the Spring - And ere Spring came had fled. - ’Tis vain to seek in winter snows - The fallen petals of the rose - ’Tis vain to ask the year to bring - The Love that went before the Spring. - - Our little world was fair to see - Ere Love had come, - Of earth and sky and flower and tree - I sang while Love was dumb. - But now the strings have all one tone, - Love claims all beauty for his own. - In vain! in vain! I can but sing - The Love that went before the Spring. - - And as I sing, Love lives again; - Where’er I go, - His voice is in the summer rain, - His footprints on the snow. - And while October turns to gold, - I dream that April buds unfold, - Ah tell me will the Spring-time bring - The Love that went before the Spring? - -_The Shepherd’s Song_ I have heard him say he was as well pleased with -as with any of his later and more ambitious verse; but it is curious -to note that, quite unconsciously, he repeated the line “But now the -strings have all one tone” in the _Lute Song_, written nearly thirty -years after, for _The Beauty Stone_, an opera done in conjunction with -Sir Arthur Pinero to Sir Arthur Sullivan’s music. - - * * * * * - -The book of _The Beauty Stone_ was published, but I quote the _Lute -Song_ for those who did not know it. - - -THE LUTE’S SONG. - -I. - - Ah, why dost sigh and moan? - Ah, why? ah, why? - Queen of the laughing May - Who wears thy crown to-day? - Good-bye! good-bye! - Yea, for all mirth hath flown; - The strings have all one tone-- - Ah, why? ah, why? - -II. - - It is the lute that sings, - Not I! not I! - Methinks some sleeping heart - That once had felt Love’s smart - Doth wake and cry! - Nay, hark! ’tis love’s own wings - That fan the trembling strings-- - Not I! Not I! - -But dainty as is this little song, it does not to my mind equal in -charm the duet of the two old lovers in the same opera. - - -THE OLD LOVERS OFFERING ONE ANOTHER THE BEAUTY STONE. - -SIMON. - - I would see a maid who dwells in Zolden-- - Her eyes are soft as moonlight on the mere; - The spring hath fled, the ripened year turns golden-- - Shall I win her ere the waning of the year? - The reaping-folk pass homeward by the fountain; - What is it then that calls me from the dell, - What bids me climb the path beside the mountain - To the down beyond the sheepfold? Who can tell? - - Then take it, for this magic stone hath power - To change thee to the fairest; yet to me - Thou wert fairest as I knew thee in that hour - When a maiden dwelt in Zolden! Ah, take it, ’tis for thee! - -JOAN. - - I would see a youth who comes from Freyden-- - He is straighter than the mountain pine-trees grow; - Gossips say he comes to woo a maiden, - So the gossips say--but can they know? - Three laughing maids are in the hollow, - Yet none will set him straight upon his way; - Nay! soft! for he hath found the path to follow-- - He is coming! little heart, what will he say? - - Then take it, for this magic stone hath power - To change thee to the fairest, yet to me - Thou wert fairest as I knew thee in that hour - When a youth came up from Freyden! Ah, take it, ’tis for thee! - -In the Beauty-Stone Joe was only responsible for the lyrics and parts of -the plot. But I know that his idea of the man’s true love being -first awakened after he became blind was dear to him, and he used it -again in his adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde for H. B. Irving; but there -it is the wife whose blindness hides from her all but the beautiful -side of her husband. - -Such were the chief of Joe’s plays. Tireless energy was given to -the production of them all, for I think it was universally admitted -that no one bore the strain of rehearsals as cheerily and patiently -as Joe. But these attributes shone equally in his work upon the plays -of others produced during his many years of management at the Comedy -Theatre, at the Lyceum, after it was taken over by a company, at His -Majesty’s when producing plays for Sir Herbert Tree, and lastly -at Covent Garden, where he arranged the _mise en scène_ for _Parsifal_ -at a time when he was already stricken by failing health. - -Many strenuous hours were spent over each of these ventures in the -most arduous of professions; but what I prefer to recall are the gay -ones--the merry moments--the unfailing good humour, wit and pleasant -jest by which my husband lightened the weary waits with which all who -have laboured for the stage are familiar. - -“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” I can hear him -retort cheerfully to some impatient spectator who was grumbling at -the long waits during the last rehearsal of _Julius Cæsar_ at His -Majesty’s Theatre; and none was so ready as his friend the -actor-manager, with the appreciative laugh. - -Lady Tree--Maud, to us--reminds me of his favourite attitude as he -would stand watching the effects of the lighting of his scenes from -the empty stalls with his stick passed through his arms behind his -back, and his cheery tones uttering the most fearful anathemas against -lime-light men and scene-shifters. - -One day I said to him: “Don’t get so angry, Joe, it must -tire you out.” - -To which he replied with his usual promptness, “Angry, my dear! -Why, I’m only using the language proper to lime-light men: they -understand no other.” - -Once at a Christmas rehearsal, when the stage-hands were all rather -more tipsy than was generally allowable, he came from the stage, and -as he sat down beside me in the stalls he said with a whimsical smile: -“Poor old Burnaby! He keeps muttering, ‘Buried a wife o’ Toosday and -now, s’elp me, can’t lay my ’and on a hammer.’” - -He was held in firm affection by his stage-hands just as he was by -his New Gallery staff, not forgetting the decorators, and those -superior frame-gilders who were only induced by regard for “the -boss” to work together in completing the balustrade of the -balcony during the strenuous last days before the opening of that -“Aladdin’s palace.” - -I recollect one of the scene-shifters at His Majesty’s Theatre -putting his shoulder out at a rehearsal and Joe taking him to hospital -himself; I should never have known of it but that the man’s -quaint expression of gratitude--“Your gentlemanly conduct, sir, -I never shall forget”--so pleased Joe that he had to repeat it to -me. - -The humours of these people always delighted him, and I can see his -mock-grave face as he told me of the head stage-carpenter’s refusal -to carry out an order because it was the day upon which: “We’re all -subservient to Mr. Telbin”--an excuse which Joe, knowing that irascible -scene-painter’s peculiarities--found sufficient. - -No memories are pleasanter to me than those of presentations to us -by these working folk. I have a little Old English silver waiter, an -inscribed gift from the employés at the Comedy Theatre for our silver -wedding; and a ponderous marble clock, also touchingly inscribed, which -the foreman of the stage-hands in the Lyceum Company presented to Joe -in the library of our Kensington house. The man stood in the centre of -the room making a speech, but before it was ended nature prevailed and -he concluded hastily: “If I don’t set it down somewhere I -shall let it drop.” - -Joe had given instructions to our maid to pay the donor’s cab, -and when he retired and found it gone, we were all in dismay upon -learning that he had left his overcoat in it. - -Anecdotes of entertainments in the higher circles of the stage Joe -has told himself in his two books of Reminiscences, the most notable -of them being Henry Irving’s splendid reception to the Rajahs, -when the stage and stalls of the Lyceum were transformed into one vast -flower-garden in half an hour after the fall of the curtain. But I can -add my testimony as to memorable evenings spent at His Majesty’s -Theatre and at Sir Henry Irving’s supper-table in the “Old -Beefsteak Room” of the Lyceum Theatre, when I listened proudly to -Joe’s brilliant talk or speeches, and was sometimes privileged -to act as interpreter between the host and the many distinguished -foreigners who graced that board. Liszt, Joachim, Sarasate are names -which recur to me among them as musicians; but, of course, the guests -were chiefly actors and actresses, flattered, I think, at the fine -welcome from the foremost English Manager. - -Booth, Mary Anderson, Mansfield were the foremost Americans, to -the latter of whom I remember Irving’s grim advice _à propos_ of -the fatigue of a ventriloquist-voice in a gruesome part: “If it’s -unwholesome I should do it some other way.” Jane Hading, Coquelin, -Réjane and, of course, the incomparable Sarah Bernhardt represented the -French; and I think Salvini was the only one from the stage of Italy. - -Sarah and our dear Ellen Terry were always great friends, and I call -to mind a pretty little passage when they were sitting opposite to one -another and Sarah, leaning forward, cried, in response to some gracious -word of Nell’s: “My dearling, there are two peoples who -shall never be old--you and me.” - -The words are still, happily, true at the hour when I write. - -Relating to members of the German stage entertained by Sir Henry, the -most amusing incident is that related by Joe himself in detail: of -the great actor’s grim humour in calling upon him suddenly to -speak in praise of the Sax-Meiningen Company, when Joe had innocently -told him an hour before that he had been unable to go to any of their -performances. Ladies were not present on that occasion, but I was told -that Joe’s speech was one of the wittiest he ever delivered: -there was nothing that so sharpened his rapier as being apparently put -at a disadvantage. - -I find no mention by himself of a similar occurrence on a different -issue. This time Irving had invited the Oxford and Cambridge crews to -supper and, being suddenly indisposed, was unable to propose their -health. Without even waiting to be asked Joe rose to his feet and, -anxious to divert the young men’s attention from their host, -surpassed himself in exuberant fun, keeping them in a roar of laughter -for a quarter of an hour over his alleged uncertainty as to which of -the two ’Varsities had secured the honours of the boat-race. - -I am told that Joe again acquitted himself well at a dinner given to -Arthur Balfour, when Anthony Hope called upon him without notice from -the chair to return thanks for his proposed health. I don’t know why or -how the inspiration came, but “Love” was Joe’s topic, and it is easy to -imagine what a gracious and merry time he made with the various aspects -of this subject. - -Of his meetings with Italian actors and actresses Joe does not speak -save in the instance of Madame Ristori, for whose genius he had an -unsurpassed veneration. - -His _Eminent Victorians_ contains the tale of an afternoon at her house -when she had invited him and one or two of the dramatic critics to hear -her speak _Lady Macbeth’s_ sleep-walking scene in English with a -view to doing it before a British audience. - -Her large and sonorous rendering of the line “All the perfumes -of Arâbia” delighted him, though he tried to teach her our -own insular pronunciation; he was loudly in favour of the public -performance in English, which she finally gave, and I shall never -forget the awe-inspiring effect of the slow and gentle snoring which -she kept running through the whole of the speech. - -Joe never admired even Salvini as much, though he revelled in his great -voice on the resounding Roman tongue. He made us all laugh one day by -mimicking the mincing tones of a Cockney interpreter translating the -Italian tragedian’s sonorous language when returning thanks for -his London welcome at a public dinner. - -Eleonora Duse, for whom our Nell had the most ardent admiration, was -rarely able, by reason of her frail health, to grace festive occasions -after her work; but Joe had one or two interesting meetings with her -during the season that she rented one of the theatres that he managed -and we were all present together at her pathetic performance of the -_Dame aux Camelias_; the next night we witnessed Sarah Bernhardt in the -same rôle, and Joe gives an able comparison of the two performances in -_Coasting Bohemia_. On the latter occasion a note came round to Nell -from the stage saying: “To-night I play for you.” And the -promise was well kept. - -Speaking of Sarah Bernhardt, I recall a happening of the days before -Joe was entitled to the consideration due to a theatrical manager; -he had obtained a promise from the famous lady that she would lunch -with us in our quiet home and we bade to meet her not by any means our -“second-best” friends--to quote a huffed English actor regarding the -guests of another evening. We waited an hour with a patient party and -then Joe hastened with a cab to fetch the lady, only to be told that -she had forgotten the engagement and was in her bath preparing to keep -another. I need not perhaps record that Joe’s wit was equal to the -occasion in pacifying our outraged guests. - -He and Sarah became firm friends later, and she had Joe’s _King -Arthur_ translated into French with a view to playing the part of -_Lancelot_; but this intention was never carried out. - -So many and various are the memories which crowd upon me connected with -the stage that it is quite impossible for me to sift and record them -without undue risk of boring any readers I may have. Suffice it to say -that I think, of his many occupations, the theatre, whether in writing -for it or in labouring at productions upon it, was the one which most -entranced and held Joe. Not only did he love every detail of the work, -but it brought him in daily contact with all sorts and conditions of -men and women, taxed his powers as a leader of them and gave him hourly -opportunity for the exercise of his humanizing and inspiring gift: -that highest kind of humour which needs no preparation, but is evoked -by every little passing incident and has its real might in the love of -mankind. - -Perhaps I may here quote a portion of an American interviewer’s -account of a talk with Henry Irving, sent to Joe by J. L. Toole during -one of his old friend’s long tours in the United States. - - -“THE WITTIEST MAN IN ENGLAND.” - -“Whom do you consider the wittiest man in England to-day?” - -“Well, in my opinion, the greatest of our wits is a man of whom -very little is known out here. He is Comyns Carr, who wrote _King -Arthur_ for me.” - -“He is a theatrical manager in London, is he not?” - -“Yes, at the present he is, but he is a distinguished man in -literature as well. A polished essayist and the most sparkling man I -have ever met. As an extemporaneous speaker he is delightful.” - -“Is he an Irishman?” - -“Perhaps he is, originally. Now you speak of it. Do you know -if Carr is an Irish name? Comyns is at any rate and then most of -our celebrated wits have been Irishmen--our Sheridans and our -Goldsmiths?” - -With this pleasing tribute to my husband I may fitly close these -theatrical reminiscences, though I like to recall that Joe and Henry -Irving had appreciations of one another on a graver side to which -some pages in _Eminent Victorians_ testify, and many are the pleasant -holiday hours we spent as his guests both abroad and at home. He used -to visit the old-world village of Winchelsea by Rye, where we had a -cottage close to the ancient gateway of the town--afterwards sold to -Ellen Terry. - -But the most notable of our joint trips was that to Nuremberg in search -of material for the production of _Faust_. This was the first occasion -on which I made a hit with my designing of Ellen Terry’s dresses, -which I afterwards did for nearly twenty years. Being the only one -of the party speaking German, I made many bargains in the shops and -on the old market-place chiefly under Joe’s direction but also -by request of Henry or Nell. She bought me a solid housewife’s -copper jug in the market, and Joe and I secured an old ivory casket -which she accepted from us and in which she kept the gew-gaws in the -“Jewel Scene.” - -She and I had a delightful evening in the old Castle, I having -persuaded a little girl-custodian to let us in after hours so that we -saw the place in solemn loneliness with the sunset glow reddening the -red roofs of the city far below us. - -I won the admission by a highly coloured description of the actress in -Shakespeare, which the child actually had seen in her own town; and -Nell promised her a signed photograph--punctually posted on our return. - -This excursion was made while Joe and Henry were away at Rothenburg, -which my husband had insisted that Irving must see on account of its -unique preservation of untouched city-wall and battlements. - -It was a memorable tour, of which Joe tells some interesting anecdotes -in _Coasting Bohemia_. - -In speaking of the long drives which his host loved and so greatly -preferred to any kind of exercise, Joe does not confess, however, how -impossible he found it to keep himself awake. “We sit side by -side and sleep for hours!” he would tell me regretfully when he -came home. And I don’t suppose it occurred to any of us then that -it was the best rest that tired theatrical managers could have. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -ENTERTAINMENT - - -This is a topic upon which I touch timidly; not only because Joe has -talked of it himself in _Some Eminent Victorians_, but also because -I had, perhaps less than most of his friends, the opportunity to -appreciate his gifts as a public, or even a social, entertainer. In -the long list of his after-dinner speeches there were not more than -half a dozen that I was lucky enough to hear; and the little corner in -the Garrick Club where I know he was wont to sit, quickly attracting -thither the most appreciative spirits and keeping them all the evening -in a ripple of laughter, was obviously a forbidden spot to me. - -I think his celebrity in this matter needs no mention of mine; but I -should like to quote one or two appreciations by distinguished literary -men. - -The first is in a letter to myself, where Anthony Hope draws a -remarkable portrait of him: “He was a great arguer,” he writes; “for -while his temper was always serene, his good humour did not blunt the -edge of his tongue. Quite recently I have reread his last book with the -keenest appreciation; it shows a broad, appreciative mind, and yet one -quite clear for values and criterions. - -“We have lost a man of rare gifts, a splendid companion, a -generous, kindly, gracious friend. One is happy in having known him, -happy too in feeling that life was to him a fine thing--a thing he -loved, appreciated and used to the utmost. And his name will live--I -think that will be proved true--in the memories of men and in their -written records of these times. - -“He was a figure and a presence amongst us.” - -Another appreciation is by W. J. Locke and appeared in one of the -leading papers: - -“In a brief notice like the present it is impossible to dwell on -the career of one of the most versatile of our profession. Everything -he touched he adorned with his own peculiar sense of artistic -perfection. He was an eminent art critic, a theatrical manager with -high ideals, an editor of fine discernment, and a distinguished -playwright. He was one of the finest after-dinner speakers of his -generation, and one of the few men who earned, maintained, and deserved -the reputation of a wit. A writer in a recent newspaper article -wrongly charged him with being rather a monologuist in social talk -than a conversationalist. Far from this being the case, no one more -fully appreciated and practised the delicate art of conversation. It -may be said, perhaps, that he was one of the youngest--he died in -his sixty-eighth year--and one of the last of the great Victorians; -for though his keen intellect never lost touch with the events and -movements of recent years, yet his mental attitude was typically -that of the second half of the nineteenth century in its sturdy -radicalism, its search after essentials, its abhorrence of shams, and -its lusty enjoyment of what was real and good in life. The honest -workman with pen or brush always found at his hands generous praise or -encouragement; for the charlatan, or ‘Jack Pudding,’ as he -was fond of terming him, he had no mercy. - -“Struggling against grievous physical disability, he died -practically in harness. His last book, a treatise on painting, -completed but a month or two ago, is said by those privileged to read -the proofs, to reveal a vigour unimpaired by illness and an enthusiasm -undimmed by age. An arresting and lovable figure has passed from us, -one that linked us with a generation of giants whose work was ending -when ours began. It is for us, with sadness, to say, _Vale_: but we -know that their honoured shades will greet with many an _ave_ the -advent of ‘Joe’ Carr on the banks of Acheron.” - -Two more extracts from letters, I have the permission of the writers to -quote. One is from A. E. W. Mason: - -“The traits and qualities which come back to me,” he -writes, are “his boyish spirit, his sense of fun, his swiftness -in dropping out of fun and suddenly touching upon great themes with the -surest possible touch, his knowledge of Shakespeare, his passion for -Dickens,” etc. And the other is in the letter of affectionate -sympathy written to me at the time of his death by one of the oldest -and most valued of his friends, Sir Frederick Macmillan: - -“He was one of the most gifted and brilliant creatures I have -ever known, and had such a kindly nature that no one could come across -him without loving him. - -“I am proud to think that it was my privilege to give him his -last literary commission, and that it has resulted in such a fine piece -of work in the region in which he had always been a master.” - -This allusion is to _The Ideals of Painting_, published posthumously -and still before the public. - -The following notice appeared in the _Manchester Guardian_: - -“The remarkable thing about Mr. Joseph Comyns Carr was that, -while his reputation as a talker and after-dinner speaker was made in -the late Victorian days, his gift was so genuine and so deep-set in -human nature that even in these days when the whole poise of humour -is changed, people still spoke of him as our best man. I doubt if -anyone could stand the Victorian after-dinner speeches that established -reputations, or if Wilde himself would keep the table quiet, but, until -near the end, Carr was the person organisers of dinners first thought -of when they wanted a toast list that would attract guests. He had -a Johnsonian decisiveness and real brilliance of definition, with a -freakish fancy and playfulness that at times had much of Henley’s -saltness and ferocity.” - -I am bound to say I never heard the ferocity, but then there were -ladies present when I was. His chaff was sometimes keen, it is true, -and at our friends’ houses I sometimes sat quaking for fear it -should give offence; but even I underrated the power of his personality -and the deep affection in which he was universally held, and I did not -guess till he was gone the wealth of friends who missed him. - -“There should be a monument erected to him for having cheered -more folk and made more laughter than anyone did before him,” -said one; and so it was even in the less inspiring surroundings of his -own home. - -My mind goes back to the first frugal little dinners of our early life, -given when we had moved from the rooms over the dispensary in Great -Russell Street to a proper house in Blandford Square, now the Great -Central Railway Station. - -He always did his own carving, and later taught our daughter to be -nearly as expert as he was at it; no amount of pleading for the -“table decoration” from our handsome parlour-maid would -deter him, and she and I had cause to weep over splashed brocade -table-centres which were the fashion of the hour. - -“What _is_ this bird, my dear?” he asked one -night about some moderate-priced game which I thought I had -“discovered.” - -“Hazel-grouse, Joe,” faltered I, guessing that some reproof -was coming. - -“Nasal-grouse, you mean,” said he; promptly adding for -my consolation, “She’s a bit of a foreigner, you see, -so they take her in about our English birds. Never mind, dear! This -bird’s muscles are less tough, at all events, than those of -your country fowl who walked from Devonshire last week.” And he -turned to his friends and added: “I can give you nothing but the -plainest of food, but I always take a pride in its being the best of -its kind.” - -That was his unfailing word: “The best is good enough for -me!” he would say; and he would go himself to the butcher if the -Sunday beef had not been succulent, and say kindly: “You need not -trouble to send me anything but the best.” - -That was why his friends set so much store by his gastronomic -opinion--he was a great judge of food, he had it both from his Irish -mother and his Cumberland father; he knew good meat when he saw it, as -that astute friend of his, the Hertfordshire butcher already mentioned, -would tell him; and no one appreciated this more than the late Lord -Burnham. They both agreed that plain fare was always the finest--_but_ -it must be of the best. A cold sirloin must be served uncut, yet the -host of those memorable week-end parties at Hall Barn always knew -whether it would be “prime” _when_ cut and would beg Joe to -keep a good portion of his appetite for the tasting of it. Neither of -them gave the first place to made-dishes, though Joe could enjoy these -when perfect--as they were at that bountiful table. - -The made-dishes of unknown cooks he always mistrusted, especially when -he had reason to fear that the dinner would be of what he called “the -green-grocer’s and pastry-cook’s” class; and I remember his wicked -assertion that his “inside was rattling like a pea in a canister” with -all the tinned food that he had eaten at one such entertainment. - -Alas, that he should have been condemned to some of it, through war -necessities, at the end of his life! - -He would take pains sometimes in instructing me and our own humble cook -in the concoction of some new dish from a good receipt; but nothing was -to be spared in the cost of the necessary ingredients: the soup, fish -or _entree_ must be made “of the best,” not forgetting that the “pig -and onion were the North and South poles of cookery;” and, I think, he -might have added also the oyster. - -His Christmas turkey was almost always boiled, after his mother’s -Irish method, stuffed with oysters and served with fried pork -sausages and a lavish oyster sauce or a _vol-au-vent_ of the same; -latterly the oysters always came in a barrel from our kind friend -“Bertie” Sullivan. - -Yes, his friends esteemed him highly as a food expert; there is a -letter from Edward Burne-Jones (quoted, I think, by Joe) in which he -begs him to order the dinner for some entertainment of his own. “Oh, -dear Carr, save my honour,” he writes, “I know no more what dinner to -order than the cat on the hearth--less, for she would promptly order -mice. Oh, Carr, order a nice dinner so that I may not be quoted as a -warning of meanness ... yet not ostentatious and presuming such as -would foolishly compete with the banquets of the affluent. O, Carr, -come to the rescue!” - -This dear friend cared comparatively little for the pleasures of the -table, but Joe was even privileged to pass on one of his receipts to an -acknowledged _gourmet_: it was the simmering of a ham half the time in -stock and vegetables, and the remainder in champagne--or, failing that, -in any good white wine; and as for his salads, he was famed for them. - -I can see the pretty little plate of chives and other chopped herbs, -with yoke and white of hard-boiled mashed egg, that our French -_bourgeoise_ cook would send up ready for his meticulous choice in the -mixing of either a Russian or a lettuce salad: “a niggard of -vinegar, a spendthrift of oil, and a maniac at mixing,” was the -old adage he went by. - -Our cooks were always as proud as I was to try and follow out his -ideas, and we were invariably praised for success: I remember an -occasion when the confused damsel--partly because she happened to be -very pretty--was summoned to the dining-room to receive her meed; and -when it was blame, I caught the brunt of it and mitigated the dose -downstairs. - -But as it was always in the form of fun I never minded; I was always -proud to be the butt of it. Sometimes I scored, as when the dessert -came at that first party, and he said, offering a dish of sweets to his -neighbour: - -“Try a preserved fruit; they’ve stood the move from -Bloomsbury wonderfully well,” and I was able to produce the -freshly opened box, just arrived from a choice foreign firm, and prove -my hospitality to be less stinted. - -I had my partisans in those days. Pellegrini, the _Vanity Fair_ -caricaturist, was one of them. I hailed from his own country, and I can -hear him say: - -“Never minder Joe! You and I we ’ave de sun in de -eyes.” And then we would discuss the proper condiment for -_maccaroni_, and next time he came he would bring it ready cooked in -a fireproof dish, tenderly carried on his lap in the hansom, which he -insisted upon placing on the proper spot of the kitchen stove to warm: -on such nights, he ate little of our British fare. - -My husband and he were fast friends nevertheless. If Joe had not -“de sun in de eyes” he had it in the heart, and Pellegrini -adored him, even going so far once as to break his oath never to -sleep out of his own lodgings, that he might visit us at a cottage on -the Thames, where--although he allowed that the moon “she is a -beauty”--he used cold cream and kid gloves to counteract the -ill-effects of hard water, and sat up all night rather than retire to a -strange bed. - -Several tales of this lovable and laughable character are told in -_Eminent Victorians_, most of them referring to those happy little -homely dinner parties where Joe shone so pleasantly, and which his -friends not only graced with their presence, but even sometimes -contributed to by little kindly presentations of delicacies. - -Perhaps few have received as much kindness as Joe did, and though -always grateful, he was never overwhelmed. Of the pride which resents -gifts he had none. “I wouldn’t take a jot from any but a -friend,” he would say. “But if a friend, who has more than -I, likes to share it with me, why should I refuse? I would do the same -for him. I have no money, but I give him what I possess.” - -And none who knew him--rich or poor--in any of his many spheres, but -would testify to this: he gave the young of his wise and tactful advice -in their careers, sparing no time or trouble to advance those who were -steadfast of purpose; he gave to his contemporaries of his untiring -sympathy--known only to those who received it; he gave of his cheerful -optimism to all: no form of envy ever crossed his mind. - -“I can enjoy fine things just as well when they belong to -others as to me,” he would say. Of none are the words truer: -“Having nothing yet possessing all things.” - -But this graver digression has led me far from that merry Christmas -party, when the parlour-maid, whose beauty was an attraction of our -first home, and whose charm and devotion for eleven years are one -of its sweetest memories, was forced to retire to the sideboard to -compose her face; which sort of thing did not only occur at our own -table, but at far smarter houses where decorous butlers would bow -their heads lower to conceal their smiles, the mistress of one of them -even declaring that her maggiordomo had not considered the company -that evening worthy of Joe, and had suggested a different choice for a -future party. - -There was one over-cultured house to which we used to be bidden where -the learned hostess was mated to a meek alien, who never presumed to -understand her conversation. One evening, before the fish was removed, -she leant forward and called down the table to Joe: “Mr. Comyns -Carr, would you kindly inform us ‘what is style?’” - -Joe scarcely paused before he replied with his sunniest smile, -“Not before the sweets, Madam.” And he turned pleasantly to -the amazed host and began complimenting him on the excellence of his -claret. - -I think, although I am afraid I have heard him call that host a “Prince -of Duldoggery,” he preferred him that night to the lady of culture, -though she was too serious to be included in his pet aversions, the -“Lady Sarah Volatile’s” or “jumping-cats” of Society. - -But even among such, how prompt he was to detect the tiniest spark of -genuine knowledge or enthusiasm, the most foolishly concealed quality -of true womanliness and devotion. - -I remember a girl-friend of his daughter’s, boasting to him in -defiance of his counsel, that she would drive to Ascot alone in an -admirer’s car. - -“No you won’t,” said Joe quietly. - -And loudly as she persisted that night--she did _not_. - -I could multiply these instances by the score, for even in middle -age he was the darling of all girls, though he always told them -home-truths, and many was the match he made or wisely marred in the -confidential corner of a drawing-room. - -Whether in the quiet or the open, of course, he always talked the -better for his cigar, and to some the sight of the matches he wasted -while seeking the positively apt word was a joy in itself--or an -annoyance, as the case might be. - -I know one dear friend who could not listen for irritation, and would -burst out at last: “Light your pipe, first, old man, do!” - -Yet there were times when he had no pipe to light--in smart -drawing-rooms or theatre stalls, for instance. He was very naughty in -the latter, and kept me in a fever lest, being so well known, some one -should overhear him who could make mischief. - -Once he was reproved by the management for making his party laugh -immoderately in the stage-box at a sorely dull farcical comedy. - -“Pray present my compliments to the manager,” said Joe -suavely to the attendant who had brought the message, “and assure -him that we were not laughing at anything on the stage.” - -The speech he was proud to make every 8th of January in honour of his -dear old friend, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s birthday, and the -good wishes which for many years he voiced for many friends at Sir -George and Lady Lewis’ New-Year parties, will not perhaps be -altogether forgotten, nor could I recall the topical interests of the -moment after so long. - -But those who knew him best knew that the opportunities for witty -rejoinder and humorous invention were by no means limited to set -occasions; they were instantly seized on provocation which no one else -would have perceived, and as often in the simplicity of domestic life -as in the society of clever people who might have been supposed to -inspire him. - -Who but Joe, when a picnic was spread beneath the trees in the woods -at Walton, and a combative young curate, claiming to have secured the -spot, swooped down upon us with his Sunday-school flock, would have -whispered merrily: “Never mind! We’ll cut him according to -his cloth!” - -Or who, on being asked by a lady which was my “At Home” -day, would have replied: “Let me see! Sunday is the Lord’s -Day, and Monday is my wife’s day;” or, in the days of my -slenderness and his more opulent figure, would have declared that, -taking the average, we were the thinnest couple in London? - -These trivial jokes will seem poor to the friends who have heard -his later and more brilliant _bon-mots_ and have listened to his -longer orations; but, as I have said, I know little of those public -speeches. The most notable of these at which I remember being present -was at a dinner of the Royal Literary Fund, when he spoke long and -with deep illumination on his beloved Charles Dickens; he always -spoke at the various commemorative entertainments given in the great -novelist’s honour, but never so brilliantly and so profoundly as -that time. - -When the occasion was more formal--as when he took the chair at the -Actors’ Benevolent or the Dramatic and Musical Fund--he would -sometimes recite to me beforehand part of the speech which he intended -to deliver, but I believe he rarely stuck to his plan, and I have heard -him say that he preferred merely to prepare the “joints” of -his subject--_i.e._ each new departure--and to leave all the filling-in -to the inspiration of the moment as influenced by the foregoing speaker -or any unforeseen incident. - -I recollect that the peroration of a speech for the Dramatic and -Musical Fund ended: “I plead not so much for the deserving as for -the undeserving,” and I believe that he added: “of whom I -am one.” - -I know that he told me next day--half in glee, but much also in -pride--that the Toastmaster had told him that he had never stood behind -a chair and seen so much money raked in. - -It was certainly to his mastery of the impromptu that he owed the -triumph of his oration before the U.S. Ambassador, Mr. Bayard, -at a moment when war seemed suddenly possible with our great -English-speaking neighbour; and I recollect that Ellen Terry, who was -then in New York, told me later that when Joe’s speech appeared -in the papers _en résumé_ (it never could be wholly reported owing to -his making no notes) there was a marked change in the tide of feeling. - -He has related a part of this incident in his _Eminent Victorians_, but -he has not mentioned this last particular, neither has he told how his -triumph was won by his large appreciation of the love lavished upon -the giants of our English literature by our “friends across the -seas.” - - - - -CHAPTER X - -HOLIDAYS - - -A happy chapter this: for though Joe always had so many irons in the -fire that lengthy holidays were not only very few with him but actually -avoided and disliked, he made merry so well by the wayside that many a -memory falls into a category scarcely enshrined in a longer period than -a summer afternoon, or at most, a week-end trip; he made holiday for -other folk all the time, and in so doing made it for himself. - -Of week-end visits none were more joyous than those spent under -the hospitable roof of our friends Sir George and Lady Lewis at -Walton-on-Thames, where Sir Edward Burne-Jones was a constant visitor. -Neither of those friends were knighted or baroneted then, so that -perhaps we might all have been said to be--using Joe’s own -words--“of the lower middle class, to which I am proud to -belong.” - -Oscar Wilde was often of the Walton party--fresh from Oxford then, and -considerably esteemed as a wit himself, though not, as Joe shows in his -Reminiscences, always above the suspicion of borrowing. - -In this respect he somewhat resembled Whistler; but the latter was more -honest in his plagiarism. - -One day Whistler accused Joe of making a joke at the expense of his -friend--a false accusation in reality, though sometimes lightly -true--to which Joe quickly answered: “Well, I can make a friend -most days, but I can only make a good joke now and then:” -assuredly only half a truth, too. - -“Ha! ha!” laughed Whistler with his shrill cackle, “I -wish I had said that myself!” - -“Never mind, Jimmy, you will,” retorted Joe. - -And the cackle broke forth again whole-heartedly, whereas Wilde might -possibly have been offended. - -But very few folk were ever offended at my husband’s fun. - -One of the members said to him one day at the Garrick Club, in a -whimsical and deprecating manner: “These fellows tell me that I have -the reputation of a wit, my dear Carr.” To which Joe replied: “Don’t -worry! you’ll live that down in an afternoon.” And I am told that the -friend was wont to repeat this against himself. Again, the mother of a -pretty young girl, whom he was openly flattering, asked him, laughing, -whether his intentions were serious, to which he replied: “Serious, but -not honourable, madam.” But if this lady was not offended perhaps it -was because he had known her since the time when she was fourteen years -old herself. - -An evening in Lady Lewis’ pretty drawing-room at the Walton -cottage comes vividly back to me. We were playing some geographical -game with the children, in the course of which Oscar Wilde--with a -view to grown-up applause--found occasion to ask: “Where is the -capital of the Rothschilds?” - -The children looked blank. - -“Why, in Behring Straits,” said Joe promptly, and I -remember old Sir George Lewis’ smile, for it was at the time of -the famous city crisis when, but for that capital, the great firm of -Baring might have stopped payment. - -Even in that most precarious form of fun, the practical joke, Joe was -never known to hurt even the most thin-skinned. - -One day he and Mr. Hallé, his co-director at the New Gallery--made -an excursion to Sir Edward Burne-Jones’ home--The Grange, -Kensington--and sent up a message to the artist asking if he would -receive two gentlemen who had called to ask whether he would take -shares in the _Great Wheel_. The maid must have been sore put to it to -keep her countenance, for the rage with which the painter viewed the -monstrosity that climbed the sky above his garden wall was well known -in his household. - -He rushed downstairs, palette in hand, only to find “little -Carr,” as he affectionately called him, waiting demurely in the -hall on quite other business. - -At the sweet Rottingdean home a similar joke was played: Burne-Jones’ -loathing of the “interviewer” was a very open secret; so one summer -evening Joe crept up to the front door and sent in an audacious name, -purporting to be that of an American who hoped for a few words with the -distinguished artist. - -From the shade of the porch he peeped into the dining-room window, -and had the satisfaction of seeing his friend creep under the -dinner-table, while the maid returned with the message that Sir Edward -Burne-Jones was not at home. I think Joe’s familiar back was -quickly recognised as he walked, in mock dignity, down the garden path, -and he was not sent empty away. - -Of course, the practical jokes of which he shared the invention with -his good friend J. L. Toole--a master of the craft--were the most -cunningly devised. He has related the choicest in _Eminent Victorians_, -but I could tell of many a family laugh over them, and “One more -Tooler, father, before we go to bed,” was a common request. - -One of the favourite stories was told of him when travelling down with -Joe to the beautiful old moated house at Ightham, which our American -friends, General and Mrs. Palmer, had made their English home. Stopping -at a wayside station above which a lordly mansion stood among the -trees, Toole beckoned a porter and, in the gibberish that he used so -glibly at these moments, pretended to utter the name of its owner. - -“Oh, you mean Mr. So-and-So,” said the porter. - -“Of course--I said so!” retorted the shameless comedian. “Well, here’s -half a crown. When the train’s off, run up to the house and say ‘we -shall be seven to dinner and the game will follow.’” - -The whistle went as the porter, holding on to the door, enquired: -“Who shall I say, Sir?” - -But the train moved on and Toole returned to the reading of his paper, -leaving a gaping man on the platform. - -This same Ightham Mote was the scene of many of our happiest hours. -Its charming hostess was a dear friend whose rare gifts of sympathy -and true hospitality enabled her not only to attract to her house the -brightest of spirits, but also to draw from them their best. Children, -too, to whom she was a fairy godmother, were welcome as friends in -their own right. Our daughter and younger son were specially dear to -her in their different ways, and many was the grave, childish saying of -the latter that she would repeat to the proud father, though perhaps -the one he oftenest told himself was said to Alma Tadema when the -five-year-old boy remarked that he preferred a gas to a coal fire, -because the first went out when _you_ liked, and the latter when _it_ -liked. - -Joe was appreciated of all children and always won their favour easily; -but I remember one little lady administering a severe rebuff to him -when, after many lures, he said at last: “Well, I don’t -care whether you come or not!” to which she replied: “Oh, -yes, you do!” - -But that was an exception; they were usually his slaves, and loved his -stories as much as their elders did. He treated them as his equals only -requiring that they should do the same; and when his first grandson -was born and some one alluded to him as a proud grandfather, he said: -“I like the child, but there’s to be no grandfather about -it. I’m to be Joe to him as to others.” And so he was to -the children of that dear lady in beautiful Ightham Mote. - -Christmas was a real Yuletide in the fine old wainscoted hall and -library, where Joe was always ready for the revel, as he was for the -outdoor sports with his own children and those of the house. There -were games in the beautiful old quadrangle and fishing feats from the -bridges that lead across the moat to the bowling-green beyond; but the -latter must have been worse than a bad joke to an expert angler such -as my husband--consisting as they did in trying to lure the trout by -a bait tied on to a hairpin; luckily the fish swam away merrily and -perhaps enjoyed the fun too. - -Frederick Jameson, that earliest friend of the days of our courtship, -led the carol and song, and played for children and grown-ups to dance; -Henry James sat in the ingle nook and told us ghost-stories of his -making wholly in keeping with the place; George Meredith watched and -made shrewd comments on the characteristics and possible careers of our -various children, and discoursed on every topic--always expecting the -homage due to him and reserving the conversation, even from Joe, by a -long-drawn “Ah--” until he was ready with his next paradox. - -Yet there was a moment when Joe scored even off Meredith. I think he -tells the tale in _Coasting Bohemia_, but not of himself. Meredith -had been criticizing George Eliot, and in a brief pause, Joe put in: -“Yes! Panoplied in all the philosophies she swoops upon the -commonplace.” And Meredith, laughing, replied, “I wish I -had said that myself!” - -One day we were busy amusing the children in the big Hall with -a game of Definitions; one wrote down a word for Subject, the -next man defined, and the third--the paper being turned over the -Subject--“recovered” it. - -Thus: Subject, _Soap_; Definition, as made by Joe: _The Horror of the -East-end multitude_. Recovery, _Jack the Ripper_: the nickname of the -celebrated East-end murderer who was then the talk of the whole town. - -Joe was leaving that day for London, and the man came to announce that -the trap was at the door. - -He rose to go, but the children had begun another definition for his -“last.” _Woman_ was given as the word. _The Better Half_, -wrote the next person. - -“Only just time to make the train, Sir,” said the footman. - -The children wailed, and we all followed him out of the hall and saw -him off; but half an hour later a telegram was handed to our hostess. - -“Recovery: _An Angel once removed_”; and nobody needed to -hear the signature. - -The children were always the frame to the picture in that lovable -household, and our daughter--the apple of her father’s eye, -made in his mould, gifted with his humour and large with his urbane -and generous heart--had a very special place there. I remember his -pride when George Meredith watching her one day at his feet, said: -“Look at the bumps on that child’s head. Always let her -pursue whatever walk in life she chooses.” - -His advice was followed; and she _knew_ what she would choose. I was -having her trained for a violinist (for her gifts were several) and her -master was proud of her at twelve years old. But at fourteen she came -to us one day and said: “Father, I hope you won’t mind: -I’ve sold my violin. I know now that I want to draw--and no one -can serve two masters so I’ve put away the temptation.” - -Joe was generally the centre around whom the children mustered in those -good days, and many an extra ten minutes did he beg off their bedtime -in the summer twilight or by the big Christmas logs. He used to tell -them that he hated going to bed himself, and nothing was more true. - -“If I didn’t know that your mother always gives me cotton sheets,” he -would say on a winter’s night, “I would never go. I’ve no fancy for a -country trip every time I turn round in bed.” - -But indeed he needed no such excuse for sitting up late when he had a -congenial audience. He had a wonderful capacity for sound sleep when -the time came--a capacity equalled, as he expressed it, for “enjoying” -laziness; because, of exercise--save in the pursuit of bird or fish--he -would have none; but most of his life he sat up late and his most -welcome form of rest was always in talk. - -In this relaxation he was even more than matched in argumentativeness -by the husband of another most hospitable hostess, to whom he addresses -the following letter after a long visit when she had housed us in a -homeless interval. I may add that our host was an etymologist, and -would confront Joe with a dictionary in support of his own view of -a disputed word; also that he was an eminent amateur musician and a -vehement Wagnerian. - - - “MY DEAR----, - - It seems to me that you and your husband ought to be told that you are - excellent hosts--and yet I don’t want the thing to get about. - At first I thought that I would declare loudly to all whom I met how - pleasant a thing it was to stay in your house; and then I thought I - wouldn’t. - - When one has discovered a really charming place where one can live - with exclusive regard to one’s own selfish indulgence, it is - perhaps hardly wise to noise it abroad. Some of the snuggest corners - in Europe have been ruined by such imprudent chatter; and I feel that - I should never forgive myself if I were to be the means of making it - generally known that your house is so delightful. But I think after - all that I can trust you! - - You are not the sort of person to gossip about such a thing; and when - I tell you that what I am going to say is confidential, I simply mean - that I would not, for the present at any rate, mention the subject to - your daughter; young people are fanciful, and she might misinterpret - my meaning--besides why shouldn’t she find it out for herself? - No, let this be for you and your husband’s ear alone! And even - for you it must be in some sense a barren secret; you cannot stay with - yourselves! If you could I should recommend nothing so strongly as a - few weeks’ visit to your charming home. It would do your husband - all the good in the world--get him out of himself, so to speak--while - it would make you a different woman. Not that I think that in any way - desirable; I simply avail myself of a phrase that is always applied to - me when a change is recommended. - - Yes! If you could only stay at----! - - The family is small, but extremely intelligent, with minds well stored - with the most varied kinds of knowledge. - - Your host is a type! - - Waking--with him--appears to be the momentary interruption of an - animated conversation which has engaged the long hours others reserve - for sleep. - - With them a new day seems to open a new volume with cover, title page - and preface. Not so with him. - - The intervening night is simply a semi-colon in an uncompleted - sentence--a Wagnerian clause in a melody that repudiates a close. - This might seem to argue a too rigid adherence to a single theme with - menace of monotony. Yet nothing could be less true. - - At the bidding of a single word the whole scene changes with the - shifting magic of a dream, and you are surprised to find yourself - suddenly plunged into quite another conversational sea. - - I have seen visitors at your house who would turn a deaf ear to these - alert exercises of the dawn--moody men who became at once absorbed in - the mere pleasures of the table; taking refuge in bacon from arguments - to which they could find no auroral reply. They are cowards and I will - have none of them! Rather would I emulate the tact of your hostess who - finds, and welcomes, in these wide-ranging thoughts of morn, a bulwark - that keeps the host from the kitchen boiler. For he is very apt to - descend suddenly from his philosophic heights and pounce with unerring - precision on some petty domestic error. - - It is here you may observe the sweet influence of the daughter of the - house, whose finesse would almost deserve the name of cunning if its - purpose were not so benign. - - In her skilful hands I have seen disaster averted by a dictionary and - an impending storm transferred from a tea-cup to a disputed line of - Tennyson. - - I am painting for you only the lighter moods of life at this charming - house; of what else is delightful you must some day go and see for - yourself. But I forget; of course you can’t and there is my - difficulty staring me in the face. I wonder if it is mine alone? - - I find it so easy to trace a smile to its source: so difficult to - define the lasting charm that lies behind it! - - And even when the definition is at hand my tongue halts at eulogy. - Odd! I love to be praised and remembrance offers no instance when - I have been in fear lest appreciation should sink to flattery. But - when I try to praise others--even as they deserve--I am overtaken by - a feeling of delicacy on their behalf which I have never felt for - myself. And so I end dumb on the very threshold of my theme. - - I should like to say a great number of things of you and your husband, - but somehow it doesn’t seem possible. Some day, when I meet - a stranger in the train at one of those odd moments when by some - irresistible impulse, I am driven to confide to a chance acquaintance - secrets that through a long life I have hidden from my dearest - friends--I shall say something about you and him that you might like - to hear. But I can’t command the hour and meanwhile, you see, I - am no further than when I began. All I can say is that, if ever you - ask me to your house again, let nothing be changed from what it was, - for it could not be changed for the better. - - Yours ever truly, - J. W. COMYNS CARR.” - - -After this epistle it may not be thought partial on my part to state -that, from the days of our youthful visits to Balcarres to the end -of his life, my husband was a welcome guest at country houses; the -following, in reply to a request from Mrs. F. D. Millet of Broadway, -that he should relieve the strain of a spell of female society upon her -husband, seems to show this. - - - “MY DEAR MRS. MILLET, - - I ought not, but I will! And lest I should falter in my bad - resolution, I have already wired to you saying I should be down on - Saturday. - - It is a strange thing about duty. I believe there is no one who sees - what is facetiously called “the path of duty” more clearly - than I do; but we are differently gifted, and I fancy I never was - intended to walk in it. Like the criminal who acquires in the end an - extensive knowledge of law by industriously incurring its penalties, I - believe that if I could recall all the moral maxims I have neglected - in practice, I might serve as a veritable storehouse of wisdom and - good conduct. And so it happens that, though I see clearly I ought to - stay in town and work, I am nevertheless determined to accept your - kind invitation and come to you on Saturday next. Tell Frank to defer - suicide till after that date. - - I can indeed well understand his melancholy. No man can dwell long in - the exclusive society of women without being crushed by the sense of - his own unworthiness. We are not fit for it. I often wish there were - some bad women in the world, with whom we might associate in our baser - moments, and sometimes, in a dreary mood, I am apt to wonder what - women can have been like before the Fall, they are so perfect now. - - Perhaps in another world we shall be better and you will be worse; let - us hope for the best. - - And in the meantime let not Frank despair. When I see him on Saturday - I will do my best to detach his nose from the grindstone and tune his - unaccustomed lips to words that were once familiar to us both. - - Yours ever truly, - J. W. COMYNS CARR.” - - -In those earlier days he sometimes pretended that his wardrobe was -unfitted for such places, but I think even this was but a shallow piece -of mock modesty on his part, for he was well aware that he could shine -if he liked in any environment. - -A letter to my sister, which I have just found, may illustrate this: - - 19, BLANDFORD SQUARE, - N.W. - - “MY DEAR ALMA, - - Many thanks for the brushes. When my hair is gone--“which will - be short,” as Pellegrini says--I can use them for sweeping - a crossing. In the meantime they make a most excellent parting. - Seriously they are beautiful. - - I have never before had brushes in a case--it seems to lift - one’s social status. Hitherto my brushes have lain in my - portmanteau cheek by jowl with my boots, or have mingled their tears - with my sponge. - - Now all is changed; I feel I could stay at a country house and - meet the footman on equal terms. Of course, I don’t mean - that seriously--no man could hope to be the equal of a footman. I - am a democrat but no revolutionist, and I have always felt that so - long as liveried servants keep their supremacy the throne is safe. - Compared with this the land question is a trifle. “Dieu et - mon drawers” is the loyal but terrified sentiment with which - I always awake on a visit, and see the footman turning my tattered - underclothing inside out. But now my brushes will save me. - - Yours, - JOE.” - -In the later years of his life, as his friends multiplied far and wide -and his social gifts became famous, he was pressed into circles unknown -to me, and our country-house visits together became fewer; so that -personally I remember his talk oftener at some sea-side place where we -had run down for a week-end, or on the verandah of some foreign hotel -where he would be immediately surrounded by a delighted audience--in -later years not by any means always composed of his own countrymen. -Though his associations with French artists and men of letters over -pictures for the New Gallery--and, more still, over his English -editorship of _L’Art_--had taught him enough of their tongue for -his business, he was not a finished French scholar; but he was never -afraid to make a shot at expressing his thought, and consequently he -improved enormously at the end of his life. I remember the astonished -comment of two Armenian lads and a charming Finnish lady whom we met at -a Swiss mountain resort: “_Mais c’est épatant! De faire des -calembours comme cela dans une langue étrangère._” - -He only needed an audience; and he had it every hour of the day in -those two Armenian boys, who would stand for hours watching him throw -his line over the lake and coax the fish out--just, they used to say, -as he would coax the children to him in the roads or the visitors in -the lounge--“sans se donner de la peine.” - -I am not sure of the justice of that last remark. Perhaps he never -purposely gave himself trouble, but he amused others because his love -of his own kind was such that he must always needs be in touch with -them, be they peasant or peer, and at the end of his life he preferred -to lounge in the road and chat with the convalescent soldiers in a -quiet village than to sit comfortably in the seclusion of a lovely -garden. - -It was because he was always alive that he was not dull; but I must -admit he needed plenty of human interest to keep him so. - -And I think, for this reason, that the life of a good hotel, preferably -a foreign one, afforded him the best opportunities for fun; he knew -just how much or how little the applause of such kaleidoscopic society -was worth; but it tickled his appetite for the moment and was the -required sauce to his holiday rest. - -The following letters to his daughter variously illustrate this aspect -of him: - - EDEN HOTEL, - MONTE CARLO. - - “MY DEAR DOLL, - - Our little hotel at Monte Carlo is a cosy place, containing among its - visitors some odd and rather lonely females, both English and American. - I overheard a conversation the other night between four of them--two - English and two Americans--at which your mother would like to have - assisted. They evidently did not know that we were English, and let - themselves go on the subject of the male sex. The leader of the band, - an American lady, whose hips described a circle about as big as the - Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, was especially vehement in denouncing - us, though I can hardly conceive she had ever received any other cause - of resentment than neglect. To an English lady, who could not compete - with her in size but fairly distanced her in ugliness, she held forth - at great length on the superior advantages which women enjoyed in - America. “Over there,” she said, “we’ve just got men like _that_,” - and she placed an enormous thumb on a morsel of unresisting bread to - indicate where men were. “If they do anything we don’t like, why, - Madam, they hear from us pretty quick. And that’s where they ought to - be,” she added, “for they are just nothing but savages!” At which the - gruesome English woman said that that was what she had always held to; - but that, in England, she never could find any woman with the courage - to say so. Then the fat American gave her country away. - - “But see now,” she said, “we’ve still got to fight the law even in our - country. I said to an American man, ‘do you love your wife?’ ‘Why, of - course,’ he said. ‘Do you love your mother?’ I said. ‘Just don’t I,’ he - replied. ‘Do you love your sister?’ ‘Why sure,’ he said. ‘Well then,’ - I said to him, ‘Do you know the American constitution declares that - every living citizen should have a vote except children, criminals _and - women_.’ And then she turned to the English woman and added: “Do you - know, Madam, the thought of that American law just makes me blush all - over when I go to bed at night.” - - I confess as I looked at her, I couldn’t think of the unrighteous law, - for my mind was filled with the idea of what a wild and billowy tract - of country that blush would have to traverse. Fancy the Round Pond - turned into the Red Sea with a single blush. - - Yours, - J. COMYNS CARR.” - - BELLAGIO, - _May, 1903_. - - “MY DEAREST DOLL, - - We are in the midst of a thunderstorm that is tearing and raging - round the mountains; for the moment it is like Mr. Chamberlain in the - earlier part of his campaign--very loud and very near, but I think it - is taking itself off to the Gotthard. - - I don’t think I have told you of the two little bits of American - character I encountered at my hotel. One evening three ladies of - that country were set beside me at table d’hote. They were not - pre-possessing or young, but I noticed with just a momentary flush of - flattery that there was an obvious struggle going on as to which of - them should occupy the chair next to me; the struggle ended, and then - the next but one turned to the victor and said, ‘Couldn’t - you see, my dear, that I just wanted to protect you in case you might - be addressed in a manner that might offend you.’ Poor dears! - they didn’t know that God had protected them against any attack - of mine. - - Later, two rather nice girls and their mother took the same places; - and one evening after dinner, when the terrace was full of people, the - mother looked up to where one of the girls was standing at the window - of the room above, and called out: ‘Don’t let him kiss you, dear.’ We - all turned to look up, and there stood the girl with a parrot on her - shoulder. There was naturally an audible smile among the spectators, - and the girl herself was in fits of laughter. - - Best love from your father, - J. COMYNS CARR.” - - BORDIGHERA, - _April 1909_. - - “MY DEAR DOLLY, - - We are very comfortable in our little hotel here, with two nice - Italian brothers to cater for us. The Italian village children please - me mightily, and I hobble about in their language with just enough - understanding to enable me to amuse myself. - - We are an odd society: nearly all women, American and English. They - are mostly nice people in their way, but not exciting, and of the - place generally it may be said that whatever other attractions it may - possess it does not seem to be a health resort for beauty. The air - apparently is not recommended for pretty people. In the streets and - on the hills the German is more or less in evidence, and sometimes as - I pass them by I am inclined to side with Balfour and to demand that - four more Dreadnoughts should be laid down at once. Their admiration - of nature somehow always makes me feel shy, and I can almost see - the landscape making an ugly face after their loudly proclaimed - _Wunderschön_. However, they really don’t trouble us much--the - neighbourhood is so genuinely beautiful. - - Yours, - J. COMYNS CARR.” - -He often touched on the beauties of nature as related to art when -writing to his artist daughter, and I find this keen little bit of -criticism in a letter to her from Bellagio. - -“This place is beautiful, and makes one wonder little that -the Italians thought of landscape as a thing of design before the -Northerners found a new beauty in the empire of cloud and sky. -Certainly these mountains have great enchantment of form, and the -Southern light defines every detail.” - -And this longer letter of varying interest also rings the same note. - - FROM WENGEN, - BERNESE OBERLAND. - - “MY DEAR DOLL, - - Here is a line from me whom I daresay you thought hopeless in that - matter. But such a little thing will sometimes provoke a sinner to - virtue. Two strangely fashioned men share the room adjoining mine, - divided from me only by a washed deal partition held together by - French nails. They spend the day in moody silence and in grey frock - coats which if they were well cut would suit the Cup Day at Ascot. But - they return at nine and chatter unceasingly till 10.30. It is now only - ten and it has occurred to me that instead of tossing about on the sea - of their incoherent conversations I would write a line to you. - - This is a beautiful place which I should admire even more if nobody - else admired it. But it is made too fair to go scot free of praise, - and so I must fain clap my hands with the rest. You see we are - exclusive in our emotions as the society of a country town and do not - wish to share them with our inferiors. That is a part of it, but I - think my reluctance to hear nature applauded has a better reason too, - though it is hard to give it words. I know I always feel a better - right to enjoy its beauty when I am otherwise engaged, in killing a - bird perhaps, in fishing a stream or I suppose best of all in some - sort of labour that the needs of the world demand. - - I went for an early walk the other day up to the Wengern Alp; all - the mountain in shadow and the pines blacker than their own fallen - image on the grass. I was alone and met no one on the path but the - lads laden with their washed deal milk-pails as they came singing - from every green hill. And as they passed I felt sort of shamefaced. - I was out for beauty, a kind of dilettante wandering in search of - impressions, and I knew deep down in me that they must one day and - another have won impressions I could never gain. No one can be really - intimate with a strange land, can ever really read the face of a - hillside as it is read by those however simple who were born to see - it coloured by the changing fortunes of their life from childhood to - manhood. Nature is so shy, so reluctant to speak if she thinks she is - overheard, but she will sing to herself when she thinks we are busy. - - For us who are not artists I think beauty is only really captured in - that way. It is trapped unawares, stolen in the silences of night or - dawn, or burnt into the brain by the fire of some passionate moment - to which it remains as an unforgotten background. Of course the - artist, the poet or the painter, has other rights and other penalties. - ‘He that would save his life must lose it,’ and the artist - is always giving up for himself what he re-fashions for the joy of - others. He is like the cuckoo that sojourns in every nest and is - itself but a homeless voice. Even the beauty that he pursues is never - really possessed; it flutters for a moment in his hand and then takes - wing for others to inherit. It is bought so dearly and then sold for a - mere song. - - But this is a digression. We were talking of Switzerland, and I do - believe this is one of the choicest spots in it, but of course we - don’t discuss its merits all day. On the contrary, I think we - talk most of the food, comparing the veal of yesterday with the mutton - of to-day, wondering from what strange waters, remote or near, come - those strange fish that masquerade under the titles of the dwellers in - Northern seas. And then we pry into the lives of other lodgers, making - up imaginary relationships among families that are as normally related - as our own--taking a curious interest in characters in which we have - really no concern, and exchanging cards warmly with parting guests, - knowing that we shall see their faces again no more. And all the while - the air is so good, when the weather is not so bad, that we feel well, - which is a long way on the road to feeling happy, and we are sometimes - pointed at as distinguished, and then vanity covers the rest of the - road and we are very jolly. - - Yours ever, - FATHER.” - -His preference for a foreign holiday--unless one in his own country, -could be allied to fishing or shooting--did not, as will be understood -from stray remarks in his correspondence, extend to Germany. He always -disliked the race, and I can recollect a journey in our young days -during which we had made a halt at Munich with Beatty Kingston. I am -afraid Joe’s description of the place and the people included such -scathing epithets as “The Burial-place of the Peto-Baptists” and “The -Suburb of the World.” For his excuse I must note that it was the bad -season for the Opera, although we did once hear “The Flying Dutchman,” -which he particularly admired; also that the old Pinacotek, with its -riches in Paintings by Old Masters, was closed, as if to spite him; -naturally he could not be consoled by “the collection of middle-aged -articles” offered him as a salve--declaring that he saw plenty of these -in the streets of the town. - -He was always just as hard on the German “frau” as on her husband, and -his description of them on the mountain paths at Gastein, with skirts -looped up like window blinds and waterproofs strapped across their -shoulders in case of a storm, could only be equalled by the whimsical -words he had for the red necks of the men bulging over their collars. - -He was not a Central Europe man; the French or the Italians were always -first with him after his own people. _Romance_ for him lay in the -North; I have often heard him insist that those most deeply possess -it who dwell in the mist and dream of the sun, and he would cite -“The Wizard of the North” and the Scottish Land in proof of -his theory: yet the South stood for gaiety with him, and he sighed for -the sun even as I did who had been bred in it. - -It is curious that Rome he only saw for the first time late in life, -upon being chosen to write the introduction to the British Section -of the International Exhibition there, and afterwards appointed -England’s representative on the Art Congress. - -I shall quote a private appreciation of the written part of his -work from that acute and sympathetic critic, Edward Russell of the -_Liverpool Post_. - - NAPLES, - _April 28th, 1911_. - - “DEAR COMYNS CARR, - - I cannot refrain from congratulating you on your Introduction to the - Roman Catalogue of British Paintings, etc. Not only its literary - felicity, but its fine and illuminating judgment; the choiceness of - the language; and the apt biographical illustrations; the humane - diplomacy of occasional gentle, but searching suggestions of censure; - the insight of the aperçus; and the contribution of several original - maxims to the sterling floating currency of criticism, make it one of - the most memorable of such pieces. - - Yours, - EDWARD RUSSELL.” - -But Rome as a city he loved not, as he loved the Tuscan and Umbrian -towns; its vast antiquities oppressed him, its medieval structures he -disliked, and the race that had left its impress there bored him; even -in the natural surroundings he found too much melancholy--definitely -contrasted in his mind with that Northern sternness which breeds -Romance; but he shall speak for himself. - - “The archeological side of Rome I can only gape at as a tourist: - I have no learning that way: though, of course, there are scenes - of the old world which touch the imagination without the kind of - knowledge that must, to those who possess it, make the place deeply - interesting. The more modern Rome--the Rome of the Renaissance, - scarcely makes a single appeal and creates no such satisfying - atmosphere as Florence. The Sistine I must see again; the light was - bad to-day and the effect at so great a height did not immediately - leave the tremendous impression of Michael Angelo’s power that - comes of the more intimate knowledge given by our photographs. The - colour, however, yielded more than I had expected. Tell Fred if he is - by you that I am wholly at one with him about the Stanze of Raphael. - They gain in site, and although I knew the compositions well, I found - them better than I knew with a charm of colour unexpected and superior - to any of his easel pictures, except perhaps the Madonna at Dresden; - truly a marvellous genius, using all the resources of style with the - freedom and ease of a painter of genre--and here, which is not always - so in his later work, absolutely free from rhetoric in gesture: I must - go back to them again. - - “In the general style of Roman Renaissance building I have no - delight--and never thought to have; but, of course, there are separate - things to discover that I have as yet not had time to see. But St. - Angelo makes a great barbaric pile that is mightily impressive. St. - Peter’s seems to me much less noble in general effect than St. Paul’s, - and its interior ornament, painting and sculpture, seemed, on a swift - view, to be a wilderness of that kind of art I don’t love--all except - Michael Angelo’s _Pietà_, which stood out in modest simplicity and - intensity amid the garish surroundings. - - Yours, - JOE.” - - “DEAREST, - - I lunched with Barrère again to-day, and afterwards we went in his - motor to the lakes of Nemi and Albano. It was a very interesting - drive, and the lakes are really beautiful, though in a grave and - sombre way. Of course it was not bright sunlight, but in any case the - landscape here has a peculiar character. It has an ancient and desert - look, hardly joyous and not very fruitful, different entirely in this - respect from the landscape around Florence. But it has character, and - what one may call style: and the remains of ruined buildings, aqueduct - or tomb, which cut the sky at every turn, seem to belong to these - surroundings. The landscape is of their date, seems almost to have - remained of their date, and not to have found the renewed youth which - mocks antiquity in other kinds of scenery. A certain gravity is the - prevailing sentiment--impressive but touched with sadness. - - I am seeing isolated bits of Rome little by little. If I were - settled here for long I think the sculpture would attract me as a - study--but like everything else in the way of art in Rome one has - to be constantly sifting and sorting the good from the bad. Here - as elsewhere there is a mass of indifferent achievement, a mass - of work either poorly copied from the Greek or poorly conceived - and lacking vitality. One feels more and more that the Romans - were not artists--great collectors I have no doubt, and perhaps - connoisseurs--but without the finest fire of the spirit. There are a - few great things here that are superb, and others doubtless which I - haven’t seen, but in many instances of even admired things there - is not the saving quality of life that makes Phidias seem modern as - well as great. - - Yours, - JOE.” - -Touching this last criticism he made us laugh when he got home by -saying that he longed to cry to the crowds who patiently paced the -Vatican galleries, guide-book in hand: “Go out into the sunshine, -dear people, and enjoy your lunch--this is all bosh.” - -It was delightful to me the other day to find a perfect echo of these -sentiments in the letters of the late Mr. Stopford Brooke to his -daughters. But it is not the only instance in those enthralling volumes -where I noted a remarkable likeness in many of the views, and even in -the method of expressing them, of these two brilliant Irishmen. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -FISHING HOLIDAYS - - -I had not known my husband six months before I knew him for an -enthusiastic fisherman. He tells in his Reminiscences of the first -teaching he had from a reprobate old peasant in the Lake Country, and -the passion for it never left him; the happiest of his summer days -were spent in the pursuit of it and, from the time when I--set to -watch a float while he threw a line further down the stream--allowed -the fish to escape, to an evening towards the close of his life when -I helped his unsteady steps to the bank of the Windrush at Burford, -his characteristic grey felt hat stuck full of flies and the graceful -gesture with which his long line was flung back and forward and then -laid softly on the water of some quiet stream, are among the things -which I often recall. - -I can see him now, on that first holiday, stumbling with his swaying -rod down the rocky bed of the Dove with the sunset behind him, while -I sat waiting on a grassy bank eager to know what sport he had had -as soon as he was within earshot. He was a most expert angler; and -that was the beginning of many happy fishing trips--in Derbyshire -and Westmoreland, on the Tweed at Peebles and the lochs and rivers of -Perthshire, Argyllshire and Sutherland; but most notably on the stretch -of a Hertfordshire stream which he rented for some years with other -friends, and where he could best exercise his skill with the dry fly. - -A tiny cottage, just big enough for three men or for me and the -children, stood on the edge of the water, which was crossed by a plank -bridge. Sometimes, when there was no one else, I would be allowed--most -alarming of experiences!--to use the landing net, and I think any of -his angling comrades--A. E. W. Mason, Seymour Hicks, Sam Sothern and -others--would sympathise with my terror over the responsibility. - -I think there were no happier days in my husband’s life than -those spent in that Hertfordshire cot, and there is no frame into which -his figure fits more familiarly than the sedgy bank of that sunlit -river, hemmed by boldly contrasting forget-me-not and marshmallow, with -the May-fly flitting over the sparkling ripples and the shaded pools. - -And nothing so helped his periods of creative work as this rural -recreation. - -It was on the shores of Loch Rannoch that he wrote the first Acts of -his _King Arthur_ for Henry Irving, and on the banks of the Lea that -he saw the barge bearing the body of the Fair Elaine. The Black Mount -at the foot of the loch may have stood for the rugged rocks around -Camelot, and the limpid stream dividing emerald meadows at eventide, -for the river that circled Arthur’s Halls. - -He was wont whimsically to declare that the “gaslights of -Piccadilly” were more satisfying to him than a country life -unless enhanced by the pleasure of sport; but no one saw the beauties -of Nature in the intervals of sport more sympathetically than he did, -as he tells for himself in _Coasting Bohemia_: - - “I sometimes think,” he writes, “that those who - haunt the country, without conscious sense of its many beauties, - are apt to learn and love its beauties best. How often the memory - of a day’s shooting is indissolubly linked with the pattern - of a fading autumn sky, when we have stood at the edge of a stubble - field wondering whether the growing twilight will suffice for the - last drive. And if this is true of other forms of sport, it is - everlastingly true of fishing. There is hardly a remembered day on a - Scotch loch, or beside a southern stream, which has not stamped upon - it some unfading image of landscape beauty. It was not for that we - set forth in the morning, for then the changing lights in a dappled - sky counted for no more than a promise of good sport; during those - earlier hours there is no feeling but a feeling of impatience to be - at work; and the splash of a rising trout, before the rod is joined - and ready and the line run through its rings, is heard with a sense - of half-resentment lest we should have missed the favourable moment - of the day. But as the hours pass, the mind becomes more tranquilly - attuned to its surroundings. The keenness of the pursuit is still - there, but little by little the still spirit of the scene invades our - thoughts, and as we tramp home at nightfall the landscape that was - unregarded when we set forth upon our adventure now seems to wrap - itself like a cloak around us with a spell that it is impossible to - resist. A hundred such visions, born of an angler’s wanderings, - come back to me across the space of many years. I can see the reeds - etched against a sunset sky, as they spring out of a little loch in - the hills above the inn at Tummel. And then, with a changing flash - of memory, the broad waters of Rannoch are outspread, fringed by its - purple hills. And then, again, in a homelier frame, I can see the - willows that border the Lea, their yellow leaves turned to gold under - the level rays of the evening sun; and I can hear the nightingale in - the first notes of its song as I cross the plank bridge that leads me - homeward to the cottage by the stream.” - -By which it will also be seen that his “love of laziness” -did not hinder him in the pursuit of sport. - -Exercise for its own sake he resolutely refused to take, and when my -Alpine-enthusiast father dragged him up a Piz--the last bit with his -eyes shut--he said: “I shall never climb anything again!” - -But Seymour Hicks could tell a different tale of a memorable evening on -which he hooked a big trout in the dusk--Joe teasing him as to its poor -weight--and when they stayed so late beside a Scottish tarn to land -it that their friends below came up the mountain with lanterns to the -rescue. - -In Peeblesshire, too, he had gay hours with a Captain Fearon, known to -our children as _Plum-bun_, because of a rhyme with which he teased -them. - -This fine old sportsman--though he must have been sixty at the -time--walked twenty miles after a day’s sport so as to let Joe -have the only spare seat on a buggy that he might catch the night -express to town for work on the morrow. I can see the tall handsome old -man now on the moorside, gaily waving adieu to Joe with a champagne -bottle which he had seized from the picnic basket to cheer him on the -road. - -Joe had many days with him on the Tweed; one of them, following such a -big spate that an old countryman wading in front of them was never seen -more after they had warned him against imprudently breasting the swirl -of the water where the river made an abrupt bend ahead. - -The gloom of this incident was partly mitigated by their being told -that the man was a drunkard whose fate had often been so prophesied to -him; but they fished no more in a spate on the Tweed. - -Fun was oftener their portion. I fancy it was to Fearon that Joe made -the _bon-mot_ current in the Garrick Club, where he represented himself -as lunching with Noah on the Ark. - -“You must have good spate fishing here, Mr. Noah,” he -reports himself as saying while they sat smoking on the balcony -overlooking the Flood. - -“It _would_ be good,” replied the host, “but -unluckily, you see, I have only two worms.” - -He writes himself of his fishing on Loch Awe; and later, on Loch Etive, -as the guest of our charming friend Alec Stevenson, whose cheery voice -would ask of his keeper after breakfast: “Is it fishin’ -or shutin’ the day, Duncan?” But there is no mention of -a happy six weeks in Sutherlandshire where we were chiefly fed by the -guests “killing” of the daily trout, proudly displayed at -even upon a large tray in the hall. - -I think it was here that Joe had trudged for three hours up a -mountain with his fly-rod set up, to find--when he reached the tarn -at the top--that his top joint had fallen off on the road; as he was -alone only the midges heard his remarks, for he had not even his -fourteen-year old son with him--the happy companion of his later -angling days. It was into just such a tarn, that that boy fell off the -boat one day, when landing a trout, and was advised by his father to -run about in the natural state on the moor while his clothes dried on a -sun-baked rock. - -A lovely place is Inchnadamph on blue Loch Assynt; the great mountain -that guards the valley towards Lochinver can be golden in the long, -northern twilight, when the water that has been as a sapphire before -the sunset, becomes purple in the gloaming; but oh! the midges! -Useless to tie our heads in bags and grease our faces: they penetrated -everywhere and “bit like dogs.” They _almost_ deterred Joe -from his evening hour on the water because of the landing afterwards, -when the pony would not stand for him to step into the cart. - -But nothing really deterred Joe from fly-fishing--neither heat nor -cold nor rain nor wind; he only regarded the weather at those times -from the point of view of its influence on the sport. Even when it was -too bad for fishing he couldn’t keep away from the water. But he could -never keep away from water--he said it was the life of a landscape -as the blood is the life of the human body. In our early days, when -we were too poor for Highland trips, visits to friends on the Thames -afforded him his best access to it; and, though he was not perhaps a -perfect oarsman, as may be proved by a “stroke’s” petition that he -would not “go so deep,” to which he replied: “Ah, I never leave a stone -unturned!”--he loved the “noble river.” Though for perfect satisfaction -he chose more swiftly running waters. - -I came across some passages in one of Stopford Brooke’s letters -which strangely call to mind Joe’s passion for a free stream. - -“There is no companion like a quick stream,” writes the -older man; “full, but not too full, capable of shallows and -water-breaks, with deep pools when it likes and with a thousand shadows -acquainted with all the tales of the hills....” - -And once more: “Running water surely is the dearest and best-bred -thing in the world. And a great workman and a great artist.... Nor is -there any Singer, any Poet, any Companion so near and dear as it is -when it shapes itself into a mountain stream in a quiet country.” - -Often have I seen Joe beside such streams, and though it so chanced -that the last happy holiday we had together was spent beside lakes -rather than rivers, the sense of moving water remains associated in my -mind with him through all the earlier days of our life. - -It was in Ireland--his motherland, though he had never seen it till -then--that we passed those last unforgetable weeks of autumn. - -Even as we landed at Rosslare there seemed to fall upon him an -unnameable affinity with the country of his blood; as we travelled -slowly--very slowly--over her truly emerald bosom, he sat in a dream -watching the little black cattle, that we afterwards learnt to beware -of for “cross bastes,” as they cropped the sedgy meadows, -his eyes wandering from them to the tender Irish sky and then waking -into fun as he saw a peasant at a small station trip a boy up unawares -and cuff him soundly, laughing as he did it. - -And when we reached Waterford--only a dirty town to me--he plunged at -once among his people and laughed joyously at the retort of a begging -urchin, whose pathetic plea of hunger he had pretended to rail at: -“That’s where ye’re wrong, yer honour,” the cheery little villain had -cried: “A man may be fat and hungry too.” - -The horse races were going on, and the inn was in an uproar, which he -sat up most of the night to watch. - -But the next day sleepy ways prevailed once more, and it took us a long -time to get off at the station, where I recollect his amusement at the -porter’s instruction: “This way to America.” - -We reached Killarney without trunks, and the conveyance sent to meet us -broke down on the way to the hotel; but he would meet no _contretemps_ -save with a smile, and it was borne in on me that it was because he -was an Irishman that Italian happy-go-luckiness had never ruffled him. -So we fell in with the leisurely ways of the land, and were fain to -“enjoy the soft rain” at that romantic spot and watch for -the beautiful shapes of the hills to appear out of the mists on the -lake. - -Next morning, however, that unique green-blue sky, washed with rain and -dappled with wisps of cloud, smiled on us in faint sunshine, and from -that hour our journey was one passing from fair to fairer scenes. - -In a short time our train was climbing, or burrowing, through perilous -cliffs of granite, crowned with lonely moors and, presently swooping -down on the glorious coast-line, that makes for Valencia Island. - -This we left on one side, and at Lough Caragh we also did not halt, -tempting as it was; for our destination was Waterville, where we had -rooms booked at the charming Great Southern Hotel for the fishing -season; and after an hour or so more of leisurely travel we reached -Cahirciveen, where a ramshackle trap waited to carry us over the moors -to the village that lies twixt sea and lough. - -The whole journey, and the last of it not least, was a revelation to -him of which I think he was proud to talk to me, and I certainly had -formed no notion of the beauties of _The Kingdom of Kerry_. The rough -road across the wild heather-moor was bordered almost continuously -with hedges of the small purple-red fuchsia in full bloom, and the -cabins--white or pink-washed, with thatched roofs--that we passed at -rare intervals, were shaded with it and covered with honeysuckle. - -“You live in a fair country,” said Joe to an old man -standing one day at the door of his tiny hovel; and I--looking beyond -him to the dim range of the Macgillicuddy Reeks--added, “and -with beautiful hills.” - -“The visitors say ’tis fair, but I’ve seen it _arl_ -me life,” replied the proprietor, with a quaint smile. And then -to me--“but sure the Reeks are illigant in winter wi’ the -darlin’ snaws upon them.” - -But that was later. That day we were silent with contented fatigue -till the muffled boom of the great Atlantic breakers began to fall as -distant thunder on our ears: then suddenly Ballinskelligs’ Bay -lay before us with the massive headlands of Bolus and Hog’s Head -guarding it from the Ocean. - -The shore is wild and desolate with the sense of the vast Atlantic -ever present; but soon we turned inland again towards the mountains of -the “deep Glenmore,” and there, under the purple shadow of -Mount Knockaline, lay a long, grave Lough with a tiny deserted islet -in its midst upon which one of the ancient beehive cells stands under -the eaves of a ruined church. It is Lough Currane, and we drove under -overhanging fuchsias, to the Great Southern Hotel on its shore. - -We had two more beautiful drives while we were in the _Kingdom of -Kerry_: one along the perilous Irish _Cornice_, known as the Coomakista -Pass, where one prayed one might not meet the coach, to Park-na-Silla; -the other from Kenmare over a rocky road to Glengariff. - -The Cornice drive beggars description, and I never knew Joe to be so -enthusiastic over a view. Shallow little coves fringed with brilliant -golden seaweed--upon which herons stand feeding at times--indent the -shore itself; but the Sound is studded with numberless islets--some -clad with heather, others with semi-tropical shrubs, and faintly ringed -with the silver foam of a streaked and gentle sea. In an opal haze -beyond them, the opposite shore of County Cork lies as a dream; but -the two great guardian cliffs of Ballinskelligs’ Bay with their -outriders--the Bull and Cow Rocks--stand in firm and grand outline away -whence we came where the Sound joins the Ocean. - -The coach driver draws up when he reaches the best point, and tells -us all about it, and points out the Great Skellig Rock--twelve miles -out to sea, and close at hand the bridle path by which O’Connell rode -over the mountains to his home at Darrynane. As we near that Bay and -its multitude of tiny islets, upon one of which stands the ruined -Monastery of St. Finnan, he shews us the “Liberator’s” very house and -then we turn inland again among undulating moors--our road fenced with -the fuchsia and every variety of fern, till of a sudden the beautiful -bridge and square church tower of Sneem village seem to beckon us into -the very heart of a fiery sunset. - -Our second drive from Kenmare was again quite different and not without -incident. In the first place Irish unpunctuality caused us to start -two hours late, and in the second, when the carriage arrived at last, -the harness had to be tied up with cord before we could proceed, a -beginning which filled me with alarm though it reminded me of youthful -days in Italy: but to Joe it only afforded opportunity for pleasant -raillery with his compatriot, and I only wish I could remember all the -_bon-mots_ with which they capped one another. - -The last part of the ascent was very wild, but when we emerged from -the tunnel that pierces the topmost granite cliff, the view that burst -upon us--though wild still in its freedom from the intrusion of human -interest, was soft and tender with all the glamour of the South. Range -upon range of finely-chiselled hills stood crossing and re-crossing one -another with gentle valleys between, and the glint of water here and -there made visible by the golden splash of sunset; and presently the -hills--so soft and so solemn upon the mellow evening sky--were cleft to -their base, and Bantry Bay lay spread in the distance beneath us. - -The road went down in sharp turns and, the driver cheerfully remarking -that we should have to pass a motor-roller on the way, my heart -jumped into my mouth. But Joe administered a little salutary chaff -together with a cup of tea at the wayside inn, where we changed -drivers, and a pretty girl assured me that “Faith,” I had -“no need to fear, for the lad was the coolest whip on arl the -mountain-side.” - -So he was, but he went a fine pace, and the waiter at the inn, who told -us he was the girl’s brother, told us also that that cool lad was -her lover, so perhaps he was eager to show his prowess. - -At Glengariff our weather was hot and fine, and the water of that -land-locked end of the Bay was so calm that the pleasure boats round -the jetty, and indeed every tree on the shore and on the near island, -would lie reflected on its surface in the rosy dawns or the golden -sunsets as they do on the Italian lakes. But out beyond the island -the breeze would freshen, and thither Joe hied him with a friendly -fisherman every morning to lie in wait for the bass and the mackerel. - -Our friends--Mr. and Mrs. Annan Bryce--owned the beautiful island at -the mouth of the bay, and there we spent happy afternoons wandering -over the heather and gazing afar from the old castle’s ruined -battlements; but Joe’s mornings were his own, and he would go -even further out to sea than the island, to where the seals sunned -themselves on the rocks, unscared by the approach of man, but scuttling -under water when the fishing-reel ran out, the old ones calling their -young to safety with an eerie cry. - -Perhaps Glengariff was the most lovely spot that we saw, but the -hothouse atmosphere of it made a prolonged stay too trying, hence we -enjoyed Waterville and Lough Currane best, where the more invigorating -air of the open Atlantic in our wake kept even the moisture of the -valleys freshened with soft breezes. - -Also it is here that Joe rejoiced in the only branch of angling that he -really loved; sunshine, mist or rain he was off on the lough with his -faithful gillie, his trout-rod set up, his old hat well-adorned with -every likely fly and, if necessary, his oilskins about him. - -It took him all his time--easy as it usually was with him to make -friends--to make them with that gillie: a curiously sad and silent lad, -whose rage at the “lack of pride” in a besotted old poacher -who would hang about the landing-stage, knew no bounds. - -But Joe would only laugh, and give the old beggar the -“tanner” that he begged “for the love of God,” -with a willing heart. - -“Don’t be too hard on him,” he would say to the -young boatman. But the boy had been in America, and, as it presently -appeared, was ashamed of the lazy ways of his countrymen. - -“Home Rule might be arl right,” he would say--adding -shrewdly--“if it don’t keep the visitors” (generally -meaning the English) “away. But, begorra, let us work for -it!” - -Few held such wide views even in that day, and Joe could rarely get -any one to talk on that favourite topic of his; but he made various -pleasant little discoveries, one of which was that Catholic and -Protestant children worked together at school without trouble; but then -most of the latter were fathered by English experts working at the -Cable Station and were ranked as “visitors.” - -His chief enjoyment when not fishing, was in the cabins--when he could -find excuse for entrance. There was a weaver of the frieze not far from -our inn, and there we went to buy a length for a gift. We were rewarded -for a wet walk. The weaver was out--but his wife sat by the peat-fire -with a new-born baby in her arms. - -As we opened the door the cow that was in the yard thrust in a soft -nose to hold it ajar, and lo, we beheld a sow within, rise slowly up -and waddle out, followed by ten wee sucking pigs: then the cow stepped -over the threshold beside us. - -The woman rose asking us our errand, while I edged away from the cow -and tried to get out again. - -“She’ll not harm ye, lady,” said she with a smile, “It’s her milkin’ -time, and sure she knows I’d not take the darlin’ babe out in the rain.” - -But it was not often that Joe spared time from serious business for -calling and sight-seeing. Once we went to the Cable Station and -learned, in an amazing short time, from America, that the weather was -fine and dry; and on two occasions I went with him to Lough Coppul (The -Horse) away up in the “deep Glenmore”; but that was only -allowed so that I might see the sleepy beauty of that tiny, lonely -lake, where the water is peat-brown even in the sunlight; here I was -introduced to two lovely children with gold-red hair and deep eyes, -who dwelt in the schoolhouse of four districts, and were Joe’s -special friends. This treat was a great favour granted to me, nor was -I admitted into the boat even then, but had to roam about the shores -while work was done. Luckily it was fine and warm, and the midges are -not nearly so fierce in Ireland; and, with the children’s tales -of the plights of scholars coming over the mountains in winter and a -shy admission, warily coaxed out of them, as to the presence of fairy -horsemen there on All Hallowe’en, many an hour went by like a -dream, till the gloaming called us home. - -But my lot was more often to sit reading or writing on the terrace of -the hotel watching for the boats to round the point of _Church Island_, -as they came in with their catch to meals. - -Whether anglers are men or women--and most of the women in the Hotel -were anglers--they mind nothing but meals, and rarely the _hours_ of -those; so that I was mostly alone, but the excitement of the “basket” -was an event each time, and Joe’s was often the heaviest. - -Through the gap in the fuchsia hedge, whose tassels lay blood-red -upon the lough’s blue background on a fine morning, I would first -distinguish his boat in the offing, and walk down to the landing-stage -to watch it nearing me between the shallows, where those coal-black -little “cross” bullocks stood knee-deep on the emerald marshland. I can -see him, skilfully throwing his line on the water to the last instant; -then turning towards me with the welcoming smile on his face always, -though I generally knew, before he had stepped ashore, whether he had -had good luck or not. - -Yet the weather was not by any means always fine, and many a day I sat -in our little parlour, not even seeing the fuchsia hedge, and certainly -not the water. - -One wet day comes specially to my mind. It had rained steadily, and out -of the soft, white mist that shrouded the lough, the sound of a tolling -bell had come eerily to me all the afternoon. I knew of no church -within two miles save the ruined one on the Island, and at last I asked -the chambermaid what it might mean. - -“Sure, it’ll be a buryin’ on St. Finnan’s -Isle,” said she, crossing herself, after listening for a minute. -“The family will still have the right of it, and they keep a -bell in the broken tower. But the corpse will have come from far, poor -sowl!” - -She went her way, and soon the bell ceased, and almost at the same -time the mist began to clear and the shapes of the black cattle to -appear again on the sedgy marshes, browsing as usual; then I saw black -boats--like phantom things--stealing away in the distance and--behind -them--a streak of gold struck across the wet mountain-side and all the -mist shrank away, and the purple ridge was set against that tender -blue-green Irish sky, crossed with bars of rosy light. - -I went out and down the wet path to the landing-stage, and there was -Joe’s boat pulling towards the shore, and he standing up in it -with a smile upon his face. - - * * * * * - -That was our last holiday. - -We were often out of London again, and in lovely spots: in summer, -at Studland in Dorset, at Broadway and Burford in Oxon, at Ditchling -in Sussex; in winter, at Hastings and Bournemouth. But it was always -in search of health and to escape the nerve-racking air-raids of -War--never again in the boyish spirit of holiday. - -Yet let it not be supposed that Joe was ever dismal. “Comyns -Carr is a good fellow and a boon fellow,” George Meredith wrote -of him to another old friend, and so he was to the last. Depressed now -and then, but hopeful again till near the end, and always thankful for -every bright moment and for every kindness received. “Grumbling -is so dull,” he would say; and when I was dismayed at the -_contretemps_ of travel lest they should affect his comfort, he would -beg me to “bridge it over”--as he did. - -As we drove away from the house at Bournemouth on our last journey he -said to the landlady: “I’ve never been so comfortable in -any lodgings”; yet he had suffered much there, and had often -lacked luxuries unprocurable in war-time. Sometimes in those days, -after a long silence, I would ask him what he was thinking of, and he -would answer simply: “Nothing, dear!” By which I am sure he -meant nothing troublous--and truly to the wearying, harassing thoughts -which beset many of us he was a stranger--for he would sometimes add: -“I’ve plenty to remember.” - -And then, to the last, he worked part of every day. His hand had not -been able to write for long, but he would dictate to a shorthand -typist; the whole of his _Ideals of Painting_, posthumously published, -was so written, and his precision never flagged, as he instructed -me over the correction of those proofs--whether in regard to the -letterpress or to the re-production of the illustrations; the -photogravure after Rembrandt’s _Mill_ had been delayed, and -on the last day of his life he asked me if it had come and if it -“looked well.” - -Reading over his own words upon the waning of his old friend, Sir John -Millais’ life, they seem to me unconsciously, yet so fitly, to -describe himself, that I shall end this effort to preserve some sort of -a portrait of him by quoting them. - -“I never heard from him,” he writes, “however -great the dejection of spirit he must have suffered, a single sour -word concerning life or nature. His outlook on the world was never -tainted by self-compassion, never clouded by any bitterness of personal -experience, and one came to recognise then--as his life and strength -gradually failed and waned--that the spirit of optimism ... was indeed -a beauty deeply resident in his character, which even the shadow of -coming death was powerless to cloud or darken.” - -So I think of Joe as he stepped out of the boat on Currane, with the -smile upon his face. - - -I here add a few unpublished early lyrics and sonnets, never revised by -my husband for publication, which may give pleasure to his friends of -those days. - - -LOVE’S SUMMER. - - Away in our far Northern Land, - Where blustering winds swept o’er the wold, - Love came with Winter hand in hand - Changing our leaden skies to gold, - And as we raced across the Snow, - Love set the frozen world aglow. - - Ah, give me back that frozen year, - Those leaden skies, that wind swept wold! - ’Twas summer then, ’tis winter here, - Here where my dearest heart is cold, - Where all the Earth and all the Sun, - Tell only that Love’s race is run. - - J. C. C. - 1870. - - -A SONG. - - -I. - - What need of words, when lips that might have spoken - Clung close to mine? - And through the shadowed silence long unbroken, - This hand in thine, - There came from lowered lids such speech as lingers - When Love grows dumb, - And muted strings yield up to unseen fingers - Sweet strains to come. - - -II. - - But now! Ah now! what love left half-unheeded - Or half untold, - Each little word those quivering lips conceded - Has turned to gold. - I hoard them all as misers hoard their treasure - In secret store, - Till once again Love finds that muted measure - As once before. - - J. C. C. - - -FOR MUSIC. - - O winged Love! bear those red lips to mine, - That at one draught together we may drain - This Cup of Life that holds Love’s magic wine, - Then turn with lip to lip and drink again, - O Winged Love! - - Or waft me as a rose to where she lies - And hide me with thy hands within her breast. - That my bruised petals, wakened by her sighs, - May live one hour, then cease, and sink to rest, - O Winged Love! - - J. C. C. - 1873. - - -LINES WRITTEN ON A PAGE OF A YOUNG GIRL’S ALBUM - -AT RAGATZ, AUGUST 1889. - - Just as a dream of music never heard - May charm our spirit with its mystic spell, - This little page without one written word - Speaks more than words can tell: - - Fair as the unchanging fields of Alpine snow, - That hide the buried and the unborn spring, - Its silence guards all secrets that we know - And all that time may bring: - - Bearing sweet memories of past hours held dear - For all whose youth is flying, or has flown, - And softly whispering in a maiden’s ear - A name as yet unknown. - - J. C. C. - - - My love is fair and yet not made so fair - As though fed only with the sun and sky - For now some viewless vision fills the air - And laughing lips grow mute--she knows not why, - And on her eyelids fallen unaware - The shadow as of passing tears doth lie! - Of tears unwept, born of an unknown care - That dwells beyond the flight of memory. - - Ah, sweet, into thy beauty there could come - No better thing: the earth that holds thy feet - Must bring earth’s stain upon them where they meet - The path not made for thee--and the wind’s breath - That speaks not unto others but is dumb, - Whispers to thee of Life and Love and Death. - - J. C. C. - 1875. - - -ON A PICTURE. - -BY E. BURNE-JONES. - - Sad swift return of old love unforgot, - And passion of sweet lips that may not meet, - And trembling eyes that, like to weary feet, - Press close unto the goal yet touch it not, - Ah! Love, what hinders unto these the lot - Of common lovers? Shall no hour complete - This sweetness half-begun, no new day greet - The old love freed of the old stain and blot? - - At this last hour, O Death, within thy heart - Hast thou no pity? Shall the night be dumb - Nor ever from thy lips the low words come, - Giving once more the old sweet wanderings? - Shall yearning lips for ever stand apart - Shadowed beneath the darkness of thy wings? - - J. W. C. C. - 1872. - - - There was a time, Love, when I strove to tell - Our love but newly won: and tried to sing - In broken verse that scarcely found a wing - Some praise of all the beauty that doth dwell - Beneath long lashes: But then came the spell - Of love possessed, and I no more dared bring,-- - Thy hand in mine,--the old verse offering - Lest any spoken word should sound ‘farewell.’ - - Song at the best is but a cry for love - Not love itself and ere our paths had met - We cried to one another through the maze - That men call life:--until the moon above-- - Our steadfast moon of love that’s not yet set-- - Had drawn our feet into the selfsame ways. - - J. C. C. - _July, 1878._ - - - Ah! Love, I know thou hast no power to bring - Those lips once more to my lips; those sweet eyes, - Back to where once they dreamed so near to mine.-- - I know that not again on Earth shall cling - Those fair white arms, and not till all Time dies - Shall these hands in her loosened hair entwine. - There is no might can give back to the Spring - The lowliest flower dead under summer skies. - - Yet thou can’st tell me wandering by what stream - And in what fields of night her white feet tread. - Have I not wandered, Love, in many a dream? - Has she not too in dreaming wanderèd? - Then send her soul now to some garden fair - That my soul too may meet and wander there. - - J. W. C. C. - - - The moon that leans o’er yonder fleecy lawn - Lights a white path where wandering souls may stray - From earth as high as heaven: and when the day - Shall pass night’s dusky curtains, newly-drawn, - And swiftly with the footing of a fawn - Leaps up, from cloud to cloud, till all the gray - Burns crimson--then our feet may find a way - From East to West led by the feet of dawn. - - Yet now how far apart stand North and South - And that one face and mine! Ah, not so far! - For at the call of one remembered word - I hear again that voice which first I heard - When day dawned in the smile about her mouth - And in her eyes I saw the morning Star. - - J. C. C. - 1873. - - - Death speaks one word and all Love’s speech is dumb - And on Love’s parted lips that breathe farewell - Death’s marble finger lays its mystic spell - And bears the unuttered message to the tomb, - From whose closed door no whispered echoes come - To break the discord of the tolling bell - That sounds through city lane and woodland dell - With the sad burthen of Love’s martyrdom. - - And so Love dies. Ah no! it is not so! - For locked in Death’s white arms Love lies secure - In changeless sleep that knows no dream of change. - ’Tis Life not Death that works Love’s overthrow, - For while Life lasts what love is safe or sure - When each day tells of passionate hearts grown strange? - - J. C. C. - 1890. - - -GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. -LTD. - - -Transcriber’s Notes - - Note: In The Table of Contents, ‘IX Social Occasions p115’ is - entitled ‘Entertainment’ in the body of the book. - - Page 12: changed, of his sisters’--shaken to of his sister’s--shaken - Page 41: changed, me some grapes, to me some grapes,’ - Page 44: changed, surburban to suburban - Page 73: changed, flummuxed to flummoxed - Page 88: changed, ‘Wall Sir, I hope’ to ‘Well Sir, I hope’ - Page 126: changed, opportunites to opportunities - Page 136: added the word ‘whom’-the centre around whom the children - Page 136: changed, children, criminals _and women_.” to - children, criminals _and women_.’ - Page 170: changed, horsesmen to horsemen - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. 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