A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary StudyTuckwell, William
General
A. W. Kinglake: A Biographical and Literary Study
Tuckwell, William
Kinglake, Alexander William, 1809-1891
After Hayward’s death in 1884, his own habits began to change. He still
dined at the Athenæum “corner,” but increasing deafness began to make
society irksome, and, his solitary meal ended, he spent his evenings
reading in the Library. By-and-by that too became impossible. His voice
grew weak, throat and tongue were threatened with disease. In 1888 he
went to Brighton with a nurse, returned to rooms on Richmond Hill, then
to Bayswater Terrace. An operation was performed and he seemed to
recover, but relapsed. Old friends tended him: Madame Novikoff, Mr.
Froude and Mr. Lecky, Madame de Quaire and Mrs. Brookfield, Lord
Mexborough his ancient fellow-traveller, Mrs. Craven, Sir William and
Lady Gregory, with a few more, cheered him by their visits so long as he
was able to bear them; and his brother and sister, Dr. and Mrs. Hamilton
Kinglake, were with him at the end. Patient to the last, kind and gentle
to all about him, he passed away quietly on New Year’s Day, 1891:
“being merry-hearted,
Shook hands with flesh and blood, and so departed.”
His remains were cremated at Woking, after a special service at
Christchurch, Lancaster Gate, attended by Dr. and Mrs. Kinglake with
their son Captain Kinglake, the Duke of Bedford, Mr. and Mrs. Lecky, Mrs.
W. H. Brookfield and her son Charles.
* * * * *
No good portrait of him has been published. That prefixed to Blackwood’s
“Eothen” of 1896 was furnished by Dr. Kinglake, who, however, looked upon
it as unsatisfactory. The “Not an M.P.” of “Vanity Fair,” 1872, is a
grotesque caricature. The photograph here reproduced (p. 128), by far
the best likeness extant, he gave to Madame Novikoff in 1870, receiving
hers in return, but pronouncing the transaction “an exchange between the
personified months of May and November.” The face gives expression to
the shy aloofness which, amongst strangers, was characteristic of him
through life. He had even a horror of hearing his name pealed out by
servants, and came early to parties that the proclamation might be
achieved before as few auditors as possible. Visiting the newly married
husband of his friend Adelaide Kemble, and being the first guest to
arrive, he encountered in Mr. Sartoris a host as contentedly
undemonstrative as himself. Bows passed, a seat by the fire was
indicated, he sat down, and the pair contemplated one another for ten
minutes in absolute silence, till the lady of the house came in, like the
prince in “The Sleeping Beauty,” though not by the same process, to break
the charm. He gave up calling at a house where he was warmly
appreciated, because father, mother, daughter, bombarded him with
questions. “I never came away without feeling sure that I had in some
way perjured myself.”
[Picture: Kinglake in the early Seventies]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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