CHAPTER XVII._The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, volume 2 (of 2) By His Wife, Isabel Burton

THE TWO CONTESTED POINTS BETWEEN A SMALL SECTION OF ANTAGONISTS AND

MYSELF.

"Because I'm with the swallow, however far he flies;

Because the lark within me leaps upwards to the skies;

Because, where'er there's singing of birds on hill or plain,

We catch each other's meaning and join in one refrain;

Because the forest temples where God has made His throne

Can rustle to a rising chant they sing to me alone;

Because, where'er I find them among the waving grass,

The daisies and the violets nod shyly as I pass;

Because the flowers have secrets that few men seem to see,

And yet they ope their bosoms and tell their tales to me;

Because the earth is fairer; because the roses blow

With a loveliness and purity that few men care to know;

Because the heavens are higher than many dare to think;

Because the heavens are nearer, I tremble on their brink;

And oh, because to all the joys of birds and beasts and flies,

The myriad joys that move the earth and fill the summer skies,

There's something in this heart of mine, there's something that replies;

Because those other singers whom death has granted fame

Stand by my side in solemn hours and call me by my name;

Because I dare to meet their gaze, and seem to understand

The language which proclaims them all of one great father-land;

Because their touch is on me; because in accents mild

They hail me as a follower, a servant, yet a child;

Because the fairies hearken, I call them at mine ease;

Because I hear the angels' harps in the pauses of the breeze;

Because a spirit's with me, where'er my steps have trod,

Whose eyes have something of myself, and, oh, far more of God;

Because, when night is silent, I watch the planets roll,

And hear their solemn melodies in the centre of my soul;

Because of one great action I feel myself the part,

A life whose sphere is nature, a life whose voice is art,

And in my breast re-echo the pulsings of its heart;

Because my thoughts are splendour, because my thoughts are sin,

With a shock, as if of armies amid the battle's din;

Because the shades of former days go with me on my way,

And because to-morrow's sunshine is on my path to-day;

Because my heart-strings tremble to the pressure of thy hand,

And because I live a sorrow which none can understand."

----MAARTEN MAARTENS.

THE "SCENTED GARDEN" CONTROVERSY.

I must now revert, I hope for the last time, to the "Scented Garden."

I made the greatest mistake in the world; I did not know my public,

I did not know England. I was under some delusion which I have often

bewailed, that I was responsible to, or owed some explanation to,

the would-be buyers of that book, nor can I _now_ think how I could

have imagined that it was, or described it as, my husband's _magnum

opus_--perhaps it was because it was the first work of the kind I had

ever read--as it certainly was the _least_ of his works, and I should

say that his "Mecca and Medinah" and his "Arabian Nights" were his

best. The abuse I got by a portion of the Press, and eventually volumes

of anonymous letters, which were far coarser than the "Scented Garden,"

and which would have shocked Whitechapel, induced me a month later to

write a second letter to the _Echo_, which I reproduce, and, as it went

on, a further explanation in the _New Review_.

_Lady Burton's Last Words to the "Echo."_

[Sidenote: _My Defence about the burnt MS. to the "Echo."_]

"On reading my own letter in the _Morning Post_, which paper has

always been my best friend, I see that the few lines that explained

my _reasons_ for taking the public into my confidence are cut out,

probably on account of its length. I quite understand, and see exactly

what the opposite side think of it. I wrote to the _Morning Post_,

'I am obliged to confess this, because there are fifteen hundred

men expecting the book, and I do not quite know how to get at them,

also I want to avoid unpleasant hints by telling the truth.' My

_reasons_ were, that there were too many people after the book, too

many inconvenient letters and questions from those who expected it

and wanted to buy it, and had I not told what I did, my few bitter

enemies--we all have some--would hint and not speak out, which is the

worst of all things. Will you believe that I have been four months

in England, and quite unable to wind-up half our affairs because my

whole mornings have been taken up with answering such letters? I can

satisfy all the objections. Had my husband lived, the book would now

have been in the printing press; I should never have been allowed to

read it, and I should have done exactly what I did to the 'Arabian

Nights'--worked the financial part of it. I intended privately to

offer it for three thousand guineas to a bookseller with whom my

husband and I had had a long-standing friendship, in order to save

myself the trouble of all I went through with the 'Arabian Nights,'

and it was only on getting the double offer from the unknown man,

which was more than I could ever have hoped for--not the next day,

as the Press has it--that I sat down to read it. The money was quite

a secondary consideration with me, though I like money as much as

most women, and have got none; but no woman who truly loved a man,

and cared for his interests after death, would have coveted that

class of monument for his beloved memory, and only the most selfish

or thoughtless of men could have expected me to give it up. Such

men would not have risked one little corner of their good names,

or reputations, or profession, or money, or family, or society, in

connection with any book on this subject. No! they would have shoved

him forward into the breach; they would have egged him on with the

bravado of schoolboys to his face, in good fellowship--how often have

I seen it!--and, if anything went wrong, would probably have pretended

that they did not know anything about it. He would have been perfectly

justified, had he lived, in carrying out his work. He would have been

surrounded by friends to whom he could have explained any objections

or controversies, and would have done everything to guard against the

incalculable harm of his purchasers lending it to their women-friends,

and to their boyish acquaintances, which I could not guarantee.

"Was it a classic? No! it was not a classic; it was a translation from

Arabic manuscripts very difficult to get in the original, with copious

notes and explanations of his own. But it is very difficult for me, as

a woman, to tell you exactly what it was.

"I have received hundreds of letters, with all sorts of opinions,

all except a few thoroughly approving my act, and some of these are

anonymous, showing how careful people are with their own skins, but

the most curious trait is that so many agree with me privately and

write in the papers against me. I did not expect my confession to be

noticed at all; it was a great surprise to me to find it discussed. I

only meant to stop the letters asking for it. Moreover, I only burnt

what was my own property, and at my own loss. If my husband had been

alive I should not have read it, and I should not have done it. He

and I both supposed that he would live for many, many years; but,

nevertheless, one day, several weeks before he died, when we were

travelling in Switzerland, he called me into his room, and dictated

to me a list of such things as he wished burnt in case I survived

him, and three documents, which he signed. One of them, amongst other

things, contained the following:--

"'In the event of my death, I bequeath especially to my wife,

Isabel Burton, every book, paper, or manuscript, to be overhauled

and examined by her only, and to be dealt with entirely at her own

discretion, and in the manner she thinks best, having been my sole

helper for thirty years,' etc., etc., etc., etc.

"'(Signed) RICHARD F BURTON.'

"I need hardly tell you that the 'Scented Garden' was not included in

the list of things to be burnt. I did it purely out of love for my

husband, and all the censure is as nothing to me in comparison to his

memory and our speedy reunion.

"Shortly after we married we lost all we possessed in the world in

Grindlay's fire, and when the news was brought to him he remained

silent for a few minutes, and then turning to me, said, 'The worst

part of the loss is that there were boxes full of priceless Arabic

and Persian manuscripts, which I picked up in out-of-the-way places;

but,' he added, smiling, 'the world will be all the better for the

loss.'

"When I wrote to the _Morning Post_ I never calculated or thought

of either praise, or blame, or gain; in fact, I think any one may

see I never thought of myself at all, or I should have been more

worldly-wise. I shall never regret what I have done, but I shall

regret all my life having confessed it, though I could scarcely have

helped it, as I was ordered to do so. My husband did no wrong; he had

a high purpose, and he thought no evil of printing it, and could one

have secured the one per cent. of individuals to whom it would have

been merely a study, it probably would have done no harm; but once you

get a thing in print in England you have lost all hold of it, and the

merest schoolgirl, if she is bent upon seeing it, will get to do so,

and the more the mystery the keener they are.

"You will pardon me, who have spent the best part of thirty years on

foreign stations, for saying, that if what people tell me be true,

and if England progresses in this line at the rate she has done for

the last fifteen or twenty years, let us say in another sixty or

seventy years, my husband's 'Scented Garden' would have become a

Christmas book for boys, on the plea that the mind should be trained

to everything. I shall not have done the world such an injury as they

make out. Thousands, millions, admire my husband, and many talk of

their great love for him, in many instances truly, but I am the only

being in the world to whom he was _everything_, whose soul is mine,

whose interests are mine, and therefore I am obliged to harden myself

against all abuse, although I quite understand the people of the

opposite part, from their point of view.

"I do not understand what the Press meant by my casting a slur on his

memory. Did any slur attach to him from the 'Arabian Nights'? On the

contrary, great praise, and fame, and gain! Why, then, should a slur

come from the 'Scented Garden'? It was not the world's slur that was

to be feared. I did not think I could laugh now, but I did when I read

'that I appealed to the public for sympathy and acclaim for my own

purity--at his expense,' for there is no cause for sympathy--I never

thought about being pure or impure--I felt no sacrifice. I know what I

saw. I knew what I had to do, and I did it. It is no use explaining,

because the world would not understand me--and there is no need why

it should. It never understood _him_ whilst he lived, and it will not

understand _me_ while I live.

"Some articles in the Press say that I am uneducated. I am not going

to deny it, but my husband found that I had quite sufficient common

sense to trust me unreservedly with the whole of his business of

whatever nature for thirty years, and he never had cause to regret it,

nor did he ever do the slightest thing without consulting me. This

is the only instance in which I have not co-operated. I am accused

of doing it to earn money, which is rather illogical. If that was

my object, why did I not quietly pocket my six thousand guineas,

hold my tongue, and pass the manuscript quietly to a man who is

incapable of betraying me? Out of the many hundreds of letters which

I have received since the 20th of June, three offered to start public

subscriptions for me, but I declined them, because this subject is, to

me, too sacred for barter. The only money I have ever asked for was

for the monument. I forgive those who have heaped me with unmeasured

abuse, but I shall never forget it, and I thank them for showing me

what sort of people were waiting for the book, and how right I was

to burn it. Yet I am quite sure that more than two-thirds of this

particular school would condemn what has been said and written to me,

did they know it. At any rate, I am quite certain that none of it

(either private letters or Press) was penned by any true friend of Sir

Richard's to his wife.

"ISABEL BURTON."

* * * * *

"My confession has been twisted and turned into the following:--'That

my poor husband had been engaged on a most beautiful and scientific

work for thirty years, that he had finished it all but the last page,

that it contained gems of science, that it was full of transcendental

Oriental poetry, and that I brutally burnt it, the day after he was

dead, in either wanton ignorance or bigotry.' Now, the truth is this.

Ever since 1842, whenever my husband came across any information

on _any_ subject, he collected it and pigeon-holed it, and at this

particular time the accumulations of twenty-seven years (since

Grindlay's fire, which lost all preceding ones) were pigeon-holed in

different compartments, on as many as twenty different subjects. As

fast as he had finished one book, he opened a compartment to produce

another, and sometimes had several books on the stocks at the same

time, on as many different large plain deal tables.

"It was towards the end of 1888, that he pulled out of its nook the

material which would go towards the 'Scented Garden,' and occasionally

he translated bits from an Arabic manuscript called the 'Perfumed

Garden,'[1] by the Shaykh El Nefzáwih, a Kabyle Arab of the early

sixth century (Hegira), the French translation of which is as poor, as

a translation of the original, as all the translations of the 'Arabian

Nights' were (except Mr. John Payne's) until Richard's came out, which

was the perfect one. The only value in the book at all, consisted in

his annotations, and there was no poetry. He was engaged on Catullus

at the same time, and he threw all his strength and style into the

more virile work at the expense of the other. His journal of 31st

of March, 1890, contains this sentence--'Began, or rather resumed,

"Scented Garden," and don't much care about it, but it is a good

pot-boiler,' which I interpret that he knew it was not up to the mark;

but the time he was actually seriously occupied on it was from 31st

of March, 1890, till the 19th of October--not quite seven months. I

have often bewailed my own folly in considering that I was in any way

responsible to or owed any explanation to the public respecting my

husband's writings, and the only object, as I said, of my letter was

to deliver myself from the bother of the letters and visits of a very

large number of would-be purchasers. I never supposed for an instant

that my action would excite any comment, one way or the other, much

less did I suppose that any one would attach any kind of blame to my

husband, any more than to the printing of the 'Arabian Nights,' which

gave him so much _kudos_ and plenty of money.

"I know that no one would have _dared_ to blame him had he been alive,

nor to have represented me as throwing a blight on his reputation,

for whom I would at any moment, during a period of forty years, have

cheerfully given my life. I knew that this book, being the outcome

of sickness during the last two years of his life, was not up to the

standard of his former works. Turner's executors burnt a few of his

last pictures under similar circumstances to leave his reputation as a

painter at its zenith. I acted from the same motive. I should not have

dared to burn any autobiography, and every word that he wrote about

himself to be given to the public is given. I consider that I have

done infinitely more for his reputation and memory by burning it than

by printing it. People must not tell me that I am no judge, because I

wrote _with_ him, and _for_ him, and also copied everything for him,

for the first twenty-six of our thirty years' married life, till I

broke down myself, and the 'Arabian Nights' was then handed over to

another copyist, I doing all the rest. He laid no stress on bringing

it out, except for money's sake. When he had done the 'Arabian

Nights,' he said, in his joking, honest way, 'I have struggled for

forty-seven years, distinguishing myself honourably in every way that

I possibly could. I never had a compliment, nor a "thank you," nor

a single farthing. I translate a doubtful book in my old age, and I

immediately make sixteen thousand guineas. Now that I know the tastes

of England, we need never be without money.'

"Had we lived to come home together, I should have talked him off

printing it, as I did another manuscript, quite on a different

subject, and he knew that if I had my will, I would burn it. This did

not prevent him, about eight weeks before he died, leaving me sole

executrix of all he possessed, with instructions '_to sift thoroughly,

and publish anything that I thought would not misrepresent him to the

public_,' adding, '_having been my sole helper for thirty years, I

wish you to act solely on your own judgment and discretion_.' Now,

I judged, after long thinking, that the subject would be unpopular;

that had he lived to explain it, to talk about it in the clubs amongst

his men-friends, it would have been different; that I probably should

have worked the financial part of it, as I did that of the 'Arabian

Nights,' because I should not have read it, and large sums would

doubtless have accrued from it. He always wrote over the heads of his

public, and sixty years in advance of his time: I think that about

fifteen people would possibly have understood it and his motives

(which were always noble) if the germ was big enough to produce the

good intended.

"Given fifteen people to read and understand, given a dead hero who

could no longer profit from the money, who could not explain or defend

himself if he were attacked by the press, who could not enjoy the

praise of a small section of his fellow-men; given two thousand or

more other men who could buy the book and in course of time would tire

of it and sell it. It would be bought by rich Tom, Dick, and Harry. It

would by degrees descend amongst the populace out of Holywell Street,

the _very opposite result_ to what the upright manly translator would

have desired, and the whole contents might be so misunderstood by the

uneducated that the good, noble, glorious life of Richard Burton, of

which I and thousands of others are most proud and delight to honour,

might sixty years hence receive a very different colouring from the

truth, and be handed down to posterity in a false light.

"Many people will regret that Richard did not leave his manuscripts in

the hands of a literary man, a lawyer, or a so-called friend. If he

had, little men without a name would have profited by it, by tacking

on theirs to his big name, money would have been made, and everybody,

without distinction, who could have paid would have been pandered to,

but _nobody_ would have thought of the dead man, the soldier, the

chivalrous gentleman in his tomb--he knew this. I _alone_ stand here,

and I think it an honour, for his sake, to bear with the epithets of

scorn that the brutality of the athlete, and the dyspepsia of the

effete--mostly anonymous Braves--have showered upon me. All that he

has left will be given to the public by degrees, if it is more than a

mere sketch, but it is cruel to the dead to give their sketches to the

world and pretend that they are their best work, simply because they

fetch money."[2]

* * * * *

The _Leicester Post_, a little while ago, wrote:--

"I don't think that Lady Burton's coming book will contain any

explanation of her action in destroying the manuscript which Sir

Richard endeavoured to complete on his death-bed. It is now said,

with some show of authority, that the work contained but one chapter,

which in a _virginibus puerisque_ light, might have given offence; if

this were so, it seems appalling that the whole work should have been

consigned to the flames. Lady Burton cannot know of this report, or

she would hasten to relieve the literary minds, whose plaint is bitter

because anything has perished which came from the translator of the

'Arabian Nights.'"

Now, it is absurd to suppose that Richard tried to complete a

manuscript on a death-bed of three hours. As to _authority_, there were

only three people who ever read that manuscript--Richard who wrote

it, the copyist who copied it, and myself. I can relieve the literary

minds at once. The first two chapters were a raw translation of part

of the works of "Numa Numantius," without any annotations at all, or

comments of any kind on Richard's part, and twenty chapters translation

of Shaykh el Nafzáwih from Arabic. In fact, it was _all translation_,

excepting the annotations on the Arabic work. I asked the copyist, who

is a woman, "what she would have done with it," and she said, "I think

I should most likely have been tempted with the money, but if I cared

for my husband as much as you did, and if he was dead, I hope I might

have burned it." I asked her "upon what grounds she would have burnt

it," and she said, "Because the Press would assuredly have criticized

it. If he were alive he could answer for himself, and explain--he being

dead, _you_ could not; and we all know what men-friends are, and how

many would have put themselves in the slightest difficulty to take his

part. Sir Richard had the courage of his opinions, but his friends have

not, and would only come forward if it could aggrandize their own names

a little bit. You have done very well." It makes me sick to hear all

this anxiety of the Press and the literary world, lest they should miss

a word he ever wrote. When he came back in 1882, after being sent to

look after Palmer, he had a good deal of information to give, and he

could not get a magazine or paper to take his most valuable article

till it was quite stale. We used to boil over with rage when his books

or articles were rejected. Only the other day I sent a most valuable

letter of his, written in 1886, to a Liberal and a Conservative

paper, and neither of them would take it. And _now_, because a few

chapters, which were of no particular value to the world, have been

burnt, the whole country's literary minds are "full of bitter plaint

because anything has perished which came from the translator of the

'Arabian Nights.'" Such are the waves and whims of such people. They

are (privately of course), selling down at Soho a "Scented Garden,"

translated by the bookseller himself, from a miserable little French

copy, which they pretend is "Sir Richard Burton's Scented Garden,"

gulling people who ought to know better--but not scholars--and who

deserve to lose their money, paying for trash that my husband never

saw. I hope the seller charges them enormous sums, and I hope that some

of the purchasers will have the common sense to bring an action against

him for obtaining money under false pretences.

I have done no evil and am unharmed. I am not afraid of slander which I

have not deserved; it will die out and I shall live.

Those who say I have failed in my trust, wish it to be so, mean that

it shall be so, if it depends upon them. Slander is very cruel; it

tracks its victims like a bloodhound, but it generally crushes its own

begetter.

* * * * *

"THE SECOND BONE OF CONTENTION IS RELIGION.

"No, no; it is not there the sorrow lies,

Not in the lack of hands that could applaud,

But in the lack of hearts that, answering, rise

As loadstones to the magnet, the replies

Electric of a sympathy which cries:

'The truth is with thee!'"

----MAARTEN MAARTENS.

[Sidenote: _And to the New Review_.]

"Heredity is a strong thing, and cannot always be shaken off. It

breeds alike forms of body, forms of soul, disease to this, good

teeth or scanty hair to that, or colour, or talents, or creed. My

Burtons mostly have Catholic-phobia; they hate it without knowing

what it is, because their ancestors seceded from it at the time of

the Reformation; but one of the most anti-Catholic of them, at the

age of seventeen, wrote me more than one beautiful letter imploring

me to take her, and get her baptised and received into the Catholic

Church. I have them amongst my treasures now; but I did not do so,

because it would have been an act of treachery to her mother, and

dishonourable to take advantage of a girl, and she has since been very

grateful for it. Another Burton, whilst labouring from the effects

of an Indian sunstroke, used always to turn his face alternately

towards Mecca (evidently thinking of my husband), and then turn the

other way and say his rosary: something Catholic having come into

his unbiased, unconscious brain. Richard, when he was out in India,

had no one to keep him in order. As soon as he was well emancipated

and untrammelled, he answered the call of his Bourbon blood, and

transferred himself to the Catholic Church, and this is the way he

describes it to the public--he always spoke lightly of the things he

felt the most: 'What added not a little to the general astonishment

was, that I left off "sitting under" the garrison chaplain, and betook

myself to the Catholic chapel of the chocolate-coloured Goanese priest

who adhibited spiritual consolation to the buttrels, butlers, and

head servants, and other servants of the camp.' He frequently spoke

in after writings of 'the Portuguese priest who had charge of his

soul,' who, when Richard committed some escapade, 'was like a hen

who had hatched a duckling.' These writings were lent by Richard to

Mr. Hitchman, with other notes, in 1887, but he did not understand

the importance of it, nor what it pointed to, and left it amongst

the parts he did not use.[3] When I asked Richard how it was that it

escaped public comment, he said, 'Because, when I mention that I went

to the chocolate-coloured priest of the Goanese Church, the English

only think it is some black tribe, where I have been probably tarred

and feathered, whilst I was very much in earnest; but since it is no

use annoying my people, and as it has escaped Mr. Hitchman, and as

it only concerns you and me, and is no business of any outsider, I

do not wish you to say anything about it till my death-bed, or some

time after my death, and that only if you are put in any difficulty.'

Cardinal Wiseman knew it, for he passed Richard through all the

missions in wild places all over the world as a Catholic officer, and

was willing to patronize my marriage. But Richard never let _me_ know

anything about it until after we were married, and I have kept it all

my life a secret. I have always steadily said that '_I did not know_,'

because I never meant to tell it to any one but those who had a right

to ask, as I did not see how it concerned the public.

"The public have allowed me to think it unworthy of having anything

but _public_ events related to it by the result of my stupid

confidence about the burnt manuscript; one almost begrudges it the

truth. Look at Grant Allen, a strong and clever man, who stated a

while ago in the _Athenæum_ in a paragraph, 'The worm will turn,'

that he had been asked to write something personal, that he threw his

whole soul and religion into a book, and that when he gave it to

his publisher he besought him to destroy it, or 'no one would ever

read one of his books again.' It is the same with me; but I have one

advantage; I want _nothing_ of the public except what it accords to

me freely and out of its own courteous sympathy, and I do want it to

understand its departed hero--therefore I sacrifice myself for the

public good.

"I think that the World, if a man speaks its own shibboleth, if

he wears its last new-fashioned coat in the Park, has no right to

complain if he does not show it the colour of the singlet that he

wears next to his skin, or the talisman that he wears round his neck,

which his wife happens to see, because she helps him to dress and

undress.

"Richard was so beautifully reserved, such a past master in concealing

his real thoughts and feelings, whilst talking most freely, so as

never to hurt his surroundings by letting them imagine that he did not

trust them with everything. I used to tell him that he was like the

'Man with the Iron Mask.' He did not see what right any one had to

know anything, except what he just absolutely chose them to know.

"I feel with Walt Whitman:--

'I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid

and self-contained.

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of

owning things.'

"I am by no means going to tell you that his Catholicity was a

life-long, fixed, and steady thing, like mine. It was not. He had

long and wild fits of Eastern Mysticism, but not the Agnosticism

that I have seen in England since my widowhood. It was the mysticism

of the East--Sufiism. Periodically he had equal Catholic fits, and

practised it, hiding it sometimes even from me, though I knew it. In

every place we lived in, except Trieste, he had a priest from whom he

took lessons, but even this stopped, after he had resident doctors

and could not go out by himself. From Trieste he used formerly to go

to Gorizia, two hours express inland, and other towns. He was worse

than ever _in talk_ the three last years, but the things that he said

were so innocent and so witty that I was often compelled to laugh or

to go away and laugh. Still, as I saw his health declining I grew

frightfully anxious, nay agonized, and in 1888, two years before he

died, I made a general appeal for prayers in our Church, which he saw

and kept a copy of in a drawer."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Religion_.]

There are three people in the world who might possibly be able to

write sections of his life. Most of his intimate friends are dead,

but there are still a few left. One would describe him as a Deist,

one as an Agnostic, and one as an Atheist and Freethinker, but I can

only describe the Richard that I knew, not the Richard that they

knew. I, his wife, who lived with him day and night for thirty years,

believed him to be half-Sufi, half-Catholic, or I prefer to say (as

nearer the truth) alternately Sufi and Catholic, because I did not in

the least count all his wild talk at table or in Society, nor what he

wrote; I minded only what he _thought_ and what he _did_, and this is

why I cannot truthfully join in the general opinion. He was like the

Druzes, who adopt the national religion for peace' sake; but they have

their own private religion all the same. I can distinctly remember a

speech which he made in London--I believe it was in 1865, I think at

the Anthropological--in which he said, "My religious opinions are of

no importance to anybody but myself; _no one_ knows what my religious

views are. I object to confessions, and I will _not_ confess. My

standpoint is, and I hope ever will be, 'The Truth' as far as it is

in me, but known only to myself." This was a public statement, and

_might_ silence those who jabber upon things of which they are entirely

ignorant.

How beautiful and how sad a mentor is friendship! A noble character

must contain three qualities to contend with this one great element

of our lives--a sincere, staunch, loyal heart, philosophy, and

discernment. The World is a kind, pleasant place to live in, whatever

cynics may say. Be in trouble, and you must wonder at the innumerable

kind hearts who will call and write, and offer every assistance and

consolation in their power. This will not prevent your nearest and

dearest relative from snubbing you if you want anything; nor that

friend to whom you clung with all your soul, as to a rock, failing you

just at the crisis of your life when you most counted upon his support.

Then you must call in your philosophy. Again, if a cloud comes over

you, how many will disappear, and reappear again as soon as the world

has decided in your favour, to join in the applause. Do not blame the

weaklings, but your own discernment; they do not want to hurt you, but

they hold themselves ready to go on the popular side, whichever way it

turns. And why should they not? It is not because they dislike you, but

because they fear others more than they love you. In sensitive youth

these facts make our misery; but we should learn to rejoice in our

riper years when a weak, uncertain friend falls away. Carry the true

gold about your own strong heart, and shake off the dross, which is but

the superfluous ballast which clogs and impedes the ship's free sailing.

Now, I ask, who is unjust enough, inhuman enough, to grudge me this

last consolation? From 1842 to 1890, for forty-eight years, he was

before the public; he had a strong band of friends, a strong band

of admirers; but the world at large, and notably England, never

understood him because he was so above his time, and the larger part

did not know how to appreciate him. Who from 1856 to 1859 kept him so

supplied with daily written journals of news, of daily cuttings from

the newspapers, that when he returned, people said to him, "How come

you so well informed of all that has been passing, just as if you had

never been away, and you living beyond the pale of civilization?" "Ah,

how?" he said. By many mails he never received a line from any one but

me. Who cheered him on in danger, toil, and heart-breaking sickness?

Who, when he came back from Tanganyika (Africa) in 1859, coldly looked

upon by the Government, bullied by the India House, rejected by the

Geographical Society, almost tabooed by Society on account of the

machinations of Captain Speke, so that he scarcely had ten friends to

say good-morning to him,--who sought his side to comfort him? I did!

Then we married. Who for thirty years daily attended to his comforts,

watched his going out and coming in, had his slippers, dressing-gown,

and pipe ready for him every evening, sat sick at heart if he was an

hour late, watched all night and till morning if he did not come back?

Who copied and worked for and with him? Who fought for thirty years to

raise his official position all she could, and wept bitter tears over

his being neglected? I did. My only complaint is, that I believe he

would have got infinitely more, if he had asked for things himself,

and not perpetually stuck me forward; but he was too modest, and I had

to obey orders. Who rode or walked at his side through hunger, thirst,

cold, and burning heat, with hardships and privations and danger, in

all his travels? Who nursed him through seven long illnesses, before

his last illness, some lasting two or three months, and never left his

bed-head day or night, and did everything for him? I did! Why, I was

wife, and mother, and comrade, and secretary, and aide-de-camp, and

agent to him; and I was proud, happy, and glad to do it all, and never

tired day or night for thirty years. I would rather have had a crust

and a tent with him, than be a Queen elsewhere. At the moment of his

death I had done all I could for the body, and then I tried to follow

his soul. I _am_ following the soul, and I _shall_ reach it before

long. There we shall nevermore part. Agnostics! "Burnt manuscript"

readers! where were _you_ all then? Hail-fellow-well-met, when the

world went well; running away when it pursed up its stupid lips. And

do any of _you_ pretend or wish to take _him_ away from _me_ in death?

Oh, for shame, for shame! Let him rest where he wanted to rest, and

be silent, or do not boast of your "free country" where a man may not

even be buried where he will; where he may not speak his mind, and tell

the truth. Be ashamed that History may have to say, that the only

honour that England accorded to Richard Burton, having failed to do him

justice in this life, was to bespatter his wife with mud after he was

dead, and could not defend her.

Do not be so hard and prosaic as to suppose that our Dead cannot, in

rare instances, come back and tell us how it is with them.

"He lives and moves, he is not dead,

He does not alter nor grow strange,

His love is still around me shed,

Untouched by time, or chance, or change;

And when he walks beside me, then

As shadows seem all living men."

----MARY MACLEOD.

[Sidenote: _I take my Leave_.]

He said always, "I am gone--pay, pack, and follow."

Reader! I have paid, I have packed, I have suffered. I am waiting to

join his Caravan. I am waiting for a welcome sound--

"THE TINKLING OF HIS CAMEL-BELL."

* * * * *

"THE SELF-EXILED."

"'Now, open the gate, and let her in,

And fling it wide,

For she hath been cleansed from stain of sin,'

St. Peter cried.