He gave me a recipe for beefsteak pudding: no beef, fresh kidney, fresh mushrooms, fresh oysters, great stress laid on the epithet: serve the pudding in its basin.
He came in to breakfast one morning whistling an attractive air. I asked what it was; he said from Carmen, and hummed the air through. He went on to say that he had well known the composer, Bizet, who founded his opera on Mérimée's romance. It fell flat, and Bizet died believing it a failure; afterwards it became the rage.
This whistling of music was a favourite practice with him. His accurate ear enabled him to reproduce any tune which had at any time impressed him. He would give Chinese airs, would go through parts of a Greek Church service, would sing words and music of the _Dies Iræ. On the Sunday following the death of Florence Nightingale our Chertsey organist played Chopin's Funeral March. Sir Charles said its motifs were Greek rustic popular airs, each of which he hummed, showing how Chopin had worked them in.
The dinner given to him in April, 1910, in connection with the Trade Boards Bill was a great success, and much delighted him. He said Bishop Gore had made a splendid speech. Sir Charles had a long chat with Gore, and was, as always, delighted with his information and bonhomie.
He talked of a Parisian jeweller who lived by selling jewels and by lending money to the great Indian native potentates, and had establishments for that purpose in India. This man wished to be employed by our Government as a spy: Sir Charles applied on his behalf to Lord George Hamilton, who handed to him the man's dossier, an appalling catalogue of crimes and misdemeanours. He had an extraordinarily noble presence; Sir Charles said to him: "You ought to be Amir of Afghanistan." "No," he replied; "I should never have the patience to kill a sufficient number of people."
Of a French gentleman who had come to tea, recommended by the French Ambassador, Sir Charles said that he was a French fool, the worst kind of fool, corruptio optimi.
He showed the number of peerages having their origin in illegitimacy, although the official books conceal the fact where possible. The facts come out in such memoirs as Lady Dorothy Nevill's. He went on to talk of divorce in the Roman Church, and to scout their boast that with them marriage is an indissoluble sacrament. The Prince of Monaco was for years the husband of Lady Mary Hamilton. They tired of each other, wished for a divorce; the Pope, with heavy fees for the transaction, declared the marriage to have been for some ecclesiastical reason null and void. Each married again; but the son of the nominally annulled union succeeded his father as legitimate heir.
Sir Charles spoke—this was in 1906—of Bülow's speech in the German Parliament, as one of the best ever made by any statesman, and creating universal astonishment. Its appreciation of France and of Gambetta was magnificent as well as generous. The French, after the débâcle, behaved as a nation self-respecting and patriotic ought to have behaved. His hint at the bad feeling between the Kaiser and King Edward was dexterous; it was real and insuperable; none of our Royal Family can forgive the seizure of Hanover by Prussia; and added to this was our King's indignation at the Kaiser's treatment of the Empress Frederick, a member of his family for whom he felt strong affection.
Of Morny he said that he was very handsome, but in an inferior style. His beautiful Russian wife never cared for him, but in obedience to Russian custom cut off her wonderful hair to be laid with him in his coffin.
He spoke of the brothers Chorley, one the supreme musical critic of his time, the other a profound Spanish scholar, shut up through life in his library of 7,300 volumes.