The times., 1899-01-01

| Inspiration once scared away can never
| be recalled by the musician or the poet.
| An intelligent woman once said Eat
| some wives calmly classified as mere
whms the conditions under which their
| husbands did their best work MIS-. Ter
| hume is inclined to that sort of classifica-
tion. All through the chapter on Ca. lyle
| there is a covert sneer at the son OF a
Scottish peasant for his lack of appre-
| ciation of his wife and his failure 10 pro-
vide her with the comforts suitable to a
daintiiy reared woman.
AS a matter of fact, Carlyle gave his
wife as much as ever his mother or his
sisters would have expected, and probably
far more. He was not a rich man or
gently-bred man; he needed certain condi-
tions for his work, and the absence of
those conditions would have meant 10 the
world the loss of ''Sartor Resartus" and
THE French Revolution" while it might
have meant but very little more happi-
ness to JEANNE Welsh. Whether man
ought to sacrifice his work TO his Vile
seems to be the question raised by Mrs.
Tcrhune. But despite the evidences she
brings that Mrs. Carlyle was not happy in
her married life, one feels that the domes-
tic life of these two gifted folk was their
own business, and not that of the histo-
rians, and that JEANNE Carlyle herself
would have been the first to declare that
it was her duty to accept the life which
Thomas could give. her, not demanding
that he give all his time and his thought
TO her. There seems no doubt that she
was a continual inspiration and comfort to
him, and that, despite the worries and
frets of everyday life, there was real
and deep sympathy between the two. The
same question is raised in the chapter on
Dante, with this difference, that the wife
of Dante seems not to have been the sort
of woman who could enter fully into his
intellectual struggles and delights Again
it may be repeated, that poets domestic
life is noboGys business but his own, es-
pecially if it be not absolute perfection.
The most successful chapter in the book
is that which deals with the Old Cheshire
Cheese Tavern. This famous old eating
house has been kept exactly as it was 200
years ago. One corner is still known as
DR. Samuel Johnson's corner, and Cold
smith sat at his left hand. The coffee
house is only - by 20 feet, and there are
ten tables, each with seats for six upon
benches fastened to the hoor.- 1t was here
that Charles ii defed the proprieties by
bringing Nell Gwynn to supper one night
after the play. Herrick wrote to Ben jon
son of lyric feasts" which took place
here, and here Chatterton and Shakespeare
may have dined. Hood, Dickens, Thack-
cray, Pope. Voltaire, Reynolds, Garrick,
nous old place in their day The special
dish of the Old Cheshire Tavern THE
/ Pudding. is served every day at half past
one TO the minute. and the customers drop
in one by one as that hour approaches and
wait for the dish that, as the waiter says.
| :. as been done to turn at arf past one
o'clock to the minnit for 'undred years
and more" The description OF the scene
which follows will delight the epicure,
and recalls the fact that Marion Harland's S
most famous work was a cook book:
-Four walters appear laden with immense piles
Of hot plates of generous amplitude, and deposit
them upon a table near the door. Two respect
able and riddy Britons in the box adjoining
ours take off the hats they had not thought 1t
worth while to remove out Of respect to their
fellow guests Upon the heels of the plate
bearers march two with four covered tu-
reens of gravy. These flank the hot plates, leav-
mig the upper end OF the board clear Then a
man walks in quietly and takes his stand before
the vacant space. From his dress coat he might
be chief butler. From his handsome face,
cleans -shaven but for a mustache. he might be
an educated gentleman lis department is that
of high priest and the table is his altar. An
attendant hands him a elittering knife and 4
fork
our fingers ard toes tinglc: electric shivers
play up and down our spines in the interval Of
perhaps thirty seconds that elapses before there
looms up in the doorway big swaiter, bearing
aloit upon pair of muscular arms
TIE. PUDDING.
He moves with judicious circumspection We
recall. with a pang swift and keen a jump
ing toothacic, that once-a generation so ago
"a hapless predecessor OF the Hercules tripped
upon the threshold in the supreme moment of the
Occasion, and let the Pudding fall.
1t is safe today, albeit the table actually
| grOans it is set down. The cleaning carver
is raised-nOt with a flourish, it might be in
the hands OF meaner artist-and sinks into the
full bosom, swelling above the rim OF the man.
| moth basin Slow clouds Of incense rise and
steam pervades the relnOtest corners. The phleg.
Igatic Britons about do not turn n hair, yet
their mouths must be watering behind their
clenchcd teeth. Every plate is heapcd. yet the
only accompaniment OF the Pudding is great po
, tatocs. smoking hot, that crumble into meal at
/ a touch. 1t signifies next to moth
ing to say that the crust. three inches thick
is light a sponge and tender az the heart q
a newly-nade widower; that beneath this crust
cmhalmed in and informed by brown gravy o
inefable and Undesirable spiciness and SAVIOUR
mess, and as rich and smooth as AideFney cream
are cubes Of juicy bcefsteak and minute NOR
. sells OF marrow, larks. mushrooms kidneys and
oysters, each, by miracle OF culinary genius
retaining its distinctive favour, yet entering into
, and facilitating the accomplishment OF hIrmo
niotIs Whole.
| Custom audited ~ common sense, ord1rs thai
the Pudding be washed down by II pint uf bit
, ter Which, being interpreted, is the mildes
and mellowest of brown October ale
I ''Stcwed Cheshire is the and only othcl
course prescribed by Tradition and appetite, wher
the second-or, mavhap, the third, help Of pud
q ding has been declined-or. What is more likely
eaten ''stcwcd Cheshire is q kind of glorifet
| Welsh rarebit, served in the square, shallow tim
| in which it is cooked, and gamishcd with sip
| pcts Of ecItely-colorfd toast.
e The basin bowl in which the pudding i
cooked stands eighteen inches high. and is TWEEN
ty inches ia diameter at the brim. II holds In
pounds OF mixture. including the crust, and j
boiled twenty hours. The recipe is state s.
cret, and the landlord keeps the formula in hi
1 safe when not using it. The pudding is com
. pounded in a locked room, then committed 70
| boiling 10 4 confidential cook.
The famous old tavern. Mrs Terhun
adds has been in the same family TO
o several generations.
+, This description makes it absoluteI
: certain that the field of the authors frs
success is the one in which she will VIII
most laures. It might-but this is onl
d a suggestion-be a fine thing If she wer
e to make up her next book of travels iron
= descriptions of the characteristic daintie
os the places visited. Europe from gas
Z. tronomic point of view would be some
5 thing rather novel. New York: G. I
n Putnam's Sons. S2.50.)
Recent Fiction.
+ "An Angel in a Web by Julian Ralph
n is new venture on the part of this cleye
t newspaper man. Mr.. Ralph has writer
fiction in the shape of short stories-hi