"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.