“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.”