第2章 EARLY YEARS(1)

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 BAKSHISH 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 Yonge's "Heartsease," bitterly in Miss Skene's "Use and Abuse," facetiously in the Clarence Bulbul of "Our Street." "Hang it! has not everybody 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 one - an honest one; my Lord Youngent another - an amusing one; my Lord Woolsey another - a pious one; there is the 'Cutlet and the Cabob' - a sentimental one; Timbuctoothen - a humorous one." Lord Carlisle's honesty, Lord Nugent's fun, Lord Lindsay's 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 Warburton's power, colouring, play of fancy, have yielded to the mobility of Time. Two alone out of the gallant company maintain their vogue to-day: Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," as a Fifth Gospel, an inspired Scripture Gazetteer; and "Eothen," as a literary gem of purest ray serene.

In 1898 a reprint of the first edition was given to the public, prefaced by a brief eulogium of the book and a slight notice of the author. It brought to the writer of the "Introduction" not only kind and indulgent criticism, but valuable corrections, fresh facts, clues to further knowledge. These last have been carefully followed out. The unwary statement that Kinglake never spoke after his first failure in the House has been atoned by a careful study of all his speeches in and out ofParliament. His reviews in the "Quarterly" and elsewhere have been noted; impressions of his manner and appearance at different periods of his life have been recovered from coaeval acquaintances; his friend Hayward's Letters, the numerous allusions in Lord Houghton's Life, Mrs. Crosse's lively chapters in "Red Letter Days of my Life," Lady Gregory's interesting recollections of the Athenaeum Club in Blackwood of December, 1895, the somewhat slender notice in the "Dictionary of National Biography," have all been carefully digested. From these, and, as will be seen, from other sources, the present Memoir has been compiled; an endeavour - SERA TAMEN - to lay before the countless readers and admirers of his books a fairly adequate appreciation, hitherto unattempted, of their author.

I have to acknowledge the great kindness of Canon William Warburton, who examined his brother Eliot's diaries on my behalf, obtained information from Dean Boyle and Sir M. Grant Duff, cleared up for me not a few obscure allusions in the "Eothen" pages. My highly valued friend, Mrs. Hamilton Kinglake, of Taunton, his sister-in- law, last surviving relative of his own generation, has helped me with facts which no one else could have recalled. To Mr. Estcott, his old acquaintance and Somersetshire neighbour, I am indebted for recollections manifold and interesting; but above all I tender thanks to Madame Novikoff, his intimate associate and correspondent during the last twenty years of his life, who has supplemented her brilliant sketch of him in "La Nouvelle Revue" of 1896 by oral and written information lavish in quantity and of paramount biographical value. Kinglake's external life, his literary and political career, his speeches, and the more fugitive productions of his pen, were recoverable from public sources; but his personal and private side, as it showed itself to the few close intimates who still survive, must have remained to myself and others meagre, superficial, disappointing, without Madame Novikoff's unreserved and sympathetic confidence.