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A very slippery book

Allan Massie

Wednesday, 1st October 2008

A review of another biography of that tiresome poser, Lady Hester Stanhope, sent me back to Kinglake’s Eothen and the account of the visit he paid the Queen of the Desert, who dwelt in tents (as he found she didn’t) and reigned over wandering Arabs (which wasn’t the case either). No doubt Lady Hester’s admirers find Kinglake intolerable, but his interview with her is a masterpiece of ironic writing.

His desire to meet her, he explains, was first excited because she had been a childhood friend of his mother, who would moreover be ‘sadly sorry’ if he didn’t trouble himself to call on her. But there was a more urgent interest:

It was said that the woman was now acknowledged as an inspired being by the people of the Mountains, and it was even hinted with horror that she claimed to be more than a prophet.

So indeed it appeared:

For hours and hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her speech, for the most part concerning sacred and profane mysteries; but, every now and then, she would stay the lofty flight, and swoop down upon the world again; whenever this happened, I was interested in her conversation.

This is characteristic of Kinglake’s method. No need to say that much of the time the woman was a bore, spouting pretentious nonsense; sufficient to remark that from time to time her conversation was interesting. No modern master of the hostile interview could do it better.