THE REAL LADY BURTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10479, 26 June 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE REAL LADY BURTON.

NEW STORY OF AN ADVENTUROUS LIFE. Bv reason of her strength of character, her indomitable energy, her great courage, and her rare personality, Isabel Lady Burton must indisputably be accounted one of the most brilliant and remarkable women of her time; and Mr. \V. H, Wilkins has done good service to her memory in the production of the very full, clear, and impressive biography which was published hut month. A large portion of these two volumes is the autobiographical work uf Lady Burton herself; but Mr. Wilkins has tilled in the (taps, he has gathered information concerning his subject from many sources, and he has set forth the whole story of her adventurous life with such literary skill, nidi tact, such sympathy, and insight that he must be complimented upon having given to the reading world one of the most notable of the many excellent biographies which have seen the light in the course of the past twelve months.

The story of Miss Arundell'e love for Captain Burton, as it is unfolded in these pages, is as

CAPTIVATING AS ANY LOVE STOHY ever imagined by a writor of pure romance. Isabel Arundell was n beautiful |(irl, high spirited, unconventional, intellectually ambitious, independent, and possessing a very largo share uf tin! mysterious quality which she herself describee as " supernormal consciousness." This supernormal consciousnods amounted in her to what might almost be called i.tio gift of second sight. Over and over again we read of her dreaming of some distant occurrence or divining eome Coming event, with an accuracy of prescience little short of amassing, In her early girlhood .-he made the acquaintance of a gipsy iiiunoil Ha»Hr Burton, who prophesied that she, Isibel Arundell, would cross the B=a, bo in the same town with her Destiny and nut know it, and time she would bear the name of Burton. Long afterwards, when walking puu day with her sister on the ramparts of Boulogne, Miss Aruiulell saw a diatingnUhed-looking stranger walking toward* her.

"He luoked at me," she says, " as though he rend me through and throug'i in a moment, and started a little. I was completely magnetised; and when we had gono a little distance away I turned to my sister, and whispered to her,

'that man will makuy me.'" Sho saw him again on the next day; he followed her, am! wrote up in chalk the words, " May I speak to you ?" leaving the chalk on the wall. Miss Arundell took up the chalk, and wroto back, " No; mother will b? angry," Afterwards, however, they mot and spoke, and she learned that the stranger was Captain Kicllard Burton. On leaving Boulogne she saw no more of Burton for four year:, and had apparently uo prospect of meeting him again. Yet during his absence on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his first' expedition into Africa, she followed him ceaselessly in thought and in prayer night and day. After his return from the Crimea she mot him quite by chance in the Botanical Gardens. At the end of a fortnight he asked her, "Could you do anything so sickly as give up civilisation ? And if I get the Consulate of Damascus wilt you marry mo, and go and live there ? Think it over. She replied, " I do not want to think it ovor; I have been thinking it over for six years, ever since I first saw you at Boulogne. I have prayed for you every morning and night, 1 have followed all your career 'minutely, I have road every word you ever wroto, mid I would rather have a crust and a tont with you than bo queen of all the world; and eo I say now,' Yes, yes, yes!'" This betrothal was kept a secret during the whole time while Burton was fighting his terrible way through the Central African jungle to find tho fabled lakes beyond the Ucagara Mountains, which at that time the eye of tho white man had never seen. But thoy were married at last; and never, surely, were a man and woman better mated. They travelled together in many lands, and Isabel proved herself to be

UNEXAMPLED IN HER ABIMTY. and energy as a consul's wife. One realises very fully in this book how utterly both Richard Burton and his wife were thrown away in the consular service, and how shamefully Burton \vhs neglected and misunderstood by the Government which employed him. In many of his appointments his wife was of signal practical service to him.

Mr. Wilkins vigorously and successfully defends Lady Burton against tho acrimonious and unfounded allegation* made against her by MiesUeorgina Stisied in her so-called " True Life of Sir Richard Burton." Miss Stisted, who is Burton's niece, declared thab Burton's recall from the Consulate of Damascus was directly due to the social and political difficulties brought about by his wife's blunders and imprudence. Mr. Wilkins disproves this assertion absolutely and completely. Miss Stisted has also Rtatod thab Lady Burton lost her head and fiod from Damascus on hearing a rumour of cholera; but we are hero shown that Lady Burton workod bravely and courageously among the cholera patients, and was even herself attacked by the disease, With equal success does Mr. Wilkins exonerate Lady Burton from tho cruel accusation of having acted in bad faith In the matter of Burton's conversion to tho Roman Catholic Church, and from the impugnmenb of the motives which led her to destroy the manuscript of her dead husband's translation of "The Scented Garden."