第 15 节
作者:竹水冷      更新:2021-02-20 05:39      字数:9322
  ng with a friend at Brighton; he insisted on riding over  to Rottingdean; where Sir Frederick Pollock was staying。  〃I  mastered;〃 he said; in answer to remonstrances; 〃I mastered the  peculiarities of the Brighton screw before you were born; and have  never forgotten them。〃  Vaulting into his saddle he rode off;  returning with a schoolboy's delight at the brisk trot he had found  practicable when once clear of the King's Road。  Long after his  hearing had failed; his sight become grievously weakened; and his  limbs not always trustworthy; he would never allow a cab to be  summoned for him after dinner; always walking to his lodgings。  But  he had to give up by and by his daily canter in Rotten Row; and  more reluctantly still his continental travel。  Foreign railways  were closed to him by the SALLE D'ATTENTE; he could not stand  incarceration in the waiting…rooms。
  The last time he crossed the Channel was at the close of the  Franco…Prussian war; on a visit to his old friend M。 Thiers; then  President。  It was a dinner to deputies of the Extreme Left; and  Kinglake was the only Englishman; 〃so;〃 he said; 〃among the  servants there was a sort of reasoning process as to my identity;  ending in the conclusion; 'IL DOIT ETRE SIR DILKE。'〃  Soon the  inference was treated as a fact; and in due sequence came newspaper  paragraphs declaring that the British Ambassador had gravely  remonstrated with the President for inviting Sir Charles Dilke to  his table。  Then followed articles defending the course taken by  the President; and so for some time the ball was kept up。  The  remonstrance of the Ambassador was a myth; Lord Lyons was a friend  of Sir Charles; but the latter was suspect at the time both in  England and France; in England for his speeches and motion on the  Civil List; in France; because; with Frederic Harrison; he had  helped to get some of the French Communists away from France; and  the French Government was watching him with spies。  In Sir  Charles's motion Kinglake took much interest; refusing to join in  the cry against it as disloyal。  Sir Charles; he said; spoke no  word against the Queen; and only brought the matter before the  House because challenged to repeat in Parliament the statements he  had made in the country。  As a matter of policy he thought it  mistaken: 〃Move in such a matter openly; and party discipline  compels your defeat; bring pressure to bear on a Cabinet; some of  its members are on your side; and you may gain your point。〃  Sir  Charles's speech was calmly argumentative; and to many minds  convincing; it provoked a passionate reply from Gladstone; and when  Mr。 Auberon Herbert following declared himself a Republican; a  tumult arose such as in those pre…Milesian days had rarely been  witnessed in the House。  But the wisdom of Kinglake's counsel is  sustained by the fact that many years afterwards; as a result of  more private discussion; Mr。 Gladstone pronounced his conversion to  the two bases of the motion; publicity; and the giving of the State  allowance to the head of the family rather than; person by person;  to the children and grandchildren of the Sovereign。  Action  pointing in this direction was taken in 1889 and 1901 on the advice  of Tory ministers。
  Amongst Frenchmen of the highest class; intellectually and  socially; he had many valued friends; keeping his name on the  〃Cosmopolitan〃 long after he had ceased to visit it; since 〃one  never knows when the distinguished foreigner may come upon one; and  of such the Cosmo is the London Paradise。〃  But he used to say that  in the other world a good Frenchman becomes an Englishman; a bad  Englishman becomes a Frenchman。  He saw in the typical Gaul a  compound of the tiger and the monkey; noted their want of  individuality; their tendency to go in flocks; their susceptibility  to panic and to ferocity; to the terror that makes a man kill  people; and 〃the terror that makes him lie down and beg。〃  We  remember; too; his dissection of St。 Arnaud; as before all things a  type of his nation; 〃he impersonated with singular exactness the  idea which our forefathers had in their minds when they spoke of  what they called 'a Frenchman;' for although (by cowing the rich  and by filling the poor with envy); the great French Revolution had  thrown a lasting gloom on the national character; it left this one  man untouched。  He was bold; gay; reckless; vain; but beneath the  mere glitter of the surface there was a great capacity for  administrative business; and a more than common willingness to take  away human life。〃
  〃I relish;〃 Kinglake said in 1871; 〃the spectacle of Bismarck  teaching the A B C of Liberal politics to the hapless French。  His  last MOT; they tell me; is this。  Speaking of the extent to which  the French Emperor had destroyed his own reputation and put an end  to the worship of the old Napoleon; he said: 'He has killed himself  and buried his uncle。'〃  Again; in 1874; noting the CONTRE COUP  upon France resulting from the Bismarck and Arnim despatches; he  said: 〃What puzzles the poor dear French is to see that truth and  intrepid frankness consist with sound policy and consummate wisdom。   How funny it would be; if the French some day; as a novelty; or  what they would call a CAPRICE; were to try the effect of truth;  〃though not naturally honest;〃 as Autolycus says; 〃were to become  so by chance。〃
  He thought M。 Gallifet DANS SA LOGIQUE in liking the Germans and  hating Bismarck; for the Germans; in having their own way; would  break up into as many fragments as the best Frenchman could desire;  and Bismarck is the real suppressor of France。  Throughout the  Franco…Prussian war he sided strongly with the Prussians; refusing  to dine in houses where the prevailing sympathy with France would  make him unwelcome as its declared opponent; but he felt 〃as a  nightmare〃 the attack on prostrate Paris; 〃as a blow〃 the  capitulation of Metz; denouncing Gambetta and his colleagues as  meeting their disasters only with slanderous shrieks; 〃possessed by  the spirit of that awful Popish woman。〃  Bismarck as a statesman he  consistently admired; and deplored his dismissal。  I see; he said;  all the peril implied by Bismarck's exit; and the advent of his  ambitious young Emperor。  It is a transition from the known to the  unknown; from wisdom; perhaps; to folly。
  His Crimean volumes continued to appear; in 1875; 1880; finally in  1887; while the Cabinet Edition was published in 1887…8。  This last  contained three new Prefaces; in Vol。 I。 as we have seen; the  memorial of Nicholas Kireeff; in Vol。 II。 the latter half of the  original Preface to Vol。 I。; cancelled thence at Madame Novikoff's  request; though now carefully modified so as to avoid anything  which might irritate Russia at a moment when troubles seemed to be  clearing away。  In his Preface to Vol。 VII。 he had three objects;  to set right the position of Sir E。 Hamley; who had been neglected  in the despatches; to demolish his friend Lord Bury; who had  〃questioned my omniscience〃 in the 〃Edinburgh Review〃; and to  exonerate England at large from absurd self…congratulations about  the 〃little Egypt affair;〃 the blame of such exaggeration resting  with those whom he called State Showmen。
  Silent to acquaintances about the progress of his work; he was  communicative to his few intimates; though never reading aloud  extracts or allowing them to be seen。  In 1872 he would speak  pathetically of his 〃Crimean muddle;〃 perplexed; as he well might  be; by the intricacies of Inkerman。  Asked if he will not introduce  a Te Deum on the fall of Louis Napoleon; he answered that to write  without the stimulus of combat would be a task beyond his energy;  〃when I took the trouble to compose that fourteenth chapter; the  wretched Emperor and his gang were at the height of their power in  Europe and the world; but now!〃 He was insatiate as to fresh facts:  utilized his acquaintance with Todleben; whom he had first met on  his visit to England in 1864; sought out Prince Ourusoff at a later  time; and inserted particulars gleaned from him in Vol。 IX。;  Chapter V。
  In 1875 he told Madame Novikoff that his task was done so far as  Inkerman was concerned; and was proud to think that he had rescued  from oblivion the heroism of the Russian troops in what he calls  the 〃Third Period〃 of the great fight; ignored as it was by all  Russian historians of the war。  He made fruitless inquiries after a  paper said to have been left behind him by Skobeleff; explaining  that 〃India is a cherry to be eaten by Russia; but in two bites〃;  it was contrary to the general's recorded utterances and probably  apocryphal。  Russophobe as regarded Turkey; he sneered at England's  sentimental support of nationalities as 〃Platonic〃: a capital  epithet he called it; and envied the Frenchman who applied it to  us; declaring that it had turned all the women against us。  He was  moved by receiving Korniloff's portrait with a kind message from  the dead hero's family; seeing in the features a confirmation of  the ideal which he had formed in his own mind and had tried to  convey to others。  Readers of his book will recall the fine tribute  to Korniloff's powers; and the description of his death; in  Chapters VI。 and XIII。 of Vo