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The rise of this enigmatical people affords a striking example of the power of national feeling to uplift the downtrodden. Until the year 1876, the very name Bulgarian was scarcely known except as a geographical term. Kinglake, in his charming work, Eothen, does not mention the Bulgarians, though he travelled on horseback from Belgrade to Sofia and thence to Adrianople.
The lieutenant also conferred with Messrs. Morrison & Brown, the shipping merchants of South Street, New York, who owned the whaling vessel on which the supposed clew was brought home, and they readily accepted his offer, and with the help of private subscriptions fitted out the 'Eothen'. Their instructions to Lieutenant Schwatka were as follows: "Upon your arrival at Repulse Bay you will prepare for your inland journey by building your sledges and taking such provisions as are necessary.
"Who is Eothen?" wrote Macvey Napier, editor of the "Edinburgh," to Hayward: "I know he is a lawyer and highly respectable; but I should like to know a little more of his personal history: he is very clever but very peculiar."
To compare an idyll with an epic, it may be said, is like comparing a cameo with a Grecian temple: be it so; but the temple falls in ruins, the cameo is preserved in cabinets; and it is possible that a century hence the Crimean history will be forgotten, while "Eothen" is read and enjoyed.
As I am not like the Englishman in 'Eothen, who passes his countryman in the Desert without accosting him, I had as much talk as I could with all the persons coming from China whom I could find, though, as I said, without obtaining any information of value. May 11th.
Among the lingerers we found Sir William and Lady Duff Gordon, the two Warburtons, "Hochelaga" and "Crescent and Cross," and "Eothen." Mrs. Milman I really love, and we see much of them. On Saturday was the dreaded Drawing-Room, on which occasion I was to be presented to the Queen. . . . Mr. Bancroft and I left home at a quarter past one.
He lavished on it far more pains than on "Eothen": the proof sheets were a black sea of erasures, intercalations, blots; the original chaotic manuscript pages had to be disentangled by a calligraphic Taunton bookseller before they could be sent to press.
She was an exceedingly kind-hearted person, perpetually occupied in good offices to the poor, the afflicted, her friends, and all whom she could in any way serve; nevertheless, such was her severity of speech, not unfrequently exercised on those she appeared to like best, that Thackeray, Browning, and Kinglake, who were all her friendly intimates, sometimes designated her as "Our Lady of Bitterness," and she is alluded to by that title in the opening chapter of "Eothen."
The countrymen of Simeon and Dushan became mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for their foreign masters. Servia and Bulgaria simply disappeared. As late as 1834 Kinglake in travelling to Constantinople from Belgrade must have passed straight across Bulgaria. Yet in "Eothen," in which he describes his travels, he never even mentions that country or its people.
Lamartine's version of Lady Hester's conversation is sometimes of dubious accuracy. "Eöthen," pp. 81, 82. In the following narrative we very frequently adopt, with slight alteration and condensation, Mr. Kinglake's language. "This branch at least" and here she showed The branch within her raiment stowed "You needs must own"... He answers not, but eyes the sheen Of the blest bough.
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