LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18668, 17 April 1926, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Interest in a book of, reminiscence is much commoner than quality, and it is the union of tho two that makes the work of Mrs Comyns Carr so exftptionally engaging (according to the "Observer's" review of the "Recollections" of Mrs J. Comyns Carr). There is no waste of space here on cataloguing of celebrities: whenever a name appears, there is a touch of character along with it in gesture, anecdote, or repartee. Mrs Carr, who has known the world of art and genius so well, can look back to the time when it was still demarcated from that of social greatness by boundaries, the crossing of which involved either ritual or diplomacy. When Corney Groin went to sing in Mayfair drawingrooms. He arrived during dinner, and was shown into the back drawing-room, where presently the hostess would graciously chat with him for a few moments, whilst tho menfolk were enjoying their port and cigars in the dining-room. Then, after he had sung his songs and smiled his charming smile, Corney Grain was given an excellent meal in a room apart, where it was the turn of the host to sit with him as he ate, and compliment him upon tho success of his performance. By way of exception, with art upon its dignity, Mrs Carr recalls the appearance of Wagner at an English dinnerparty : He made no effort at all at general conversation, and it soon became plain that he only cared to talk to such of the guests as were declared partisans of his work. These were taken up to him one by one by our host, and he spoke to each of them for a few moments —much in the manner of royalty according an audience to favoured subjects. The author can claim a little pioneering work to her own credit in the pathway of social evolution, for she succeeded in an experiment of dispensing with chaperons and "achieved a series of impromptu dances from which the hitherto inevitable row of deadly though doting mammas was happily absent.'' Poets, dramatists, actors, and artists have all claimed Mrs Carr for a friend. Browning she found "quite content with simple fare," provided he could drink port throughout the meal. From Swinburne's custodian she heard the vivid descripiion of the most critical hour in his tutelary career:— "There was one moment when things looked very difficult. As Al- : gernon and I' sat talking late one evening he suddenly rang the bell, and when I asked him what he wanted he replied defiantly, 'Brandy.' "'There's none in the house,' I explained. ''• / "'Then the girl must get some, that's all.' ' "You know, Carr," Watts-Dip-ton said, breaking off his narrative and turning to Joe, "I felt; that, if he at once tasted brandy again there would be no more hope for hirn, scI determined to prevent it at all costs. First I tried persuasion. " 'lt's too late for that, Algernon,' I said. 'lt's time for us both to go to bed.' " T won't go to bed till I've had some brandy,' shouted Swinburne, 'and if the girl can't go I'll fetch it myself—and he walked to the door. "'Swinburne,' I said (and, when Watts-Dunton's stentorian voice, like billows of the sea, rolled out that ./word it Bounded very terrifying), " 'and if you go out to-night you'll find your portmanteau packed, and on the doorstep when you come back, and you'll never this house again.'" v . Watts-Dunjton pulled at his drooping'black moustache, and his merry squirrel-like eyes twinkled. "Yon know Algernon can look the great gentlemari when he pleases; Carr. At that moment all His breeding canto out in his hack, and I was almost ashamed, but he turned round. and came and sat down by. th? fire... I have never Had.any trouble with him since." , . The Gilbprtian, tradition is enhanced by one or two trifles from Mrs Carr's memory. "I'm so nasty," the librettist once told her, "that most people think twice before they annoy me;" And it was he whb> after listening to the-com-plaint of a fashionable accoucheur ui :i ladies' slackness in settling his accounts, remarked urbanely, .'.'Well, Playfair, you should' say -'Cash on delivery.' '•' Whistler's social ways provoked- many criticisms, and that of an Italian brother of the brush was peculiarly emphatic:— "If he imagines," Martini exclaimed indignantly, as he described to me Jimmy's not too lavish hospitality, "that I will always be content to pay two shillings or ',alf a crown for my cab to go down to the Suburban and come 'ome 'ungry, 'e is mistake. One egg, one toast, no more.. One flower, in Japenese pot, and two goldfish in bowl, dat is not food." But Sir James Barrie must have been caught in an unusually tart mood in one of Mrs Carr's anecdotes: — The guests, who were mainly literary, were discussing Marie Corelhj and running her down rather mercilessly. Barrie was evidently in sympathy with this attitude, for when Joe remarked half-apologeticaj-*ly, "Well, at any rate-she's alive,' it was the host who made the caustic rejoinder, "That's where I blame her." '

An' extract from a recent exchange: Anthony Hope (Hawkins) told m© an amusing anecdote about Bret Harte tho other day. He had just spoken of Hawthorne and Poe being on the same popular shelf with Dickens and Thackeray—no more English than they were American, no more American than they were English. • . "How about Bret . Harte?" I asked. "He, too, is universal. Poor old Bret Harte' A charming fellow, really, but an odd piece. Wore velveteens and all the res,t of it. I remember one night we all went on a gay theatre party. Bret Harte was one of us, of course. He didn't like. the play and made it very evident. He stalked in and out of the box all during the performance, and between the acts he 6moked a cigarpuffing out great jet« of smoke—while he talked "to ns about it. JJone- of us felt easy until the play was over and we had left the theatre. "While he was quit* Bohemian in manner, don't r;etthe idea that he was affected. He wasn't. He was alwavs himself." . ■' ,