“What I feel about Kinglake’s book is this. The great problem to be solved is, first, Was Sebastopol assailable by the north side? Second, Were the French really desirous of a short war? I suspect K. knows far more than, with all his courage, he could say on the score of our Allies’ loyalty; and any one who has not access to particular sources of knowledge would be totally unable to be his reviewer, for in reality the critic ought, though not able to write the book he reviews, to be in possession of such acquaintance with the subject as to be in a position to say what other versions the facts recorded would bear, and to weigh the evidence for and against the author’s. Another difficulty remains: what a bathos would it be—the original matter of almost any writer—among or after the extracted bits of the book itself. Kinglake’s style is, with all its glitter, so intensely powerful, and his descriptive parts so perfectly picture-like, that the reviewer must needs take the humble part of the guide and limit himself to directing attention to the beauties in view, and make himself as little seen or felt as need be. Not that this would deter me, for I like the man much, and think great things of his book; but I feel I am not in a position to do him the justice his grand book deserves. If I were a week with you in Scotland, and sufficiently able to withdraw from the pleasures of your house, I believe I could do the review; but you see my bonds, and know how I am tied.
“You will see by the divided sheet of this note that I started with the good intention of brevity; but this habit of writing by the sheet, I suppose, has corrupted me, and perhaps I’ll not be able now to make my will without ‘padding.’
“I have the Bishop of Gibraltar on a visit with me: about the most brilliant talker I ever met.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Sept. 14, 1868.
“I send you a very spicy bit of wickedness on the Whig-Radicals—but, for the love of the Virgin, let the proof be carefully looked to! I am as uncertain about the errors of the press as I am about my personal shortcomings; but I rely on your reader with the faith of a drowning man on a lifebuoy.
“My wife is a shade better, but my anxiety is great, and I (who habitually sleep eighteen hours out of twenty-four) have not had a night’s rest for ten days.
“We are suffering greatly here from drought. No rain has fallen for three months, and my well is as completely drained as my account at my bankers, or anything else you can fancy of utter exhaustion.
“Who writes ‘M. Aurelia’? He or she certainly knows nothing of Italian nature or temperament. Not but that the story opens well and is cleverly written, but I demur to the Italian. I know the rascals well; but, like short whist, it cost me twenty years and some tin to do it. Keep my opinion, however, to yourself, for I hate to disparage a contemporary, and indeed this slipped out of me because my daughter has been talking to me of the story while I write.”
To Mr John Blackwood.