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.”