A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study

A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study

It is just eleven years since Kinglake passed away, and his life has not yet been separately memorialized. A few years more, and the personal side of him would be irrecoverable, though by personality, no less than by authorship, he made his contemporary mark. When a tomb has been closed for centuries, the effaced lineaments of its tenant can be re-coloured only by the idealizing hand of genius, as Scott drew Claverhouse, and Carlyle drew Cromwell. But, to the biographer of the lately dead, men have a right to say, as Saul said to the Witch of Endor, Call up Samuel! In your study of a life so recent as Kinglakes, give us, if you choose, some critical synopsis of his monumental writings, some salvage from his ephemeral and scattered papers; trace so much of his youthful training as shaped the development of his character; depict, with wise restraint, his political and public life: but also, and above all, re-clothe him in his habit as he lived, as friends and p. viassociates knew him; recover his traits of voice and manner, his conversational wit or wisdom, epigram or paradox, his explosions of sarcasm and his eccentricities of reserve, his words of winningness and acts of kindness: and, since one half of his life was social, introduce us to the companions who shared his lighter hour and evoked his finer fancies; take us to the Athenum Corner, or to Holland House, and flash on us at least a glimpse of the brilliant men and women who formed the setting to his sparkle; dic in amicitiam coeant et foedera jungant. This I have endeavoured to do, with such aid as I could command from his few remaining contemporaries. His letters to his family were destroyed by his own desire; on those written to Madame Novikoff no such embargo was laid, nor does she believe that it was intended. I have used these sparingly, and all extracts from them have been subjected to her censorship. If the result is not Attic in salt, it is at any rate Roman in brevity. I send it forth with John Bunyans homely aspiration: The fourth decade of the deceased century dawned on a procession of Oriental pilgrims, variously qualified or disqualified to hold the gorgeous East in fee, who, with bakshsh in their purses, a theory in their brains, an unfilled diary-book in their portmanteaus, sought out the Holy Land, the Sinai peninsula, the valley of the Nile, sometimes even Armenia and the Monte Santo, and returned home to emit their illustrated and mapped octavos. We have the type delineated admiringly in Miss Yonges Heartsease, [1] bitterly in Miss Skenes Use and Abuse, facetiously in the Clarence Bulbul of Our Street. Hang it! has not p. 2everybody written an Eastern book? I should like to meet anybody in society now who has not been up to the Second Cataract. My Lord Castleroyal has done onean honest one; my Lord Youngent anotheran amusing one; my Lord Woolsey anothera pious one; there is the Cutlet and the Caboba sentimental one; Timbuctoothena humorous one. Lord Carlisles honesty, Lord Nugents fun, Lord Lindsays piety, failed to float their books. Miss Martineau, clear, frank, unemotional Curzon, fuddling the Levantine monks with rosoglio that he might fleece them of their treasured hereditary manuscripts, even Eliot Warburtons power, colouring, play of fancy, have yielded to the mobility of Time. Two alone out of the gallant company maintain their vogue to-day: Stanleys Sinai and Palestine, as a Fifth Gospel, an inspired Scripture Gazetteer; and Eothen, as a literary gem of purest ray serene. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 539
Author: Tuckwell, William
Release Date: May 1, 1996
Format: eBook
Language: English