Sarah and our dear Ellen Terry were always great friends, and I call to mind a pretty little passage when they were sitting opposite to one another and Sarah, leaning forward, cried, in response to some gracious word of Nell’s: “My dearling, there are two peoples who shall never be old--you and me.” The words are still, happily, true at the hour when I write. Relating to members of the German stage entertained by Sir Henry, the most amusing incident is that related by Joe himself in detail: of the great actor’s grim humour in calling upon him suddenly to speak in praise of the Sax-Meiningen Company, when Joe had innocently told him an hour before that he had been unable to go to any of their performances. Ladies were not present on that occasion, but I was told that Joe’s speech was one of the wittiest he ever delivered: there was nothing that so sharpened his rapier as being apparently put at a disadvantage. I find no mention by himself of a similar occurrence on a different issue. This time Irving had invited the Oxford and Cambridge crews to supper and, being suddenly indisposed, was unable to propose their health. Without even waiting to be asked Joe rose to his feet and, anxious to divert the young men’s attention from their host, surpassed himself in exuberant fun, keeping them in a roar of laughter for a quarter of an hour over his alleged uncertainty as to which of the two ’Varsities had secured the honours of the boat-race. I am told that Joe again acquitted himself well at a dinner given to Arthur Balfour, when Anthony Hope called upon him without notice from the chair to return thanks for his proposed health. I don’t know why or how the inspiration came, but “Love” was Joe’s topic, and it is easy to imagine what a gracious and merry time he made with the various aspects of this subject. Of his meetings with Italian actors and actresses Joe does not speak save in the instance of Madame Ristori, for whose genius he had an unsurpassed veneration. His _Eminent Victorians_ contains the tale of an afternoon at her house when she had invited him and one or two of the dramatic critics to hear her speak _Lady Macbeth’s_ sleep-walking scene in English with a view to doing it before a British audience. Her large and sonorous rendering of the line “All the perfumes of Arâbia” delighted him, though he tried to teach her our own insular pronunciation; he was loudly in favour of the public performance in English, which she finally gave, and I shall never forget the awe-inspiring effect of the slow and gentle snoring which she kept running through the whole of the speech. Joe never admired even Salvini as much, though he revelled in his great voice on the resounding Roman tongue. He made us all laugh one day by mimicking the mincing tones of a Cockney interpreter translating the Italian tragedian’s sonorous language when returning thanks for his London welcome at a public dinner.