A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary StudyTuckwell, William
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A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study
Tuckwell, William
Kinglake, Alexander William, 1809-1891
How could one clear harp, men asked themselves as they read, have
produced so diverse tones? The riddle is solved when we learn that the
first part only was from Kinglake’s pen: having vindicated his friend’s
ability and good faith, her right to speak and to be heard attentively,
he left the survey of her views, with which he probably disagreed, to the
originally assigned reviewer. The article, Madame Novikoff tells us in
the “Nouvelle Revue,” was received _avec une stupefaction unanime_. It
formed the general talk for many days, was attributed to Lord Salisbury,
was supposed to have been inspired by Prince Gortschakoff. The name
standing against it in Messrs. Murray’s books, as they kindly inform me,
is that of a writer still alive, and better known now than then, but they
never heard that Kinglake had a hand in it; the editor would seem to have
kept his secret even from the publishers. Kinglake sent the article in
proof to the lady; hoped that the facts he had imparted and the
interpolations he had inserted would please her; he could have made the
attack on Russia more pointed had he written it; she would think the
leniency shows a fault on the right side; he did not know the writer of
this latter part. He begged her to acquaint her friends in Moscow what
an important and majestic organ is “The Quarterly,” how weighty therefore
its laudation of herself. She recalls his bringing her soon afterwards
an article on her, written, he said, in an adoring tone by Laveleye in
the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” and directing her to a paper in “Fraser,” by
Miss Pauline Irby, a passionate lover of the “Slav ragamuffins,” and a
worshipper of Madame Novikoff. He quotes with delight Chenery’s
approbation of her “Life of Skobeleff”; he spoke of you “with a gleam of
kindliness in his eyes which really and truly I had never observed
before.” “The Times” quotes her as the “eloquent authoress of ‘Russia
and England’”; “fancy that from your enemy! you are getting even ‘The
Times’ into your net.” A later article on O. K. contains some praise,
but more abuse. Hayward is angry with it; Kinglake thinks it more
friendly than could have been expected “to _you_, a friend of _me_, their
old open enemy: the sugar-plums were meant for you, the sprinklings of
soot for me.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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