Kinglake paints vividly the imposing
figure of the young Kireeff, his stature, beauty, bravery, the
white robe he wore incarnadined by death-wounds, his body captured
by the hateful foes. He goes on to tell how myth rose like an
exhalation round his memory: how legends of "a giant piling up
hecatombs by a mighty slaughter" reverberated through mansion and
cottage, town and village, cathedral and church; until thousands of
volunteers rushed to arms that they might go where young Kireeff
had gone. Alexander's hand was forced, and the war began, which
but for England's intervention would have cleared Europe of the
Turk. We have the text, but not the sermon; the Preface ends
abruptly with an almost clumsy peroration.
The lady who inspired both the eulogy and the curtailment was
Madame Novikoff, more widely known perhaps as O. K., with whom
Kinglake maintained during the last twenty years of life an
intimate and mutual friendship. Madame Olga Novikoff, nee Kireeff,
is a Russian lady of aristocratic rank both by parentage and
marriage. In a lengthened sojourn at Vienna with her brother-in-
law, the Russian ambassador, she learned the current business of
diplomacy.
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