THE FIRST LETTER TO A LONDON FRIEND.
My Dear Jack,
Not wishing to cut myself off entirely from civilization, I write
to apprise you of my adventures while exploring England. I am in the
wilds--that is, in a lonely village surrounded by moors, and twenty
miles from the nearest town. A ragged boy on a ragged pony carries
letters to and fro from this place--Farbis it is called--twice a week.
Other communication with the world there is none, so you see I am
sufficiently isolated from the influences of the nineteenth century.
Of course you knew my intention of coming here, therefore you can
express no surprise at the name of the village. I have seen the Court
at a distance--a red-brick structure embosomed in pine woods--but as
yet I have not called on the old lady who lives there. I cannot very
well present myself in my character of a vagabond, as you may suppose;
and, moreover, this wild life is so delightful that I wish to keep to
myself as much as possible.
When I think of you dawdling in park and club, I pity you heartily. I,
too, have been in--shall I call it Arcady?--and suffered the ennui of
the season. Now I live, not in your artificial manner, but after a
hale and lusty fashion which precludes weariness. I rise with the
lark, and retire with the dicky birds. For the most part my bed is a
fur rug beside a roaring fire under the stars, and I am thoroughly
enjoying myself. This last statement appears extraordinary, but it is
precisely true.
I begin to think civilization is a mistake, and that a cultivated man
does not get so much out of his life as does the untutored savage.
This is a somewhat quixotic way of looking at things, I admit; but,
having tried both existences, I heartily pronounce in favour of the
latter. I have an appetite which Gargantua might envy; I feel the
blood rush through my veins; and I enjoy my life with a zest of which
you, puny club-lounger, can have no conception. Such primevalism suits
me, and I can well understand the fascination it has for so many men.
I protest, Jack, that I never truly appreciated the history of the
Scholar Gipsy till I read Arnold's poem by the light of my camp-fire.
You get at the inmost soul of the thing from such circumstance.
And talking about gipsies, I am at present fraternizing with a tribe
of genuine vagrants who have pitched their ragged tents close at hand.
When I go there and see their Eastern looks, I feel as though some
genie had transported me to an encampment of Bedouins in Arabia. My
location is in a dell almost hidden by overhanging trees, but on
occasions I descend through the pine woods to see my brother-vagrants
on the edge of the moor. Though I do not know a word of Romany, and am
clearly an alien, they receive me most amicably, which says much for
their innate good breeding. Were I but a proficient in their tongue,
no doubt they would call me "brother" and "Romany Rye," as their
grandparents did Borrow.
"Lavengro" is another work which can only be appreciated in these
surroundings. I have read it at least six times since leaving London,
but it never palls on my taste, never grows dull, and exercises the
same fascination as on the first perusal. Nay, more; Fate has taken
a leaf from that glorious book and bestowed on me an adventure or so
in the Borrovian style. My dell is a replica of that famous Dingle,
and--would you believe it?--I have done battle with an individual like
the Flaming Tinman. He also is a tinker and a bruiser, but here the
resemblance ends. He is not a brute, and has no doxy trailing at his
heels. Nor, alas! did he bring me an Isopel to whom I could teach--say
French, in place of Armenian. One can say many pretty things in
French, and the verbs lend themselves as readily to a philological
flirtation as does the more recondite language of Lavengro. But I have
no Isopel--at present.
I see you raise your eyebrows at those two last words. You are wrong
to suspect evil where none exists. It is true that there is a nymph of
these parts--but I had better tell you the beginning of the story. On
the night of my arrival in this dell, there came to me a red-cloaked
hag who prophesied like a veritable Deborah. Only one scrap of her
jargon do I recollect--that Joy should come up through the Gates of
Dawn. These same gates are two giant cliffs that stand sentinel at the
entrance to Farbis valley. I went down for a swim next morning, and
when the sun rose out of the ocean and poured his beams through this
chasm, it looked not unlike the Gates of the Day. The name is a
poetical one, and pretty. I can quite understand some mute inglorious
Milton having so christened this natural entrance. Here I saw Joy
coming up as predicted, in the person of a lovely young woman, whom I
at first took to be a mermaid, but the sight of whose bare feet
dispelled the illusion. I caught but a glimpse of her face, and----
Now, don't finish the sentence for me by saying I lost my heart. I did
no such thing; but I own that a very clear picture of this stray
Nereid is imprinted on my mind. I have not seen her since that
morning, so, to convince myself that she was of mortal mould, I asked
my friend the tinker about her. It seems she is the daughter of a Dr.
Merle, and leads a kind of huntress-life in the woods and on the
moors. Tim--my reality of the Flaming Tinman--waxed enthusiastic over
her knowledge of wood-lore, her perfect swimming, her straight
shooting, and various other accomplishments less feminine than
masculine. He concluded by warning me not to fall in love if I did not
mean to marry her. Did you ever hear such rubbish?--as though I were a
wolf in disguise, on the prowl for maidens of tender years! I doubt
whether I shall ever see her again, and I can only remember her as
Aurora coming up through the Gates of Dawn. No! I have not the
slightest wish to play the part of Tithonus, though I swear she is
lovely enough to snare a less inflammable person than myself.
To speak seriously, I should like to see this girl again. She must be
a very original creature to lead the life she does. I detest masculine
women. Yet this Diana of Farbis piques my curiosity. Still, I shall
not go out of my way to court Fate. If I meet Diana, it must be by
chance; but, as I leave here in three days, I doubt whether I shall
set eyes on her again. If I see her, if I fall in love with her, if I
marry her, what would you say? But then, you see, I say "if"! "Much
virtue in that little word," as sage Touchstone remarks.
If you remember, we jested on the probability of my meeting with a
wife on my travels. What if this unknown nymph should prove to be my
fate in the marriage-market? Mother Jericho, the gipsy sybil, hinted
pretty strongly that she whom I met at the Gates of Dawn would become
my wife. Well, I met this Diana, this Rosalind, this Meg--not
Merrilies, but Merle--the doctor's daughter. There is not the
slightest chance of my introducing her to you in such a _rôle_, I
assure you. I have no belief in palmistry, nor, for the matter of
that, in _mésalliances_.
But enough of women and love and guesses at the future. I must tell
you of my fight with the tinker--or, rather, I would tell you had I
the genius of Homer or the pen of Lavengro. I have neither. I fought a
battle with him out of sheer love of fighting. There was no ill will
on either side. We simply put on the gloves for a jest, and he was as
eager as I to see who was the better man. Neither of us won, so I
suppose we are about equal. Some fine day I'll have another bout with
him, and see if I can't come off victorious. Tim is no mean foe, I
assure you.
These are all the adventures I have to tell you at present, but you
must own that they are sufficiently exciting for these prosaic days.
If you yawn over this letter and scoff in your superfine way at my
Tinker, my Diana, my red-cloaked Witch, I will never again put pen to
paper for your pleasure. If my correspondence is not so exciting as
the romances of Dumas, it has at least the merit of being perfectly
true, which is more than you can say for the glibly uttered lies of a
thousand bragging Bobadils who have been to Africa and shot mythical
elephants.
In my next letter I will narrate my departure from this place, and my
touching farewells of my gipsy friends. After all, I am not sure that
I won't travel with them. They are a fascinating lot, though rather in
want of soap and water. I may as well play my part of vagrant
thoroughly, though, I must confess, I have hitherto been a dismal
failure. Evidently I have not dressed the character properly, for the
most addle-headed yokel calls me "zur," and looks expectant of a
shilling. I am trying to get up an accent, but it's mighty difficult.
Greek, which the monks said was an invention of the devil, is easy
compared with this lingo.
You can write me a letter in reply to this, addressed to "Dan, Post
Office, Farbis," and I'll call for it. Dan is my travelling name. It
is, I think, admirably suited to me, and I like it better than the one
given to me by my godparents. Peter is quite well, and sends his love.
He is having a glorious time, and actually got within a yard of a
rabbit the other day. Simon is sleek and steady, and holds his tongue,
which is more than I can say of Peter. And now, my friend, I must
close this letter, for which you ought to be very grateful, as it is
written under great difficulties, with a bad pencil, in a bad light.
To keep up the spirit of the thing, I sign my travelling name, and
take leave of you so.
Dan,
Proprietor of caravan, horse, and dog, at present encamped at
Farbis.
P.S.--Should I meet with Diana, I will give you a full account of the
interview. What she said, what I said, how we met and how we parted,
and all the rest of it.