My life and loves Vol. 3 Read online

  Less than twenty years later I went up in an airplane at Nice, but I shall talk about that in another volume.

  Now that I am telling about the pleasures of life and living, I want to tell about eating and drinking. I have already noted, I think, in a previous volume, that the English ideal of cooking is the best in the world; it is the aristocratic ideal and consists in the desire to give to each article of food its own especial flavor, whereas French cooking is apt to obliterate all distinctions with a democratic sauce.

  The drawback of English cooking is that England has scarcely any cooks, and so it is seldom you find their ideals carried out. In one particular, however, I was always quarreling with English food: you can get the best game in the world in England, but alas, the English always keep it until it is "high," or if you prefer the truth, till it is almost rotten. I remember one Englishman of great position telling me that he always hung grouse till the bird fell of its own weight, drawing out its legs. Professor Mahaffy in Dublin once told me with huge gusto that he never cared for woodcock till it was represented by a green sauce on his plate. And all this is done, I have been told, in order to make game more tender; but I found out in Scotland once that if you cook game on the day it is shot, before the rigor mortis has set in, it is just as tender as if you kept it for a month. I used to take special pains to get my grouse cooked before the rigor mortis, and sent down to me from Yorkshire.

  I think it was the ladies in England who first told me that my lunches were the best in London because the game was so delightful — not "smelly," they said.

  It is possible in London to get the best beef and mutton in the world, and any one who tries Simpson's restaurant in the Strand will soon convince himself of the truth of this assertion. The veal, however, is not nearly so good as it is in France; and of course the average of French cooking is immeasurably higher than the average of English cooking; but I repeat, I have had the best dinners of my life in England.

  Ordinarily here in France, at the seaside, one gets fish at the best restaurants that isn't fresh, and when you protest, the maitre d'hotel assures you that it is quite fresh; was alive that morning. Now high game is not injurious to the health. Beef and mutton, too, can be kept a long time without being harmful, but stale fish is often deadly; and I therefore want to tell my readers how to distinguish between fresh and stale fish at one glance. When the fish is put before you, you naturally open it; lift the flesh from the backbone; if the backbone has marked the flesh in the slightest way, it is two or three days old; and if the marks are dark brown, it is probably two weeks old. Yet at the best hotel I had fish of the Mediterranean, and the arete, or back bone, had marked the flesh black. No assurance of the maitre d'hotel would induce me to touch such fish. French bread, too, that used to be the best in the world, is now tenth-rate, but it is always possible to get sticks of gluten that look and taste like the best bread and are very easy to digest.

  Most tinned and canned foods are better done in England than elsewhere, but one especially-petits pois de Rodel-prepared in two or three different ways in France, are the best sweet peas I have ever eaten.

  Long ago I proposed to make a restaurant that should have rooms given to different schools of cookery: the English room, of course, and the French room, and the Russian room, at least; for these are the three great schools of modern cookery; and the best of them, in my opinion, is the English, so far as the ideal of cooking goes; but New York is beginning to run London very close. You can get nearly as good beefsteak and mutton in New York as in London, and better veal; fish, too, you can get in New York as good, except they have no salmon-trout, and the sole are not quite as good as Dover sole; but you can get better lobsters in New York than anywhere in the world, and deep-sea oysters, too-better than Carlingfords, in spite of British opinion. And as for vegetables and fruits, there is no comparison: the American vegetables and fruits are the best to be found anywhere.

  But there is one thing which the French have to perfection, and that is many sorts of wine-the best, I think, in the world. I can get vin du pays almost anywhere in France that is light and of excellent flavor, sometimes indeed with a real bouqet, and it is as cheap as mineral water: a franc and a half a bottle, let us say, or two-pence or three-pence in English money, or five cents a bottle. Of course, the best wines, Bordeaux and Burgundy, are much dearer: half a dollar, or a dollar and a half a bottle, according to quality and age; but such luxuries can be omitted when the ordinary wine of the country is absolutely palatable and good. In my time in London champagne was the chief drink, and the English best class knew more about good champagne than the French: they were the first to modify the French habit of adding sugar and brandy to champagne-they have always wanted their wine nature or brut; and the taste for the best dry champagne in London is far higher than it is in Paris; but Burgundy and Bordeaux, and all the varieties of white and red wines are better understood in France than anywhere else.

  My reputation for giving good lunches in London was based on the fact that I knew more about the best qualities and the best years of French wines than most people. I have always had a passionate admiration for Rhine wines, too, and the wines of the Moselle. A long time ago now I once earned my living in London by tasting wines: we used to have an excellent lunch, three or four of us, and the six or eight bottles of wine that we had to taste were brought in after we had enjoyed an excellent beefsteak and had cleaned our palates with bread and salt and olives: then each of us had to give his opinion of the various wines and tell especially which would improve with keeping and so be the better purchase. Most of us could give the year of any special vintage.

  One man in London knew more about white wine even than I did, but I was a good second, and so I may be allowed to speak on French wines at least with some authority.

  I remember making every one at table laugh one day by a comparison between wine and women as the two best things in the world. "Red Bordeaux," I said, "is like the lawful wife: an excellent beverage that goes with every dish and enables one to enjoy one's food, and helps one to live.

  "But now and then a man wants a change, and champagne is the most complete and exhilarating change from Bordeaux; it is like the woman of the streets: everybody that can afford it tries it sooner or later, but it has no real attraction. It must be taken in moderation: too much of it is apt to give a bad headache, or worse. Like the woman of the streets, it is always within reach and its price is out of all proportion to its worth.

  "Moselle is the girl of fourteen to eighteen: light, quick on the tongue with an exquisite, evanescent perfume, but little body; it may be used constantly and in quantities, but must be taken young.

  "If you prefer real fragrance or bouquet, you must go to a wine with more body in it, such as Burgundy, Chambertin or Musigny. Burgundy I always think of as the woman of thirty: it has more body than claret, is richer, more generous, with a finer perfume; but it is very intoxicating and should be used with self-restraint.

  "Port is the woman of forty: stronger, richer, sweeter even than Burgundy; much more body in it but less bouquet; it keeps excellently and ripens with age and can only be drunk freely by youth; in maturity, more than a sip of it is apt to be heavy, and if taken every day it is almost certain to give gout. But if you are vigorous and don't fear the consequences, the best wine in the world is crusted Port, half a century old; it is strong with a divine fragrance, heady, intoxicating, but constant use of it is not to be recommended: it affects the health of even its strongest and most passionate admirers and brings them to premature death.

  I prefer the little common wine of France that is light gold in color or 'see with perfect taste, a slight fragrance and no intoxication in half a dozen bottles.

  Oh, me! Which is a great sigh of regret for the dear dead days and loves desirable!

  Strange," I went on, "the diseases of wine, too, corroborate my comparison.

  Claret, or the lawful wife, suffers from what the French call tourne; if you turn away from
her, the wife loses her subtle attraction very easily, and if she turns away from you, look out for storms.

  Burgundy, on the other hand, is apt to become bitter; amer, the French call it: the body in it, if kept too warm or not treated properly turns bitter; and champagne is ruined by graisse, a sort of viscous ropiness.

  "At their best and worst, wines have curious affinities with women. Young men prefer Burgundy because of its sweetness and fire, while old men always choose Moselle because it is harmless, light, has a delicious perfume and no bad effect."

  There were many other pleasures in my daily life in Park Lane in those golden years from 1890 to 1900.

  I have said nothing of the music in London in the eighties and nineties, but the chief part of it was really all contained in the light operas of Gilbert and Sullivan given at the Savoy Theatre. Their popularity was extraordinary: from Pinafore, Patience, and The Pirates to Iolanthe, The Mikado, and The Yeomen of the Guard. I think it was in '81 that D'Oyly Carte opened the Savoy for these operas, and their success was sensational.

  I don't know when Gilbert wrote Bab Ballads, but he had made the name of "Bab" famous in the comic weekly Fun before my tune. He had really an extraordinary ironic wit.

  I was introduced to him by Beerbohm Tree. He was twenty years older than I was; and, of course, like every one in London, I had already heard a dozen examples of his mordant humor. I remember on one occasion when Tree had been playing Falstaff in the Merry Wives for the first time. Gilbert was in the theatre and came round behind the scenes afterwards to assist at Tree's triumph. Again and again Tree tried to get some praise out of Gilbert, but Gilbert put him off with phrases such as: "Your make-up, Tree, is astonishing," as, indeed, it was, Tree being an artist in make-up- a real artist. I still have the great mirror from his dressing-room, in which he painted himself as Svengali and as Bardolph in grease paint on the glass-a marvel of artistic similitude.

  Annoyed at length by Gilbert's reiterated praise of his make-up, Tree said:

  "But, my dear Gilbert, what do you think of my acting?" — wiping his brow at the same time because he had to be enormously padded to mimic the rotundity of Falstaff.

  Gilbert could not resist the opportunity for a witty thrust. "I think your skin acts superbly, Tree," was the scathing reply.

  On another occasion, when we were all condemning Tree's Hamlet, which was really absurd, Gilbert said, "I don't think his Hamlet is so bad: it's funny but not vulgar."

  He was said to have been a kind and a good friend, and he certainly wrote wonderfully humorous libretti for Sullivan.

  For the first time I found that the honors conferred upon the pair were justified. Sullivan was made a baronet in '83, whereas Gilbert was not knighted until 1907. These honors represented very faintly the true values of both men. Sullivan was a charming little fellow: he was never very strong, and he died, I think, with the century. The Savoy Operas were supposed to represent his contribution to popular music, but I was one of the few who thought that his great popularity had really harmed his genius. The Mikado was the best and the most popular of the whole series; it is still given frequently in America and England; but Patience and Pinafore were good, too, and had in them distinct echoes of the Bab Ballads; of course, in Patience, Gilbert ridiculed the "greenery, yellowy, Grosvenor Gallery, je ne sais quoi, young man," which was said to have been an attack upon Oscar Wilde. It may or may not be true, but Gilbert's wit didn't go very deep, whereas the music of Sullivan was of the very first order. One forgets today the splendid Golden Legend to remember that the music of Onward, Christian Soldiers is his; but he also wrote The Martyr of Antioch and The Light of the World, and is certainly the first of all English musicians-greater even than Purcell.

  He was, too, extraordinarily lovable and kindly. I remember meeting him and asking him to dinner once, I think in '84 or '85, at Monte Carlo; I know it was shortly after he had been made a baronet. He came to dine with me at the Hotel de Paris, and when he came in and saw the table laid for seven or eight people, he said to me: "Do me a favor, Harris; introduce me as Sir Edward Sullivan; of course afterwards you will call me 'Sullivan' without the title, but I want these new people whom I am to meet to know that I am a Baronet." Of course I did as he asked.

  I have no way of conveying to my readers the extraordinary boyish sweetness and kindness of the man, but he has remained with me always as a charming memory of a very great musician who kept his child's heart to the last.

  The comic-operas at the Savoy Theatre were the most extraordinary theatrical performances that I have ever seen, except those of Wagner in Bayreuth. Everyone connected with the theatre seemed to be first-rate:

  Barrington was as amusing as Grossmith; he was tall and big, while Grossmith was very small, tiny indeed. Barrington was a giant in girth and formed a perfect foil to Grossmith, who looked like a gnat. It was in the beginning of the nineties that he started touring with humorous and musical recitals.

  Grossmith was a sort of elf who could sing with extraordinary speed-the very quality needed to give the patter of Gilbert its full value. The girls, too, were well served in these operas, and they sang wonderfully. Who that heard it could ever forget, Three Little Maids from School are We?

  It was Dolmetsch, the Belgian musician, who first taught me what a great musician Sullivan really was; till then I knew nothing of him except is the writer of the comic operas; but Dolmetsch taught me the splendor of The Golden Legend and the beauty of some of his songs, such as Oh Mistress Mine and Orpheus with His Lute.

  Dolmetsch explained many musical problems to me. Of course, everyone knows that he was the first to make the harpsichord and clavichord as in the earlier days, but to hear him play Bach on the instrument that Bach had written his music for was an unforgettable experience: it was like hearing a great sonnet of Shakespeare perfectly recited for the first time.

  One cannot speak of music later in London without thinking of Sir Henry Wood and his conducting of operas: he was as great a conductor, in my opinion, as Toscanini!

  I wonder if any one could divine the best experience I had in my life of a quarter of a century in England, the highest spiritual height reached in those colorful years of maturity.

  I had run down to Oxford once to see Jowett, and a friend asked me, had I ever heard the boys sing in Magdalen College Chapel; he told me that some one had left a large sum to get the boys perfectly trained, and I know that boys' voices were the most beautiful in the world, so we made an appointment and in due course took our seats.

  From the first moment I sat entranced; the boys not only sang divinely, but the music itself was extraordinarily beautiful, and I found out afterwards that it was the best music produced in England in three centuries; a cantata, I think by Purcell, brought tears to my eyes-I had a divine, unforgettable hour with those minstrels of God.

  It was then given to me for the first time to catch a glimpse of the highest soul-beauty in the English character, and there is no higher on earth. How the same people who can train those boys to sing such heavenly music should be able to fight the miners and condemn their working-poor to destitution and misery is one of the most hideous puzzles of life to me. They have still in this twentieth century prisons and hospitals side by side; after a Casement has served them loyally for twenty-five years and been ennobled by and for his services to them, they can murder him in cold blood for his obedience to the highest instincts in him: the poor, purblind creatures could not see that "pardon's the word for all" and forgiveness is nobler than punishment. Yet I still hear those boy voices choiring like young-eyed cherubim!

  Curiously enough, I always think of science when music is much in my mind; they are two of my greatest joys, though I don't pretend to know a great deal about them. Still, Wagner to me had a rival in Alfred Russel Wallace, one of the best and wisest of men; and I can't talk of Sullivan as a musician without thinking of William Thomson, f another great and lovable and simply sincere soul who stands with Newton himself and is curiou
sly related to him in his prodigious mastery of mathematics.

  Perhaps the greatest scientist of the nineteenth century, and the twentieth has not yet produced his equal, was William Thomson, afterwards Lord Kelvin. His only rival, Helmholtz, put Kelvin on a pedestal by himself. Every one knows how he made the first Atlantic cable a success; it was an instrument which he had discovered that sent the first telegram between England and America in '58. He was the first, too, to light his own house with electricity.

  In the last days of the century I was introduced to him by Alfred Russel Wallace, and was very much surprised to find that he was lame, the result of a skating accident in youth; but in spite of his lameness he had a wonderful presence-no one could forget the domed head and the kindly, frank eyes and grey beard. Two things I remember him by peculiarly: he talked of Joule as his master because he was the first to prove that heat was a mode of motion; Kelvin then went on to say that in every transformation of energy from one form to another, a certain proportion changes into heat, and the heat thus produced becomes diffused by radiation. This gradual transformation of energy into heat is perpetually going on and must sooner or later put an end to all life.

  Almost before his death his whole theory was thrown overboard. His gloomy predictions of a degeneration of energy, ending in stagnation, are no longer justified. His conception of atoms and atomic energies has been entirely superseded by the electronic view of matter, and we now look forward to an endless and boundless unfolding, not of energy and power alone, but of life itself.

  Kelvin was the first, I suppose, to point out that the amount of time now required by the advocates of the Darwinian theory, and upholders of the process of evolution, couldn't be conceded without assuming the existence of a different set of natural laws from those with which we are acquainted. I understood him to speak of Darwinism somewhat contemptuously. He seemed to say: "We know nothing of creation. They talk of life beginning in seething marshes and say this earth has gradually cooled, and is cooling."