The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives
Page 23
36.Here are some of Peacock’s recipes Edith printed in her book Fancy Cookery:
WATER SOUCHY
Ingredients
Fish, Perch or Flounders.
Fish Liquor.
Four Parsley plants, roots and leaves.
One teaspoonful of grated Horse-radish.
One teaspoonful of Shalot Vinegar.
One teaspoonful of Cayenne Sauce.
One teaspoonful of Walnut Ketchup.
Stew the fish slowly, in just enough fish liquor to cover them, with the parsley, the horse-radish and above sauces. When the fish are done, lay them in a deep dish, with a teaspoonful of chopped parsley; strain the liquor in which the fish were cooked over them, and serve, adding a little more fish liquor to them if there is not enough left after the cooking to cover them.
FILETS DE BOEUF AUX HUITRES
Ingredients
One pound of Fillet Steak.
One Spanish Onion.
Two pickled Walnuts.
Two tablespoonfuls of Mushroom Ketchup.
One dessertspoonful of Walnut Ketchup.
One teaspoonful of Worcester Sauce.
One dozen Oysters.
One ounce of Butter.
Half an ounce of Flour.
Mix the butter and flour together in a stewpan; peel and chop up the onion, cut up the walnuts, put them into the stewpan, also the ketchup and worcester sauce. Lay the steak on these and let it stew for an hour, turning it every twenty minutes; it must not boil. Just before serving, put in the oysters, bearded, with their liquor strained through a fine strainer.
MINCED VEAL
Ingredients
One pound Minced Veal.
One tablespoonful of Mushroom Ketchup.
The grated peel of half a Lemon.
One teaspoonful of Cayenne Sauce.
One blade of Mace.
Half pint of Stock.
Two dozen of Oysters.
Sippets of Toast.
Mince the veal and make it hot in the stock with the ketchup, cayenne sauce, lemon peel, and mace. When thoroughly hot, take out the mace; scald the oysters in their own liquor, taking off the beards; put the mince on a hot dish, the oysters in the centre and the sippets of toast round.
ATHENIAN EEL AND SAUCE
Ingredients
Half a pint of good Stock.
One tablespoonful of Mushroom Ketchup.
One tablespoonful of Onion Vinegar.
One mustardspoonful of Mustard.
One dessertspoonful of Shalot Vinegar.
One dessertspoonful of Anchovy Sauce.
One dessertspoonful of Worcester Sauce.
Marjoram and Parsley.
Mix these all well together in a stewpan, and when hot stir in a dessertspoonful of chopped sweet marjoram and a dessertspoonful of chopped parsley. Serve very hot in a sauce tureen; the eels, cut in pieces, to be baked, each piece to be rolled in oiled paper.
BREAM OR JOHN DORY PIE
Ingredients
Two pounds of Bream or John Dory.
Four Eggs (hard-boiled).
Two Shalots (chopped fine).
Two ounces of Butter.
Three ounces of Bread-crumbs.
Half a teaspoonful of Thyme and Marjoram.
One teaspoonful of chopped Parsley.
One teaspoonful of Anchovy Sauce.
One teaspoonful of Worcester Sauce.
Cayenne Pepper.
Salt.
One gill of Stock.
Cut the bream in slices. Mix the butter, breadcrumbs, shalot, and seasoning together, and make into small balls. Cut the eggs in quarters. Lay the bream in a pie-dish, and then a layer of egg and seasoning, balls, &c., and, if liked, some pieces of lobster. Cover with a crust of rough puff-paste, and bake in a moderate oven one hour and a half. Mix the Worcester and anchovy sauce with the stock, and pour into the pie, after it is baked. A glass of Sherry or Chablis may be added.
STEWED TROUT
Ingredients
One Trout.
Four Shalots.
One pint of Fish-Stock.
One ounce of Butter.
Two Cloves.
One teaspoonful of Salt.
A few grains of Cayenne.
One Carrot.
One Bay-leaf.
One tablespoonful of Basil and Thyme mixed.
A bunch of Parsley.
Chop up the shalots and carrot, put them in a stewpan with the butter and parsley; let them get hot, add the stock, cloves, herbs and seasoning; let all this simmer for one hour. Clean and wash the trout, tie round with broad tapes to prevent it breaking. Put the trout into a stewpan, strain the stock over it, add three glasses of port wine; let it simmer gently till the fish is cooked; it will take about half an hour. Take off the tapes carefully so as not to break the fish, reduce the stock it was cooked in, and pour over it. Hand a quartered lemon round with this dish.
SALMI OF COLD WILD DUCK
Ingredients
Wild Duck and the gravy left, or half pint of Stock.
Two glasses of Port Wine.
Four Shalots.
One ounce of Butter.
Half ounce of Flour.
The rind of one Orange.
The juice of one Lemon.
Half teaspoonful of Cayenne.
A sprig of Thyme.
Cut up the duck into neat pieces, and stew the trimmings of the duck in the gravy, with the Port wine, shalots, orange rind cut very thin, the lemon-juice, cayenne, and thyme, thicken with the butter and flour worked together. Stew this till reduced to half its quantity, then strain over the pieces of duck, warm all together without boiling, and serve.
37.Henry’s correspondence with Holman Hunt, from 1865 to 1896, attests a long, cheerful friendship and reveals the appealing personality of Hunt. The letters are intermittent but suggest a continuing intimacy. In 1874 Hunt sends Henry a “New Civil Service” ticket which F. G. Stephens has told him Henry wants, and says, “When I can get past some bothering tasks I shall come and look you up.”
An interesting letter of 1886 reflects on some sidelights of British art at the time. An exhibition of French paintings had been badly hung and the indignant French artists had looked to Hunt to support their complaints, but he has trouble feeling enthusiastic: “The impressionists whose works I saw in King St. two years ago seemed to me to be the kind of artists who make you declare that both Art and Nature are hideous and intollerable [sic] still of course they ought to have no reasonable grievance. A fool the name of Chesneau wrote to ask me to go and see the works: when I went . . . I could really scarcely believe that he was serious in speaking of them as deserving attention.”
Hunt was at this time engaged in a public altercation, via newspaper correspondence, regarding the Royal Academy, which Hunt had always attacked as being too exclusive and unfair in keeping people out. Henry, one of those kept out, was vitally interested in this subject. Hunt writes to Henry that their side, the Independent,
has this weakness that directly any one of the body [of independent artists] becomes really popular the R. A. will entice him over and then the public will say “As the strongest go the independent group is confessed to be the inferior exhibition.” I am lugubrious because at the present time I see English honor so vitiated. Every one (with very few exceptions) acts for him self only—and when a glaring case of repudiation of all the pledges of a life time comes the world says “I don’t blame him. He did the best for himself.” Nevertheless I think it wholesome to fight the cause even tho we lose for the time. I believe a great crash is coming on Europe and afterwards men will try to reconstitute society on a firm basis—and what we do now will stand as proof how corrupt matters were in Art.
And gossip. If you go to Egypt this ye
ar, 1886, “you will meet bridegroom and his bride, G. F. Watts and the lady who has adored him for twenty five years. The world gets funnier as it gets more tragic.”
In January 1887,
the long tension I suffered with that Jerusalem canvas, and all the lamentable consequences sleeplessness and incessant vomitings have so racked my breathing tubes that nothing but balmy and soothing air and life could afford me the rest necessary to allow me to recuperate. The constant drain on my purse nearly maddened me. Even now great bills come in, and I have to pay them when under ordinary circumstances I might expect payments that would more than free me from the losses I have suffered. Don’t say anything of this but I am teased out of my life by People saying “Oh I thought you were going to Egypt” as if I was doing them great wrong by not having kept my promise, and I don’t want you to think that I act waywardly without the guidance of reason.
You will be amused to learn that Wells has presented a great scheme of reform for the Academy to adopt, it was announced in last nights’ [sic] Pall Mall Gazette, and the writer speaks of it as the great project which he inaugrated [sic] and he adds that he cannot repine at the great pains he unceasingly took to bring about this grand end. (I quote from memory but it is at least as strong as this.) I am too lazy at this moment to get the paper, but as far as I remember the plan is to have 150 or more outside members of the R.A. who shall have special claims upon space for exhibition, and they will have the first chance of election as A.R.A.’s. It is amusing and it goes some way to confirm me in a suspicion that there is not much hope for England until it has met with tremendous trials and humiliation to shake the Almighty humbug out of it.
And more gossip:
You will have heard of Watts’s marriage, and of his honeymoon in Egypt. The gay deceiver had been making love to several ladies, and he never let them meet. One now is in the greatest distress, confined to her bed. She had courted him for years and she did not know of the existence of this rival.
Yours affectionately,
W. Holman Hunt
It is in 1894 that he writes after the scarf, which not Henry but another friend managed to procure for him, as he writes to Henry later. Henry is evidently involved in writing another book on ceramics, which prompts from Hunt the startling remark, “Your book, judging from your previous volume, cannot but be extremely precious and beautiful, yet I do begrudge the time it will take from you, which otherwise would be spent in poetic work.” Perhaps to Hunt, painting and drawing is “poetic work.” Hunt is, as usual, discouraged about the state of the world: “Half the rule of the world is in the hands of newspaper young graduates, who learn the views that will be thought smart and state these smartly. . . . Now the only hope is . . . that the rebellious [emerging nations] will justify their independence by success. I have great admiration of heroism in war, yet I think the time has come for courage now to declare for its abolition by the union of all European states.”
38.A few other letters to Henry:
The Grange
North End Road
Fulham S.W.
Mar. 22: 1878
Dear Mr. Wallis,
Edward says, will you put the enclosed information into fine language. I was very sorry to miss you on Wed: thinking you would be here at dinner I did not come down to see you till too late. Believe me,
very truly yours
G. Burne-Jones
May 17, 1865
Torvilla
Campden Hill
My dear Wallis
I was sorry to find that your friend Hotchkiss had called while I was out yesterday—his card has no address upon it so I have no means of writing to him. I shall be at home on Monday as also on Saturday. If I knew where he lived I would call and see his sketches and pictures and then I should be better able to decide how I could help him.
Yours ever sincerely
W. Holman Hunt
Penkill Cirvan [?]
Ayrshire
11 October 1889
My Dear Wallis
Perhaps you have heard that I have at last (after keeping it on all those years I have been invalided here at immense expense) sold the lease of my dear old Bellevue House at Chelsea, and am therefore clearing out all my old collections to deliver it up. . . .
How have you been this long time? I am rather better: my lungs seem quite safely well just at present, but general health bad, making me give up the hope of getting again to London, and I have got accustomed to the quiet life of the country and have a studio here where I am going to put all my pictures (my own and a few others I possess) but all my books must go to Sothebys. The time for that is not yet determined, but a Cat. will be got up by Mr. Mudge of the firm.
Give me a few words and believe me
Ever very sincerely yours
William Bell Scott
To my old friend Henry Wallis
Cairo
4 Feb 90
My dear Sir,
Tano [?] says that he is selling off and wants to clear his stock and take to travelling dealing in Europe. He now offers the fine Rameses II green brick, with double cartouche on top, & inscription all round, together with the poor one with trace of cartouche and broken, for £20 together. He says he gave Faraj [?] £30. I told him I would write to you. If you want them send him the money, & tell him to deliver them to Dr. Grant’s, & I will include them in a box of mine when I leave, so their cost of carriage would be only a few shillings. This would be your cheapest way to get them over.
He also has about 100 leaves of a fine old Koran, sheet 36 x 24 ins, thick paper, 9 lines & illuminated at bottom, also patch of illumination in margin: writing about 1½ inches high, very beautiful, red [summation?] etc. The illumination is in gold and blue. I am no judge of the age, but it is certainly not late, nor is the writing cunic [?] on the other hand. He wants £30, or £1 a leaf. Being imperfect a few leaves would be as good as the whole for the style and art. I have bought some stuff, but nothing in your way here.
Yours sincerely,
W. M. Flinders Petrie
Hotel Pellegrino
Bologna, Via Ugo Bassi, 7
1. 12. 1903
My dear Felix,
I posted a picture card yesterday at Venice, giving Florence address, so that you might know I was leaving Venice. Your letter, etc, of Friday had not arrived when I left. I gave directions for it to be forwarded to Florence (Messrs. C. Hon) [?] where you can write this week.
The weather has changed for the worse & it is very cold, foggy, & rains a deluge, it certainly cld not be worse in Russia, so I am leaving today for Florence. I shd have stayed 2 or 3 days but the Socialist Municipality has sealed up the Museum. My old Friend Frati (to whom I inscribed the Tile Vol:) was the head Librarian. He died about a couple of years ago & his place is supplied by a distributore, a messenger! The Socialists are giving places of trust to the lowest class. It is as if a messenger or Porter was appointed to the Chief Cashier post—or whatever is the highest office in the Bank. The Socialists here show themselves in their true colours. What wld the idiots in England who play at Socialism say? The Museum has been sealed up, for 15 months, when people who want to study expostulate they are laughed at by the Council.
Hope you are quite well.
Ever affectionately yours,
Henry Wallis
BRIEF LIVES
Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence, R.A. (1836–1912)
An Establishment painter, like Wallis interested in archaeology.
Alma-Tadema is said to have known everybody.
Broughton de Gyfford, Baron (John Cam Hobhouse) (1786–1869)
Byron’s early and good friend, and a lifelong friend of Peacock’s. He became an important governmental official. Peacock’s most intimate letters are to him.
Buchanan, Robert Williams (1841–1901)
English poet,
best known for his ill-natured attacks—among them the well-known “The Fleshly School of Poetry”—on Rossetti and Swinburne.
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward Coley (1833–1898)
Artist, old friend of Wallis’s, and associate of William Morris. His wife, Georgie, writes the note to Henry on page 211.
Chesney, Francis Rowdon (1789–1872)
British explorer in the Near East.
Clairmont, Claire (1798–1879)
The stepdaughter of William Godwin, and stepsister to Mary Shelley. She was “ruined” at the age of sixteen or so by Lord Byron, with immense satisfaction to her vanity, and bore him a daughter, Allegra, who died in childhood. Claire herself lived to be very old and worked as a governess in Russia.
Clarke, Edith Nicolls, M.B.E. (1844–1926)
Daughter of Mary Ellen, and eventually principal of the National Training School of Cookery. She was distinguished by being made a Member of the British Empire.
Daniel, Peter Austin (1828?–1917?)
Friend and collaborator of George Meredith on the Monthly Observer, and lifelong friend of Henry Wallis. Daniel, I believe, wanted in his youth to be an artist, but he worked as a clerk in the East India Company, instead.
Gilbert, Sir John (1817–1897)
A painter of historical subjects.
Hogg, Thomas Jefferson (1792–1862)
In his youth a friend of Shelley’s; he became, in time, a respected judge, though he never became respectable, but rather chased women and did not believe in God. Good Victorians disapproved of him.
Hughes, Arthur (1832–1915)
British Pre-Raphaelite painter and lifelong friend of Henry Wallis.
Hunt, William Holman (1827–1910)