J. Comyns Carr: Stray Memories, by His Wife

								

home of which I have never seen the like; and if sometimes bewildered
and always non-plussed by the free-and-easy give and take and the
wonderful argumentative capacity of that large and variously gifted
family--I felt out of it--my lover was always unobtrusively protecting,
and the artist-sister who had always shared his tastes and sympathized
with his ambitions, often held out a kindly hand to help me up the
steep places.
But they were few: the sunny places, full of real romance, of utter
confidence in our future--rash as it might appear to prudent
elders--bright with his radiant enthusiasms and his fine ambitions, are
the things that cannot fade from my memory.
In those days much verse was written not then intended for publication,
but some of which has seen the light since.
The typical gathering, of the large family, presided over by the wise
father whose “Landmarks, boys”! from the head of the table
generally calmed any storm, was most often one of obstinate argument
and fierce word-fights, and stands out now as the proper school where
the keen critical faculty and the gift of ready repartee for which many
friends now remember Joe Carr, were first forged and perfected.
And, be it noted, that however sanguinary the fight, there was never
any malice, never any after ill-will among the combatants: generous
natures and a Celtic sense of humour prevented that--not a little
helped by the complete freedom of arena left by the parents.
The mother ruled her household as Victorian mothers did, and spared
neither pains nor expense for her son’s ambitions and her
daughters’ proper advancement in the world; she welcomed
their friends with courteous Irish welcome, however little many of
their tastes might be in harmony with her own; but she let them
talk unmolested and was content to keep her own counsel, while she
ministered lavishly to their creature comforts; and the father--a man
of few words but of strong character and clear insight--kept his own
views undisturbed. He had nevertheless more deeply, though probably
unconsciously, impressed them on his children, than his children then
guessed. He was a broad Liberal, and it is interesting to note that, in
days when we were even more insular than we are now, no fighter in the
cause of freedom was forbidden his house because he was a foreigner.
Under the auspices of Mr. Adam Gielgud--the son of a great Polish
refugee--patriots from many lands who had sought our shelter, found
their way to that hospitable roof. Pulski and Riciotti Garibaldi are
the only other names that recur to me, but there were more and they
were all welcome. Men of after note in the art world and in journalism
came also as friends of Joe’s or of his sister’s--shaken
together with charming Irish and hard-headed North country cousins.
Many were the times when dinner had been ordered for six, and sixteen
would sit down at the long mahogany table, the polishing of which Mrs.