"
Twice at least in these early years he travelled. "Mr. Kinglake,"
writes Mrs. Procter in 1843, "is in Switzerland, reading Rousseau."
And in the following year we hear of him in Algeria, accompanying
St. Arnaud in his campaign against the Arabs. The mingled interest
and horror inspired in him by this extra-ordinary man finds
expression in his "Invasion of the Crimea" (ii. 157). A few, a
very few survivors, still remember his appearance and manners in
the forties. The eminent husband of a lady, now passed away, who
in her lifetime gave Sunday dinners at which Kinglake was always
present, speaks of him as SENSITIVE, quiet in the presence of noisy
people, of Brookfield and the overpowering Bernal Osborne; liking
their company, but never saying anything worthy of remembrance. A
popular old statesman, still active in the House of Commons,
recalls meeting him at Palmerston, Lord Harrington's seat, where
was assembled a party in honour of Madame Guiccioli and her second
husband, the Marquis de Boissy, and tells me that he attached
himself to ladies, not to gentlemen, nor ever joined in general
tattle.
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