J. Comyns Carr: Stray Memories, by His Wife

by Alice Vansittart Strettel Carr

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.