IN THE BEGINNING of this year Mrs. Oliphant was in great anxiety, caused by Cyril’s health. Two or three very alarming attacks of illness had followed each other, and Sir Andrew Clark had given a most serious report of his condition. In April his health was sufficiently re-established for him to accept an appointment as private secretary to Sir Arthur Gordon, who was going out to Ceylon as Governor. There was to be a delay of some months, however, and in the meantime Cecco went to Gottingen to study German, with a view to the examination for the British Museum, which he hoped to pass.
The family met again at Heidelberg in autumn, and only came back to England shortly before Christmas.
To Miss Annie Walker.
Windsor, 14th April.
...I don’t remember even if I wrote to you that Dr. Clark made, what it seems is his usual concession,...that Tids had made a remarkable improvement, and that he now thought he might say that with care he might shake off the complaint entirely. I hope I told you this, but I can’t remember. If not, forgive me. We are such wretches, so much more ready to distress our friends with our troubles than to communicate our relief.
I am annoyed and distressed to tell you that Longmans found your article too serious and long....You must not think you are alone in this sort of thing. The spirit moved me to write a little trifle with which I daresay you might have been amused, about a meeting of a newly deceased literary person in Limbo with Carlyle and Bishop Wilberforce. Longmans rejected this on the score that his readers would not understand it, though he politely added that he could not “go for” (as the boys say) Mr. Froude in the way I wished to do. I then sent it to Mr. Payn of the ‘Cornhill,’ who says his readers would not look at such a thing unless they had a known name to it. Wise men both! but you see I am a companion in misfortune....
It is settled about Tids and Sir Arthur Gordon. He is to go out with that potentate as one of his private secretaries, with something between two and three hundred a-year. I suppose a private secretary lives with his chief, or it would not lighten my purse much to make such an arrangement. However, I think the value of the practical work for him is everything, and the entire change of scene an advantage too.
Mr. A. W. Kinglake to Mrs. Oliphant.
28 Hyde Park Place,
April 22.
My dear Mrs. Oliphant, — I cannot help venturing to express the admiration with which I have been reading the ‘Lover and his Lass.’ It is by your powerful, truth-seeing imagination, and not by what pedants are prone to describe as “analysis” of character, that you enchant us. I know of nothing equal to the budding of affection in the heart of little Lilias which you enable one to see. The language seems to me beautiful, and I say this after having redoubled my enjoyment of some of the passages by reading them slowly. I delight in the Scotticisms. They all conduce charmingly to one’s knowledge of the people presented to us.
I “pitied myself,” as they say in Cumberland, when I got to the end of the book; but I hear of the ‘Ladies Lindores’ in a way that promises me pleasure to come. I say “to come,” for I never read a novel that I know will delight me until it reaches the completed form.
Forgive my intrusion, and believe me, my dear Mrs. Oliphant, most truly yours,
A. W. Kinglake.
To F. R. Oliphant (at Gottingen).
Windsor,
August 18.
My dearest Cecco, — I can’t tell you how glad I am to get your letter, which has just come, and to see that you have got on so well....
I certainly don’t know any male creature who writes such satisfactory letters as you do, really telling one what one wants to know....
Now about my own proceedings. I had a terribly hot and tiresome journey down the Rhine. At Cologne, where I rested a few hours, I was cheered by getting your telegram, and my journey home was tolerably comfortable. A sleeping-carriage, which I had at first thought of, proved impossible; for why? — it was taken up by men, so that even if there had been room, it would have been impossible for a woman to have any share, which I think is rather hard. I had, however, a carriage to myself, which was as good, though involving so many francs to a succession of guards that the sleeping-carriage would have been on the whole cheaper. At Brussels, at the first station we came to, I got out on the score of the vingt minutes d’ârret, and was left behind by my train! But fortunately it had only gone on to the Midi station, and after sitting for an hour and a half — 5.30 to 7 — watching the Flemish folk crowding to the early trains, I got on and recovered my carriage and all my belongings again, for I had left everything, even my boots, in the carriage....
I always feel very lost when your room is vacant, the blank is so very evident and always affects my imagination, besides the want of you in other ways.
God bless you, my dearest boy. — Your loving mother.