“The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.”

Gray.

“He had an English look; that is was square
In make, of a complexion white and ruddy.”

Byron.

I

Why is it that almost as soon as we can toddle we eagerly demand a story of our elders? Why is it that the most excitable little girl, the most incorrigible little boy can be quieted by a teaspoonful of the jam of fiction? Why is it that “once upon a time” can achieve what moral strictures are powerless to effect?

It is because to most of us the world of imagination is the world that matters. We live in the “might be’s” and “peradventures.” Fate may have cast our lot in prosaic places; have predetermined our lives on humdrum lines; but it cannot touch our dreams. There we are princes, princesses—possessed of illimitable wealth, wielding immeasurable power. Our bodies may traverse the same dismal streets day after day; but our minds rove luxuriantly through all the kingdoms of the earth.

Those wonderful eastern stories of the “Flying Horse” and the “Magic Carpet,” symbolize for us the matter-of-fact world and the matter-of-dream world. Nay, is there any sound distinction between facts and dreams? After all—

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

But there are dreams and dreams—dreams by moonlight and dreams by sunlight. Literature can boast of many fascinating moonlight dreams—Ancient Mariners and Christabels, Wonder Books and Tanglewood Tales. And the fairies and goblins, the witches and wizards, were they not born by moonlight and nurtured under the glimmer of the stars?

But there are dreams by sunlight and visions at noonday also. Such dreams thrill us in another but no less unmistakable way, especially when the dreamer is a Scott, a William Morris, a Borrow.

And dreamers like Borrow are not content to see visions and dream dreams, their bodies must participate no less than their minds. They must needs set forth in quest of the unknown. Hardships and privations deter them not. Change, variety, the unexpected, these things are to them the very salt of life.

This untiring restlessness keeps a Richard Burton rambling over Eastern lands, turns a Borrow into the high-road and dingle. This bright-eyed Norfolk giant took more kindly to the roughnesses of life than did Hazlitt and De Quincey. Quite as neurotic in his way, his splendid physique makes us think of him as the embodiment of fine health. Illness and Borrow do not agree. We think of him swinging along the road like one of Dumas’ lusty adventurers, exhibiting his powers of horsemanship, holding his own with well-seasoned drinkers—especially if the drink be Norfolk ale—conversing with any picturesque rag-tag and bob-tail he might happen upon. There is plenty of fresh air in his pages. No thinker like Hazlitt, no dreamer like De Quincey; but a shrewd observer with the most amazing knack of ingratiating himself with strangers.

No need for this romancer to seek distant lands for inspiration. Not even the villages of Spain and Portugal supplied him with such fine stuff for romance as Mumper’s Dingle. He would get as strange a story out of a London counting-house or an old apple-woman on London Bridge as did many a teller of tales out of lonely heaths and stormy seas.

Lavengro and The Romany Rye are fine specimens of romantic autobiography. His life was varied enough, abounding in colour; but the Vagabond is never satisfied with things that merely happen. He is equally concerned with the things that might happen, with the things that ought to happen. And so Borrow added to his own personal record from the storehouse of dreams. Some have blamed him for not adhering to the actual facts. But does any autobiographer adhere to actual facts? Can any man, even with the most sensitive feeling for accuracy, confine himself to a record of what happened?

Of course not. The moment a man begins to write about himself, to delve in the past, to ransack the storehouse of his memory; then—if he has anything of the literary artist about him, and otherwise his book will not be worth the paper it is written on—he will take in a partner to assist him. That partner’s name is Romance.

As a revelation of temperament, the Confessions of Rousseau and the MÉmoires of Casanova are, one feels, delightfully trustworthy. But no sane reader ever imagines that he is reading an accurate transcript from the life of these adventurous gentlemen. The difference between the editions of De Quincey’s Opium Eater is sufficient to show how the dreams have expanded under popular approbation.

Borrow himself suggests this romantic method when he says, “What is an autobiography? Is it a mere record of a man’s life, or is it a picture of the man himself?” Certainly, no one carried the romantic colouring further than he did. When he started to write his own life in Lavengro he had no notion of diverging from the strict line of fact. But the adventurer Vagabond moved uneasily in the guise of the chronicler. He wanted more elbow-room. He remembered all that he hoped to encounter, and from hopes it was no far cry to actualities.

Things might have happened so! Ye gods, they did happen so! And after all it matters little to us the exact proportion of fact and fiction. What does matter is that the superstructure he has raised upon the foundation of fact is as strange and unique as the palace of Aladdin.

However much he suggested the typical Anglo-Saxon in real life, there was the true Celt whenever he took pen in hand.

A stranger blend of the Celt and the Saxon indeed it would be hard to find. The Celtic side is not uppermost in his temperament—this strong, assertive, prize-fighting, beer-loving man (a good drinker, but never a drunkard) seems far more Saxon than anything else. De Quincey had no small measure of the John Bull in George Borrow his temperament, and Borrow had a great deal more. The John Bull side was very obvious. Yet a Celt he was by parentage, and the Celtic part was unmistakable, though below the surface. If the East Anglian in him had a weakness for athleticism, boiled mutton and caper sauce, the Celt in him responded quickly to the romantic associates of Wales.

Readers of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s charming romance Aylwin will recall the emphasis laid on the passionate love of the Welsh for a tiny strip of Welsh soil. Borrow understood all this; he had a rare sympathy with the Cymric Celt. You can trace the Celt in his scenic descriptions, in his feeling for the spell of antiquity, his restlessness of spirit. And yet in his appearance there was little to suggest the Celt. Small wonder that many of his friends spoke of this white-haired giant of six foot three as if he was first and foremost an excellent athlete.

Certainly he had in full measure an Englishman’s delight and proficiency in athletics—few better at running, jumping, wrestling, sparring, and swimming.

In many respects indeed Borrow will not have realized the fancy picture of the Englishman as limned by Hawthorne’s fancy—the big, hearty, self-opiniated, beef-eating, ale-drinking John Bull. Save to a few intimates like Mr. Watts-Dunton and Dr. Hake he seems to have concealed very effectually the Celtic sympathies in his nature. But no reader of his books can be blind to this side of his character; and then again, as in all the literary Vagabonds, it is the complexity of the man’s temperament that attracts and fascinates.

The man who can delight in the garrulous talk of a country inn, understand the magic of big solitudes; who can keenly appraise the points of a horse and feel the impalpable glamour of an old ruin; who will present an impenetrable reserve to the ordinary stranger and take the fierce, moody gypsy to his heart; who will break almost every convention of civilization, yet in the most unexpected way show a sturdy element of conventionality; a man, in short, of so many bewildering contradictions and strangely assorted qualities as Borrow cannot but compel interest.

Many of the contradictory traits were not, as they seemed, the inconsequential moods of an irresponsible nature, but may be traced to the fierce egotism of the man. The Vagabond is always an egotist; the egotism may be often amusing, and is rarely uninteresting. But the personal point of view, the personal impression, has for him the most tremendous importance. It makes its possessor abnormally sensitive to any circumstances, any environment, that may restrict his independence or prevent the full expression of his personal tastes and whims. Among our Vagabonds the two most pronounced egotists are Borrow and Whitman. The secret of their influence, their merits, and their deficiencies lies in this intense concentration of self. An appreciation of this quality leads us to comprehend a good deal of Borrow’s attitude towards men and women. Reading Lavengro and The Romany Rye the reader is no less struck by the remarkable interest that Borrow takes in the people—especially the rough, uncultured people—whom he comes across, as in the cheerful indifference with which he loses sight of them and passes on to fresh characters. There is very little objective feeling in his friendships; as flesh and blood personages with individualities of their own—loves, hopes, faiths of their own—he seems to regard them scarcely at all. They exist chiefly as material for his curiosity and inquisitiveness. Hence there is a curious selfishness about him—not the selfishness of a passionate, capricious nature, but the selfishness of a self-absorbed and self-contained nature. Perhaps there was hidden away somewhere in his nature a strain of tenderness, of altruistic affection, which was reserved for a few chosen souls. But the warm human touch is markedly absent from his writings, despite their undeniable charm.

Take the Isopel Berners episode. Whether Isopel Berners was a fiction of the imagination or a character in real life matters not for my purpose. At any rate the episode, his friendship with this Anglo-Saxon girl of the road, is one of the distinctive features of both Lavengro and The Romany Rye. The attitude of Borrow towards her may safely be regarded as a clear indication of the man’s character.

A girl of fine physical presence and many engaging qualities such as were bound to attract a man of Borrow’s type, who had forsaken her friends to throw in her lot with this fellow-wanderer on the road. Here were the ready elements of a romance—of a friendship that should burn up with the consuming power of love the baser elements of self in the man’s disposition, and transform his nature.

And what does he do?

He accepts her companionship, just as he might have accepted the companionship of one of his landlords or ostlers; spends the time he lived with her in the Dingle in teaching her Armenian, and when at last, driven to desperation by his calculating coldness, she comes to take farewell of him, he makes her a perfunctory offer of marriage, which she, being a girl of fine mettle as well as of strong affection, naturally declines. She leaves him, and after a few passages of philosophic regret, he passes on to the next adventure.

Now Borrow, as we know, was not physically drawn towards the ordinary gypsy type—the dark, beautiful Celtic women; and it was in girls of the fair Saxon order such as Isopel Berners that he sought a natural mate.

Certainly, if any woman was calculated by physique and by disposition to attract Borrow, Isopel Berners was that woman. And when we find that the utmost extent of his passion is to make tea for her and instruct her in Armenian, it is impossible not to be disagreeably impressed by the unnatural chilliness of such a disposition. Not even Isopel could break down the barrier of intense egoism that fenced him off from any profound intimacy with his fellow-creatures.

Perhaps Dr. Jessop’s attack upon him errs in severity, and is to an extent, as Mr. Watts-Dunton says, “unjust”; but there is surely an element of truth in his remarks when he says: “Of anything like animal passion there is not a trace in all his many volumes. Not a hint that he ever kissed a woman or even took a little child upon his knee.” Nor do I think that the anecdote which Mr. Watts-Dunton relates about the beautiful gypsy, to whom Borrow read Arnold’s poem, goes far to dissipate the impression of Borrow’s insensibility to a woman’s charm.

A passing tribute to the looks of an extraordinarily beautiful girl is quite compatible with a comparative insensibility to feminine beauty and feminine graces. That Borrow was devoid of animal passion I do not believe—nor indeed do his books convey that impression; that he had no feeling for beauty either would be scarcely compatible with the Celtic element in his nature. I think it less a case—as Dr. Jessop seems to think—of want of passion as of a tyrannous egotism that excluded any element likely to prove troublesome. He would not admit a disturbing factor—such as the presence of the self-reliant Isopel—into his life.

No doubt he liked Isopel well enough in his fashion. Otherwise certainly he would not have made up his mind to marry her. But his own feelings, his own tastes, his own fancies, came first. He would marry her—oh yes!—there was plenty of time later on. For the present he could study her character, amuse himself with her idiosyncrasies, and as a return for her devotion and faithful affection teach her Armenian. Extremely touching!

But the episode of Isopel Berners is only one illustration, albeit a very significant one, of Borrow’s calculating selfishness. No man could prove a more interesting companion than he; but one cannot help feeling that he was a sorry kind of friend.

It may seem strange at first sight, finding this wanderer of the road in the pay of the Bible Society, and a zealous servant in the cause of militant Protestantism. But the violent “anti-Popery” side of Borrow is only another instance of his love of independence. The brooding egotism that chafed at the least control was not likely to show any sympathy with sacerdotalism.

There was no trace of philosophy in Borrow’s frankly expressed views on religious subjects. They were honest and straightforward enough, with all the vigorous unreflective narrowness of ultra-Protestantism.

It says much for the amazing charm of Borrow’s writing that The Bible in Spain is very much better than a glorified tract. It must have come as a surprise to many a grave, pious reader of the Bible Society’s publications.

And the Bible Society made the Vagabond from the literary point of view. Borrow’s book—The Zincali—or an account of the gypsies of Spain, published in 1841, had brought his name before the public. But The Bible in Spain (1843) made him famous—doubtless to the relief of “glorious John Murray,” the publisher, who was doubtful about the book’s reception.

It is a fascinating book, and if lacking the unique flavour of the romantic autobiographies, Lavengro and The Romany Rye, has none the less many of the characteristics that give all his writings their distinctive attraction.

II

Can we analyse the charm that Borrow’s books and Borrow’s personality exercise over us, despite the presence of unpleasing traits which repel?

In the first place he had the faculty for seizing upon the picturesque and picaresque elements in the world about him. He had the ready instinct of the discursive writer for what was dramatically telling. Present his characters in dramatic form he could not; one and all pass through the crucible of his temperament before we see them. We feel that they are genuinely observed, but they are Borrovized. They speak the language of Borrow. While this is quite true, it is equally true that he knows exactly how to impress and interest the reader with the personages.

Take this effective little introduction to one of the characters in The Bible in Spain:—

“At length the moon shone out faintly, when suddenly by its beams I beheld a figure moving before me at a slight distance. I quickened the pace of the burra, and was soon close at its side. It went on, neither altering its pace nor looking round for a moment. It was the figure of a man, the tallest and bulkiest that I had hitherto seen in Spain, dressed in a manner strange and singular for the country. On his head was a hat with a low crown and broad brim, very much resembling that of an English waggoner; about his body was a long loose tunic or slop, seemingly of coarse ticken, open in front, so as to allow the interior garments to be occasionally seen; these appeared to consist of a jerkin and short velveteen pantaloons. I have said that the brim of the hat was broad, but broad as it was, it was insufficient to cover an immense bush of coal-black hair, which, thick and curly, projected on either side; over the left shoulder was flung a kind of satchel, and in the right hand was held a long staff or pole.

“There was something peculiarly strange about the figure, but what struck me the most was the tranquillity with which it moved along, taking no heed of me, though, of course, aware of my proximity, but looking straight forward along the road, save when it occasionally raised a huge face and large eyes towards the moon, which was now shining forth in the eastern quarter.

“‘A cold night,’ said I at last. ‘Is this the way to Talavera?’

“‘It is the way to Talavera, and the night is cold.’

“‘I am going to Talavera,’ said I, ‘as I suppose you are yourself.’

“‘I am going thither, so are you, Bueno.’

“The tones of the voice which delivered these words were in their way quite as strange and singular as the figure to which the voice belonged; they were not exactly the tones of a Spanish voice, and yet there was something in them that could hardly be foreign; the pronunciation also was correct, and the language, though singular, faultless. But I was most struck with the manner in which the last word, bueno, was spoken. I had heard something like it before, but where or when I could by no means remember. A pause now ensued; the figure stalking on as before with the most perfect indifference, and seemingly with no disposition either to seek or avoid conversation.

“‘Are you not afraid,’ said I at last, ‘to travel these roads in the dark? It is said that there are robbers abroad.’

“‘Are you not rather afraid,’ replied the figure, ‘to travel these roads in the dark—you who are ignorant of the country, who are a foreigner, an Englishman!’

“‘How is it that you know me to be an Englishman?’ demanded I, much surprised.

“‘That is no difficult matter,’ replied the figure; ‘the sound of your voice was enough to tell me that.’

“‘You speak of voices,’ said I; ‘suppose the tone of your own voice were to tell me who you are?’

“‘That it will not do,’ replied my companion; ‘you know nothing about me—you can know nothing about me.’

“‘Be not sure of that, my friend; I am acquainted with many things of which you have little idea.’

“‘Por exemplo,’ said the figure.

“‘For example,’ said I, ‘you speak two languages.’

“The figure moved on, seemed to consider a moment, and then said slowly, ‘Bueno.’

“‘You have two names,’ I continued; ‘one for the house and the other for the street; both are good, but the one by which you are called at home is the one which you like best.’

“The man walked on about ten paces, in the same manner as he had previously done; all of a sudden he turned, and taking the bridle of the burra gently in his hand, stopped her. I had now a full view of his face and figure, and those huge features and Herculean form still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes. At last he said—

“‘Are you then one of us?’”

An admirable sketch, adroitly conceived and executed beyond doubt, but as a fragment of dialogue remarkable for its literary skill rather than for its characterization.

His instinct for the picturesque never fails him. This is one of the reasons why, despite his astounding garrulousness, the readers of his books are never wearied.

Whether it be a ride in the forest, a tramp on foot, an interview with some individual who has interested him, the picturesque side is always presented, and never is he at better advantage than when depicting some scene of gypsy life.

Opening The Bible in Spain at random I happen on this description of a gypsy supper. It is certainly not one of the best or most picturesque, but as an average sample of his scenic skill it will serve its purpose well.

“Hour succeeded hour, and still we sat crouching over the brasero, from which, by this time, all warmth had departed; the glow had long since disappeared, and only a few dying sparks were to be distinguished. The room or hall was now involved in utter darkness; the women were motionless and still; I shivered and began to feel uneasy. ‘Will Antonio be here to-night?’ at length I demanded.

“‘No tenga usted cuidao, my London Caloro,’ said the gypsy mother, in an unearthly tone; ‘Pepindorio [70] has been here some time.’

“I was about to rise from my seat and attempt to escape from the house, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and in a moment I heard the voice of Antonio.

“‘Be not afraid, ’tis I, brother; we will have a light anon, and then supper.’

“The supper was rude enough, consisting of bread, cheese, and olive. Antonio, however, produced a leathern bottle of excellent wine; we dispatched these viands by the light of an earthern lamp which was placed upon the floor.

“‘Now,’ said Antonio to the youngest female, ‘bring me the pajandi, and I will sing a gachapla.’

“The girl brought the guitar, which with some difficulty the gypsy tuned, and then, strumming it vigorously, he sang—

“I stole a plump and bonny fowl,
But ere I well had dined,
The master came with scowl and growl,
And me would captive bind.

“My hat and mantle off I threw,
And scour’d across the lea,
Then cried the beng [71] with loud halloo,
Where does the Gypsy flee?”

“He continued playing and singing for a considerable time, the two younger females dancing in the meanwhile with unwearied diligence, whilst the aged mother occasionally snapped her fingers or beat time on the ground with her stock. At last Antonio suddenly laid down the instrument.

“‘I see the London Caloro is weary. Enough, enough; to-morrow more thereof—we will now to the charipÉ’ (bed).

‘“With all my heart,’ said I; ‘where are we to sleep?’

“‘In the stable,’ said he, ‘in the manger; however cold the stable may be, we shall be warm enough in the bufa.’”

Perhaps his power in this direction is more fully appreciated when he deals with material that promises no such wealth of colour as do gypsy scenes and wanderings in the romantic South.

Cheapside and London Bridge suit him fully as well as do Spanish forests or Welsh mountains. True romancer as he is, he is not dependent on conventionally picturesque externals for arresting attention; since he will discover the stuff of adventure wherever his steps may lead him. The streets of Bagdad in the “golden prime” of Haroun Alraschid are no more mysterious, more enthralling, than the well-known thoroughfares of modern London. No ancient sorceress of Eastern story can touch his imagination more deeply than can an old gypsy woman. A skirmish with a publisher is fully as exciting as a tilt in a medieval tourney; while the stories told him by a rural landlord promise as much relish as any of the tales recounted by Oriental barbers and one-eyed Calenders.

Thus it is that while the pervasive egotism of the man bewitches us, we yield readily to the spell of his splendid garrulity. It is of no great moment that he should take an occasional drink to quench his thirst when passing along the London streets. But he will continue to make even these little details interesting. Did he think fit to recount a sneeze, or to discourse upon the occasion on which he brushed his hair, he would none the less, I think, have held the reader’s attention.

Here is the episode of a chance drink; it is a drink and nothing more; but it is not meant to be skipped, and does not deserve to be overlooked.

“Notwithstanding the excellence of the London pavement, I began, about nine o’clock, to feel myself thoroughly tired; painfully and slowly did I drag my feet along. I also felt very much in want of some refreshment, and I remembered that since breakfast I had taken nothing. I was in the Strand, and glancing about I perceived that I was close by an hotel which bore over the door the somewhat remarkable name of ‘Holy Lands.’ Without a moment’s hesitation I entered a well-lighted passage, and turning to the left I found myself in a well-lighted coffee-room, with a well-dressed and frizzled waiter before me. ‘Bring me some claret,’ said I, for I was rather faint than hungry, and I felt ashamed to give a humble order to so well-dressed an individual. The waiter looked at me for a moment, then making a low bow he bustled off, and I sat myself down in the box nearest to the window. Presently the waiter returned, bearing beneath his left arm a long bottle, and between the fingers of his right hand two purple glasses; placing the latter on the table, set the bottle down before me with a bang, and then standing still appeared to watch my movements. You think I don’t know how to drink a glass of claret, thought I to myself. I’ll soon show you how we drink claret where I come from; and filling one of the glasses to the brim, I flickered it for a moment between my eyes and the lustre, and then held it to my nose; having given that organ full time to test the bouquet of the wine, I applied the glass to my lips. Taking a large mouthful of the wine, which I swallowed slowly and by degrees that the palate might likewise have an opportunity of performing its functions. A second mouthful I disposed of more summarily; then placing the empty glass upon the table, I fixed my eyes upon the bottle and said nothing; whereupon the waiter who had been observing the whole process with considerable attention, made me a bow yet more low than before, and turning on his heel retired with a smart chuck of the head, as much as to say, ‘It is all right; the young man is used to claret.’”

A slight enough incident, but, like every line which Borrow wrote, intensely temperamental. How characteristic this of the man’s attitude: “You think I don’t know how to drink a glass of claret, thought I to myself.” Then with what deliberate pleasure does he record the theatrical posing for the benefit of the waiter. How he loves to impress! You are conscious of this in every scene which he describes, and it is quite useless to resent it. The only way to escape it is by leaving Borrow unread. And this no wise man can do willingly.

The insatiable thirst for adventure, the passion for the picturesque and dramatic, were so constant with him, that it need not surprise us when he seizes upon every opportunity for mystifying and exciting interest. It is possible that the “veiled period” in his life about which he hints is veiled because it was a time of privation and suffering, and he is consequently anxious to forget it. But I do not think it likely. Nor do the remarks of Mr. Watts-Dunton on this subject support this theory. Indeed, Mr. Watts-Dunton, who knew him so intimately, and had ample occasion to note his love of “making a mystery,” hints pretty plainly that “the veiled period” may well be a pleasant myth invented by Borrow just for the excitement of it, not because there was anything special to conceal, or because he wished to regard certain chapters in his life as a closed book.

Mention has been made of Borrow’s feeling for the picaresque elements in life. Give him a rogue, a wastrel, any character with a touch of the untamed about him, and no one delighted him more in exhibiting the fascinating points of this character and his own power in attracting these rough, unsocial fellows towards him and eliciting their confidences. Failing the genuine article, however, Borrow had quite as remarkable a knack of giving even for conventional people and highly respectable thoroughfares a roguish and adventurous air. Indeed it was this sympathy with the picaresque side of life, this thorough understanding of the gypsy temperament, that gives Borrow’s genius its unique distinction. Other characteristics, though important, are subsidiary to this. Writers such as Stevenson have given us discursive books of travel; other Vagabonds have shown an equal zest for the life of the open air—Thoreau and Whitman, for example. But contact with the gypsies revealed Borrow to himself, made him aware of his powers. It is not so much a case of like seeking like, as of like seeking unlike. Affinities there were, no doubt, between the Romany and the “Gorgio” Borrow, but they are strong temperamental differences. On the one side an easy, unconscious nonchalance, a natural vivacity; on the other a morbid self-consciousness and a pronounced strain of melancholy. And it was doubtless the contrast that appealed to him so strongly and helped him to throw off his habitual moody reserve.

For beneath that unpromising reserve, as a few chosen friends knew, and as the gypsies knew, there was a frank camaraderie that won their hearts.

Was he, one naturally asks, when once this barrier of reserve had been broken down, a lovable man? Certainly he seems to have won the affection of the gypsies; and the warm admiration of men like Mr. Watts-Dunton points to an affirmative answer. And yet one hesitates. He attracted people, that cannot be gainsaid; he won many affections, that also is uncontrovertible. But to call a man lovable it is not sufficient that he should win affection, he must retain it. Was Borrow able to do this? There is the famous case of Isopel to answer in the negative. She loved him, but she found him out. Was it not so? How else explain the gradual change of demeanour, and the sad, disillusioned departure. Perhaps at first the independence of the man, his freedom from sentimentality, piqued, interested, and attracted her. This is often the case with women. They may fall in love with an unsentimental man, but they can never be happy with him.

Isopel retained a regard for her fellow-comrade of the road, but she would not be his wife.

Of his literary friends no one has written so warmly in defence of Borrow, or shown a more discerning admiration of his qualities than Mr. Watts-Dunton.

And yet in the warm tribute which Mr. Watts-Dunton has paid to Borrow I cannot help feeling that some of the illustrations he gives in justification of his eulogy are scarcely adequate. It may well be that he has a wealth of personal reminiscences which he could quote if so inclined, and make good his asseverations. As it is, one can judge only by what he tells us. And what does he tell us?

To show that Borrow took an interest in children, Mr. Watts-Dunton quotes a story about Borrow and the gipsy child which “Borrow was fond of telling in support of his anti-tobacco bias.” The point of the story lies in the endeavours of Borrow to dissuade a gypsy woman from smoking her pipe, whilst his friend pointed out to the woman how the smoke was injuring the child whom she was suckling. Borrow used his friend’s argument, which obviously appealed to the maternal instinct in order to persuade the woman to give up her pipe. There is no reason to think that Borrow was especially concerned for the child’s welfare. What concerned him was a human being poisoning herself with nicotine, and his dislike particularly to see a woman smoking. After the woman had gone he said to his friend: “It ought to be a criminal offence for a woman to smoke at all.” And that it was frankly as an anti-tobacco crusader that he considered the episode, is proved surely by Mr. Watts-Dunton himself, when he adds: “Whenever he (Borrow) was told, as he sometimes was, that what brought on the ‘horrors’ when he lived alone in the Dingle, was the want of tobacco, this story was certain to come up.”

One cannot accept this as a specially striking instance of Borrow’s interest in children, any more than the passing reference (already noted) to the extraordinarily beautiful gypsy girl, as an instance of his susceptibility to feminine charms.

Failing better illustrations at first hand, one turns toward his books, where he reveals so many characteristics, and here one is struck by the want of susceptibility, the obvious lack of interest in the other sex, showed by his few references to women, and what is even more significant the absence of any love story in his own life, apart from his books (his marriage with the well-to-do widow, though a happy one, can scarcely be called romantic). These things certainly outweigh the trivial incident which Mr. Watts-Dunton recalls.

As for the pipe episode, it reminds me of Macaulay’s well-known gibe at the Puritans, who objected to bear-baiting, he says, less because it gave pain to the bear than because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Similarly his objection to the pipe seems not so much on account of the child suffering, as because the woman took pleasure in this “pernicious habit.”

But enough of fault-finding. After all, Mr. Watts-Dunton has done a signal service to literature by preferring the claims of Borrow, and has upheld him loyally against attacks which were too frequently mean-spirited and unfair.

Obviously, Borrow was a man of an ingratiating personality, which is a very different thing from saying that he was a man with an ingratiating manner. Of all manners, the ingratiating is the one most likely to arouse suspicion in the minds of all but the most obtuse. An ingratiating personality, however, is one that without effort and in the simplest way attracts others, as a magnet attracts iron. Once get Borrow interested in a man, it followed quite naturally that the man was interested in Borrow. He might be a rough, unsociable fellow with whom others found it hard to get on, but Borrow would win his confidence in a few moments.

Borrow seemed to know exactly how to approach people, what to say, and how to say it. Sometimes he may have preferred to stand aloof in moody reserve; that is another matter. But given the inclination, he had a genius for companionship, as some men have a genius for friendship. As a rule it will be found that the Vagabond, the Wanderer, is far better as a companion than as friend. What he cares for is to smile, chatter, and pass on. Loyal he may be to those who have done him service, but he is not ready to encroach upon his own comfort and convenience for any man. Borrow remained steadfast to his friends, but a personal slight, even if not intended, he regarded as unforgivable.

The late Dr. Martineau was at school with him at Norwich, and after a youthful escapade on Borrow’s part, Martineau was selected by the master as the boy to “horse” Borrow while he was undergoing corporal punishment. Probably the proceeding was quite as distasteful to the young Martineau as to the scapegrace. But Borrow never forgot the incident nor forgave the compulsory participator in his degradation. And years afterwards he declined to attend a social function when he had ascertained that Martineau would be there, making a point of deliberately avoiding him. Another instance this of the morbid egotism of the man.

Where, however, no whim or caprice stood in the way, Borrow reminds one of the man who knows as soon as he has tapped the earth with the “divining rod” whether or no there is water there. Directly he saw a man he could tell by instinct whether there was stuff of interest there; and he knew how to elicit it. And never is he more successful than when dealing with the “powerful, uneducated man.” Consequently, no portion of his writings are more fascinating than when he has to deal with such figures. Who can forget his delightful pictures of the gypsy—“Mr. Petulengro”? Especially the famous meeting in Lavengro, when he and the narrator discourse on death.

“‘Life is sweet, brother.’

“‘Do you think so?’

“‘Think so! There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother. Who would wish to die?’

“‘I would wish to die.’

“‘You talk like a Gorgio—which is the same as talking like a fool—were you a Romany chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die indeed! A Romany chal would wish to live for ever.’

“‘In sickness, Jasper?’

“‘There’s the sun and stars, brother.’

“‘In blindness, Jasper?’

“‘There’s the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we’ll now go to the tents and put on the gloves; and I’ll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive.’”

Then again there is the inimitable ostler in The Romany Rye, whose talk exhales what Borrow would call “the wholesome smell of the stable.” His wonderful harangues (Borrovized to a less extent than usual) have all the fine, breathless garrulity of this breed of man, and his unique discourse on “how to manage a horse on a journey” occupies a delightful chapter. Here are the opening sentences:—

“‘When you are a gentleman,’ said he, ‘should you ever wish to take a journey on a horse of your own, and you could not have a much better than the one you have here eating its fill in the box yonder—I wonder, by the by, how you ever came by it—you can’t do better than follow the advice I am about to give you, both with respect to your animal and yourself. Before you start, merely give your horse a couple of handfuls of corn and a little water, somewhat under a quart, and if you drink a pint of water yourself out of the pail, you will feel all the better during the whole day; then you may walk and trot your animal for about ten miles, till you come to some nice inn, where you may get down, and see your horse led into a nice stall, telling him not to feed him till you come. If the ostler happens to be a dog-fancier, and has an English terrier dog like that of mine there, say what a nice dog it is, and praise its black and fawn; and if he does not happen to be a dog-fancier, ask him how he’s getting on, and whether he ever knew worse times; that kind of thing will please the ostler, and he will let you do just what you please with your own horse, and when your back is turned he’ll say to his comrades what a nice gentleman you are, and how he thinks he has seen you before; then go and sit down to breakfast, get up and go and give your horse a feed of corn; chat with the ostler two or three minutes till your horse has taken the shine out of his oats, which will prevent the ostler taking any of it away when your back is turned, for such things are sometimes done—not that I ever did such a thing myself when I was at the inn at Hounslow; oh, dear me, no! Then go and finish your breakfast.’”

IV

It is interesting to compare Borrow’s studies in unvarnished human nature with the characterizations of novelists like Mr. Thomas Hardy. Both Borrow and Hardy are drawn especially to rough primal characters, characters not “screened by conventions.” As Mr. Hardy puts it in an essay contributed to the Forum in 1888.

“The conduct of the upper classes is screened by conventions, and thus the real character is not easily seen; if it is seen it must be pourtrayed subjectively, whereas in the lower walks conduct is a direct expression of the inner life, and their characters can be directly pourtrayed through the act.”

Mr. Hardy’s rustics differ from Borrow’s rustics, however, in the method of presentment. Mr. Hardy is always the sympathetic, amused observer. The reader of that delicious pastoral “Under the Greenwood Tree” feels that he is listening to a man who is recounting something he has overheard. The account is finely sympathetic, but there is an unmistakable note of philosophic detachment. The story-teller has enjoyed his company, but is obviously not of them. That is why he will gossip to you with such relish of humour. Borrow, on the other hand, speaks as one of them. He is far less amused by his garrulous ostlers and whimsical landlords than profoundly interested in them. Then again, though the Vagabond type appeals to Mr. Hardy, it appeals to him not because of any temperamental affinity, but because he happens to be a curious, wistful spectator of human life. He sees in the restless Vagabond an extreme example of the capricious sport of fate, but while his heart goes out to him his mind stands aloof.

Looking at their characterization from the literary point of view, it is evident that Mr. Hardy is the greater realist. He would give you an ostler, whereas Borrow gives you the ostler. Borrow knows his man thoroughly, but he will not trouble about little touches of individualization. We see the ostler vividly—we do not see the man—save on the ostler side. With Hardy we should see other aspects beside the ostler aspect of the man.

A novelist with whom Borrow has greater affinity is Charles Reade. There is the same quick, observant, unphilosophical spirit; the same preference for plain, simple folk, the same love of health and virility. And in The Cloister and the Hearth, one of the great romances of the world, one feels touches of the same Vagabond spirit as animates Lavengro and The Romany Rye. The incomparable Denys, with his favourite cry, “Le diable est mort,” is a splendid study in genial vagrancy.

Literary comparisons, though they discover affinities, but serve to emphasize in the long run the distinctive originality of Borrow’s writings.

He has himself admitted to the influence of Defoe and Lesage. But though his manner recalls at times the manner of Defoe, and though the form of his narrative reminds the reader of the Spanish rogue story, the psychological atmosphere is vastly different. He may have taken Defoe as his model just as Thackeray took Fielding; but Vanity Fair is not more unlike Tom Jones than is Lavengro unlike Robinson Crusoe.

It is idle to seek for the literary parentage of this Vagabond. Better far to accept him as he is, a wanderer, a rover, a curious taster of life, at once a mystic and a realist. He may have qualities that repel; but so full is he of contradictions that no sooner has the frown settled on the brow than it gives place to a smile. We may not always like him; never can we ignore him. Provocative, unsatisfying, fascinating—such is George Borrow. And most fascinating of all is his love of night, day, sun, moon, and stars, “all sweet things.” Cribbed in the close and dusty purlieus of the city, wearied by the mechanical monotony of the latest fashionable novel, we respond gladly to the spacious freshness of Lavengro and The Romany Rye. Herein lies the spell of Borrow; for in his company there is always “a wind on the heath.”