"Gai, gai, mariez vous,
Mettez vous dans la misere!
Gai, gai, mariez vous,
Mettez vous la corde au cou!" {13}


There is generally a good reason for prolonged celibacy, a reason
which the bachelor as generally does not betray: Kinglake remained
single, by his own account, because he had observed that women
always prefer other men to their own husbands. Yet, although
unmarried, perhaps because unmarried, he heartily admired many
clever women; formed with them sedate but genuine friendships, the
l'amour sans ailes, sometimes called "Platonic" by persons who have
not read Plato; found in their illogical clear-sightedness, in
their [Greek word which cannot be reproduced], to use the master's
own untranslatable phrase, a titillating stimulus which he missed
in men. He thought that the Church should ordain priestesses as
well as priests, the former to be the Egerias of men, as the latter
are the Pontiffs of women. And Lady Gregory tells us, that when
attacked by gout, he wished for the solace of a lady doctor, and
wrote to one asking if gout were beyond her scope. She answered:
"Dear Sir,--Gout is not beyond my scope, but men are."

In 1854 he accompanied Lord Raglan to the Crimea. "I had heard,"
writes John Kenyon, "of Kinglake's chivalrous goings on. We were
saying yesterday that though he might write a book, he was among
the last men to go that he might write a book. He is wild about
matters military, if so calm a man is ever wild." He had hoped to
go in an official position as non-combatant, but this was refused
by the authorities. His friend, Lord Raglan, whose acquaintance he