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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 Kinglake’s, 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 Athenæum “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.” |
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