[Illustration: GEORGE BORROW]
George Borrow lived eight-and-seventy years and published ten books. In
his veins was mingled the blood of Cornwall and of Normandy; but though
proud of this strain, he valued still more that personal independence
which, together with his love of strange tongues and his passion for
outdoor life, molded his career. His nature was mystical and eccentric,
and he sometimes approached--though he never crossed--the confines of
insanity; yet his instincts were robust and plain, he was an apostle of
English ale and a master of the art of self-defense, he was an
uncompromising champion of the Church of England and the savage foe of
Papistry, he despised "kid-glove gentility" in life and literature, and
delighted to make his spear ring against the hollow shield of social
convention. A nature so complicated and individual, so outspoken and
aggressive, could not slip smoothly along the grooves of civilized
existence; he was soundly loved and hated, but seldom, or never
understood. And the obstinate pride which gave projection to most of his
virtues was also at the bottom of his faults: he better liked to perplex
than to open himself to his associates; he willfully repelled where he
might have captivated, Some human element was wanting in him: he was
strong, masculine, subtle, persistent; of a lofty and austere spirit;
too proud even to be personally ambitious; gifted with humor and
insight; fearless and faithful;--but no tenderness, no gentleness, no
inviting human warmth ever appears in him; and though he could reverence
women, and admire them, and appreciate them also from the standpoint of
the senses, they had no determining sway over his life or thought. If
there be any man in English history whom such a summary of traits as
this recalls, it is Dean Swift. Nevertheless Borrow's differences from
him are far greater than the resemblances between them. Giant force was
in both of them; both were enigmas; but the deeper we penetrate into
Borrow, the more we like him; not so with the blue-eyed Dean. Borrow's
depths are dark and tortuous, but never miasmic; and as we grope our way
through them, we may stumble upon treasures, but never upon rottenness.
A man who can be assigned to no recognized type--who flocks by himself,
as the saying is--cannot easily be portrayed: we lose the main design in
our struggle with the details. Indeed, no two portraits of such a man
can be alike: they will vary according to the temperament and
limitations of the painter. It is safe to assert, however, that
insatiable curiosity was at the base both of his character and of his
achievements. Instincts he doubtless had in plenty, but no intuitions;
everything must be construed to him categorically. But his capacity
keeps pace with his curiosity; he promptly assimilates all he learns,
and he can forget nothing. Probably this investigating passion had its
cause in his own unlikeness to the rest of us: he was as a visitor from
another planet, pledged to send home reports of all he saw here. His
success in finding strange things is prodigious: his strange eye detects
oddities and beauties to which we to the manner born were strange.
Adventures attend him everywhere, as the powers of earth and air on
Prospero. Here comes the King of the Vipers, the dry stubble crackling
beneath his outrageous belly; yonder the foredoomed sailor promptly
fulfills his own prediction, falling from the yard-arm into the Bay of
Biscay; anon the ghastly visage of Mrs. Herne, of the Hairy Ones, glares
for a moment out of the midnight hedge; again, a mysterious infatuation
drives the wealthy idler from his bed out into the inclement darkness,
and up to the topmost bough of the tree, which he must "touch" ere he
can rest; and now, in the gloom of the memorable dingle, the horror of
fear falls upon the amateur tinker, the Evil One grapples terribly with
his soul, blots of foam fly from his lips, and he is dashed against the
trees and stones. An adventure, truly, fit to stand with any of mediæval
legend, and compared with which the tremendous combat with Blazing
Bosville, the Flaming Tinman, is almost a relief. But in what perilous
Faery Land forlorn do all these and a thousand more strange and moving
incidents take place?--Why, in the quiet lanes and byways of
nineteenth-century England, or perchance in priest-ridden Spain, where
the ordinary traveler can for the life of him discover nothing more
startling than beef and beer, garlic and crucifixes. Adventures are in
the adventurer.
Man and nature were Borrow's study, but England was his love. In him
exalted patriotism touches its apogee. How nobly and uncompromisingly is
he jealous of her honor, her glory, and her independence! In what
eloquent apostrophes does he urge her to be true to her lofty
traditions, to trample on base expediency and cleave to the brave and
true! In what resounding jeremiads does he denounce woe upon her
traitors and seducers! With what savage sarcasm and scorn does he
dissect the soul of the "man in black"! No other writing more powerful,
picturesque, and idiomatic has been done in this century. He will
advocate no policy less austere than purity, courage, and truth. There
is in his zeal a narrowness that augments its strength, yet lessens its
effect so far as practical issues are concerned. He is an idealist: but
surely no young man can read his stern, throbbing pages without a
kindling of the soul, and a resolve to be high in deed and aim; and
there is no gauging the final influence of such spiritual stimulus.
England and mankind must be better for this lonely, indignant voice.
England, and England's religion, and the Bible in its integrity,--these
are the controlling strings of Borrow's harp. Yet he had his youthful
period of religious doubt and philosophic sophism: has he not told how
walls and ceilings rang with the "Hey!" of the man with the face of a
lion, when the gray-haired boy intimated his skepticism? But
vicissitudes of soul and body, aided by the itinerant Welsh preacher,
cleansed him of these errors, and he undertook and carried through the
famous crusade recorded in 'The Bible in Spain'--a narrative of
adventure and devotion which fascinated and astonished England, and sets
its author abreast of the great writers of his time. It is as
irresistible to-day as it was fifty years ago: it stands alone; only
Trelawny's 'Adventures of a Younger Son' can be compared with it as
narrative, and Trelawny's book lacks the grand central feature which
gives dignity and unity to Borrow's. Being a story of fact, 'The Bible
in Spain' lacks much of the literary art and felicity, as well as the
imaginative charm, of 'Lavengro'; but within its own scope it is great,
and nothing can supersede it.
Gipsydom in all its aspects, though logically a side-issue with Borrow,
was nevertheless the most noticeable thing relating to him: it engaged
and colored him on the side of his temperament; and in the picture we
form of a man, temperament tells far more than intellect because it is
more individual. Later pundits have called in question the academic
accuracy of Borrow's researches in the Romany language: but such
frettings are beside the mark; Borrow is the only genuine expounder of
Gipsyness that ever lived. He laid hold of their vitals, and they of
his; his act of brotherhood with Mr. Jasper Petulengro is but a symbol
of his mystical alliance with the race. This is not to say that he
fathomed the heart of their mystery; the gipsies themselves cannot do
that: but he comprehended whatever in them is open to comprehension, and
his undying interest in them is due not only to his sympathy with their
way of life, but to the fact that his curiosity about them could never
be quite satisfied. Other mysteries come and go, but the gipsy mystery
stays with us, and was to Borrow a source of endless content. For after
sharpening his wits on the ethnological riddle, he could refresh himself
with the psychical aspect of the matter, discovering in them the
incarnation of one essential human quality, incompletely present in all
men. They are the perfect vagabonds; but the germ of vagabondage inheres
in mankind at large, and is the source of the changes that have resulted
in what we call civilization. Borrow's nature comprised the gipsy, but
the gipsy by no means comprised him; he wandered like them, but the
object of his wanderings was something more than to tell dukkeripens,
poison pigs, mend kettles, or deal in horseflesh. Therefore he puzzled
them more than they did him.
'The Gipsies of Spain' (1841) was his first book about them; 'Lavengro'
came ten years later, and 'Romany Rye' six years after that. In 1874 he
returns to the subject in 'Roman Lavo-lil,' a sort of dictionary and
phrase-book of the language, but unlike any other dictionary and
phrase-book ever conceived: it is well worth reading as a piece of
entertaining literature. His other books are translations of Norse and
Welsh poetry, and a book of travels in 'Wild Wales,' published in 1862.
All these works are more than readable: the translations, though rugged
and unmusical, have about them a frank sensuousness and a primitive
force that are amusing and attractive. But after all, Borrow is never
thoroughly himself in literature unless the gipsies are close at hand;
and of all his gipsy books 'Lavengro' is by far the best. Indeed, it is
so much the best and broadest thing that he produced, that the reader
who would know Borrow need never go beyond these pages. In 'Lavengro' we
get the culmination of both the author and the man; it is his book in
the full sense, and may afford profitable study to any competent reader
for a lifetime.
'Lavengro,' in fact, is like nothing else in either biography or
fiction--and it is both fictitious and biographical. It is the gradual
revelation of a strange, unique being. But the revelation does not
proceed in an orderly and chronological fashion: it is not begun in the
first chapter, and still less is it completed in the last. After a
careful perusal of the book, you will admit that though it has
fascinated and impressed you, you have quite failed to understand it.
Why is the author so whimsical? Wherefore these hinted but unconfessed
secrets? Why does he stop short on the brink of an important disclosure,
and diverge under cover of a line of asterisks into another
subject?--But Borrow in 'Lavengro' is not constructing a book, he is
creating one. He has the reserves of a man who respects his own nature,
yet he treats the reader fairly. If you are worthy to be his friend,
by-and-by you will see his heart,--look again, and yet again! That
passage in a former chapter was incomplete; but look ahead a hundred
pages and consider a paragraph there: by itself it seems to say little;
but gradually you recognize in it a part of the inwoven strand which
disappears in one part of the knot and emerges in another. Though you
cannot solve the genial riddle to-day, you may to-morrow. The only clue
is sympathy. This man hides his heart for him who has the mate to it;
and beneath the whimsical, indifferent, proud, and cold exterior, how it
heaves and fears and loves and wonders! This is a wild, unprecedented,
eloquent, mysterious, artistic yet artless book; it is alive; it tells
of an existence apart, yet in contact with the deep things of all human
experience. No other man ever lived as Borrow did, and yet his book is
an epitome of life. The magic of his personal quality beguiles us on
every page; but deeper still lie the large, immutable traits that make
all men men, and avouch the unity of mankind.
'Romany Rye' is the continuation of 'Lavengro,' but scarcely repeats its
charm; its most remarkable feature is an 'Appendix,' in which Borrow
expounds his views upon things in general, including critics and
politics. It is a marvelously trenchant piece of writing, and from the
literary point of view delightful; but it must have hurt a good many
people's feelings at the time it was published, and even now shows the
author on his harsh side only. We may agree with all he says, and yet
wish he had uttered it in a less rasping tone.
Like nearly all great writers, Borrow, in order to get his best effects,
must have room for his imagination. Mere fact would not rouse him fully,
and abstract argument still less. In 'Lavengro' he hit upon his right
vein, and he worked it in the fresh maturity of his power. The style is
Borrow's own, peculiar to him: eloquent, rugged, full of liturgical
repetitions, shunning all soft assonances and refinements, and yet with
remote sea-like cadences, and unhackneyed felicities that rejoice the
jaded soul. Writing with him was spontaneous, but never heedless or
unconsidered; it was always the outcome of deep thought and vehement
feeling. Other writers and their books may be twain, but Borrow and his
books are one. Perhaps they might be improved in art, or arrangement, or
subject; but we should no longer care for them then, because they would
cease to be Borrow. Borrow may not have been a beauty or a saint; but a
man he was; and good or bad, we would not alter a hair of him.
Nothing like an adequate biography of Borrow has ever been published: a
few dates, and some more or less intelligent opinions about his
character and work, are the sum of what we know of him--outside his own
books. Some of the dates are probably guess-work; most of the opinions
are incompetent: it is time that some adequate mind assembled all
available materials and digested them into a satisfactory book. It is
hardly worth while to review the few meagre details. Borrow was born in
1803 and died in 1881; his father, a soldier, failed to make a solicitor
of him, and the youth, at his father's death, came up to London to live
or die by literature. After much hardship (of which the chapters in
'Lavengro' describing the production of 'Joseph Sell' convey a hint), he
set out on a wandering pilgrimage over England, Europe, and the East. As
agent for the British and Foreign Bible Society he traversed Spain and
Portugal, sending to the Morning Herald letters descriptive of his
adventures, which afterwards were made the substance of his books. He
married at thirty-seven, and lived at Outton Broad nearly all his life
after. His wife died a dozen years before him, in 1869. She left
no children.
His first book, a translation of Klinger's 'Faust,' appeared in 1825;
his last, 'The Gipsy Dictionary,' in 1874; a volume called 'Penquite and
Pentyre,' on Cornwall, was announced in 1857, but seems never to have
been published, 'Targum,' a collection of translations from thirty
languages and dialects, was a _tour de force_ belonging to the year
1835. On the whole, Borrow was not a voluminous writer; but what he
wrote tells.
[Illustration: Signature: Julian Hawthorne]