第6章 "EOTHEN"(1)

"EOTHEN" appeared in 1844. Twice, Kinglake tells us, he had essayed the story of his travels, twice abandoned it under a sense of strong disinclination to write. A third attempt was induced by an entreaty from his friend Eliot Warburton, himself projecting an Eastern tour; and to Warburton in a characteristic preface the narrative is addressed. The book, when finished, went the round of the London market without finding a publisher. It was offered to John Murray, who cited his refusal of it as the great blunder of his professional life, consoling himself with the thought that his father had equally lacked foresight thirty years before in declining the "Rejected Addresses"; he secured the copyright later on. It was published in the end by a personal friend, Ollivier, of Pall Mall, Kinglake paying 50 pounds to cover risk of loss; even worse terms than were obtained by Warburton two years afterwards from Colburn, who owned in the fifties to having cleared 6,000pounds by "The Crescent and the Cross." The volume was an octavo of 418 pages; the curious folding-plate which forms the frontispiece was drawn and coloured by the author, and was compared by the critics to a tea-tray. In front is Moostapha the Tatar; the two foremost figures in the rear stand for accomplished Mysseri, whom Kinglake was delighted to recognize long afterwards as a flourishing hotel keeper in Constantinople, and Steel, the Yorkshire servant, in his striped pantry jacket, "looking out for gentlemen's seats." Behind are "Methley," Lord Pollington, in a broad-brimmed hat, and the booted leg of Kinglake, who modestly hid his figure by a tree, but exposed his foot, of which he was very proud. Of the other characters, "Our Lady of Bitterness" was Mrs.