The writing of the autobiography differs from that of "The Bible in
Spain." It is less flowing and more laboured. It has less movement and
buoyancy, but more delicacy and variety. It is a finer and more intimate
style, which over and over again distinguishes Borrow from the Victorian
pure and simple. The dialogue is finer; it is used less to disguise or
vary narrative, and more to reveal character and make dramatic effect;
and it is even lyrical at times. Borrow can be Victorian still. This
example is from the old man's history in "The Romany Rye":
"My mother had died about three years previously. I felt the death of my
mother keenly, but that of my father less than was my duty; indeed, truth
compels me to acknowledge that I scarcely regretted his death. The cause
of this want of proper filial feeling was the opposition which I had
experienced from him in an affair which deeply concerned me. I had
formed an attachment for a young female in the neighbourhood, who, though
poor, was of highly respectable birth, her father having been a curate of
the Established Church."
This better one is from "Lavengro":
"And then Francis Ardry proceeded to make me his confidant. It appeared
that he had had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of the most
delightful young Frenchwoman imaginable, Annette La Noire by name, who
had just arrived from her native country with the intention of obtaining
the situation of governess in some English family; a position which, on
account of her many accomplishments, she was eminently qualified to fill.
Francis Ardry had, however, persuaded her to relinquish her intention for
the present, on the ground that, until she had become acclimated in
England, her health would probably suffer from the confinement
inseparable from the occupation in which she was desirous of engaging; he
had, moreover--for it appeared that she was the most frank and confiding
creature in the world--succeeded in persuading her to permit him to hire
for her a very handsome first floor in his own neighbourhood, and to
accept a few inconsiderable presents in money and jewellery."
But coarse and rigid as this is the same vocabulary, the same ample,
oratorical tone, will help Borrow to genial, substantial effects such as
the dinner with the landlord and the commercial traveller: "The dinner
was good, though plain, consisting of boiled mackerel--rather a rarity in
those parts at that time--with fennel sauce, a prime baron of roast beef
after the mackerel, then a tart and noble Cheshire cheese; we had prime
sherry at dinner, and whilst eating the cheese prime porter, that of
Barclay, the only good porter in the world. After the cloth was removed
we had a bottle of very good port; and whilst partaking of the port I had
an argument with the commercial traveller on the subject of the
corn-laws."
What is more, this is the vocabulary and tone of the whole book, and how
far the total effect is from coarseness and rigidity I cannot show now if
I have not done so already. Borrow's gusto triumphs over this style in
descriptions of men riding, fighting, talking or drinking. His sense of
mystery triumphs over it continually as the prevailing atmosphere must
prove. The gusto and the mystery are all the more impressive because the
means are entirely concealed, except when the writer draws himself up for
an apostrophe, and that is not much too often nor always tedious. The
style is capable of essential simplicity, though not of refined
simplicity, just as a man with a hard hat, black clothes and a malacca
cane may be a good deal simpler and more at home with natural things than
a hairy hygienic gentleman. I will quote one example--the old bee-keeper
in "The Romany Rye":
"I was bidding him farewell, when he hemmed once or twice, and said that
as he did not live far off, he hoped that I would go with him and taste
some of his mead. As I had never tasted mead, of which I had frequently
read in the compositions of the Welsh bards, and, moreover, felt rather
thirsty from the heat of the day, I told him that I should have great
pleasure in attending him. Whereupon, turning off together, we proceeded
about half a mile, sometimes between stone walls, and at other times
hedges, till we reached a small hamlet, through which we passed, and
presently came to a very pretty cottage, delightfully situated within a
garden, surrounded by a hedge of woodbines. Opening a gate at one corner
of the garden, he led the way to a large shed which stood partly behind
the cottage, which he said was his stable; thereupon he dismounted and
led his donkey into the shed, which was without stalls, but had a long
rack and manger. On one side he tied his donkey, after taking off her
caparisons, and I followed his example, tying my horse at the other side
with a rope halter which he gave me; he then asked me to come in and
taste his mead, but I told him that I must attend to the comfort of my
horse first, and forthwith, taking a wisp of straw, rubbed him carefully
down. Then taking a pailful of clear water which stood in the shed, I
allowed the horse to drink about half a pint; and then turning to the old
man, who all the time had stood by looking at my proceedings, I asked him
whether he had any oats? 'I have all kinds of grain,' he replied; and,
going out, he presently returned with two measures, one a large and the
other a small one, both filled with oats, mixed with a few beans, and
handing the large one to me for the horse, he emptied the other before
the donkey, who, before she began to despatch it, turned her nose to her
master's face and fairly kissed him. Having given my horse his portion,
I told the old man that I was ready to taste his mead as soon as he
pleased, whereupon he ushered me into his cottage, where, making me sit
down by a deal table in a neatly-sanded kitchen, he produced from an old-
fashioned closet a bottle, holding about a quart, and a couple of cups,
which might each contain about half a pint, then opening the bottle and
filling the cups with a brown-coloured liquor, he handed one to me, and
taking a seat opposite to me, he lifted the other, nodded, and saying to
me--'Health and welcome,' placed it to his lips and drank.
"'Health and thanks,' I replied; and being very thirsty, emptied my cup
at a draught; I had scarcely done so, however, when I half repented. The
mead was deliciously sweet and mellow, but appeared strong as brandy; my
eyes reeled in my head, and my brain became slightly dizzy. 'Mead is a
strong drink,' said the old man, as he looked at me, with a half smile on
his countenance. 'This is, at any rate,' said I, 'so strong, indeed,
that I would not drink another cup for any consideration.' 'And I would
not ask you,' said the old man; 'for, if you did, you would most probably
be stupid all day, and wake next morning with a headache. Mead is a good
drink, but woundily strong, especially to those who be not used to it, as
I suppose you are not.' 'Where do you get it?' said I. 'I make it
myself,' said the old man, 'from the honey which my bees make.' 'Have
you many bees?' I inquired. 'A great many,' said the old man. 'And do
you keep them,' said I, 'for the sake of making mead with their honey?'
'I keep them,' he replied, 'partly because I am fond of them, and partly
for what they bring me in; they make me a great deal of honey, some of
which I sell, and with a little I make me some mead to warm my poor heart
with, or occasionally to treat a friend with like yourself.' 'And do you
support yourself entirely by means of your bees?' 'No,' said the old
man; 'I have a little bit of ground behind my house, which is my
principal means of support.' 'And do you live alone?' 'Yes,' said he;
'with the exception of the bees and the donkey, I live quite alone.' 'And
have you always lived alone?' The old man emptied his cup, and his heart
being warmed with the mead, he told me his history, which was simplicity
itself. His father was a small yeoman, who, at his death, had left him,
his only child, the cottage, with a small piece of ground behind it, and
on this little property he had lived ever since. About the age of twenty-
five he had married an industrious young woman, by whom he had one
daughter, who died before reaching years of womanhood. His wife,
however, had survived her daughter many years, and had been a great
comfort to him, assisting him in his rural occupations; but, about four
years before the present period, he had lost her, since which time he had
lived alone, making himself as comfortable as he could; cultivating his
ground, with the help of a lad from the neighbouring village, attending
to his bees, and occasionally riding his donkey to market, and hearing
the word of God, which he said he was sorry he could not read, twice a
week regularly at the parish church. Such was the old man's tale.
"When he had finished speaking, he led me behind his house, and showed me
his little domain. It consisted of about two acres in admirable
cultivation; a small portion of it formed a kitchen garden, while the
rest was sown with four kinds of grain, wheat, barley, pease, and beans.
The air was full of ambrosial sweets, resembling those proceeding from an
orange grove; a place, which though I had never seen at that time, I
since have. In the garden was the habitation of the bees, a long box,
supported upon three oaken stumps. It was full of small round glass
windows, and appeared to be divided into a great many compartments, much
resembling drawers placed sideways. He told me that, as one compartment
was filled, the bees left it for another; so that, whenever he wanted
honey, he could procure some without injuring the insects. Through the
little round windows I could see several of the bees at work; hundreds
were going in and out of the doors; hundreds were buzzing about on the
flowers, the woodbines, and beans. As I looked around on the
well-cultivated field, the garden, and the bees, I thought I had never
before seen so rural and peaceful a scene."
It may be said of this that it is the style of the time, modified
inexplicably at almost every point by the writer's character. The Bible
and the older-fashioned narrative English of Defoe and Smollett have
obviously lent it some phrases, and also a nakedness and directness that
is half disdainful of the emotions and colours which it cannot hide.
Still further to qualify the Victorianism which he was heir to, Borrow
took over something from the insinuating Sterne. Mr. Thomas Seccombe
{250} has noticed Sterne particularly in Borrow's picture of his father,
one of the most deliberate and artificial portions of the book:
"The ironical humour blent with pathos in his picture of this
ill-rewarded old disciplinarian (who combined a tenderness of heart with
a fondness for military metaphor that frequently reminds one of 'My Uncle
Toby'), the details of the ailments and the portents that attended his
infantile career, and, above all, the glimpses of the wandering military
life from barrack to barrack and from garrison to garrison, inevitably
remind the reader of the childish reminiscences of Laurence Sterne, a
writer to whom it may thus early be said that George Borrow paid no small
amount of unconscious homage."
The same critic has remarked on "the Sterne-like conclusion of a chapter:
'Italy--what was I going to say about Italy?'" It was perhaps Sterne who
taught him the use of the dash when no more words are necessary or ready
to meet the case, and also when no more are permissible by contemporary
taste. The passage where Ardry and his French mistress talk to Borrow,
she using her own language, is like "The Sentimental Journey." And, as
Mr. Seccombe has suggested, Borrow found in Sterne's a precedent for the
rate of progress in his autobiography.
But innumerable are the possible styles which combine something from the
Bible, Defoe, and Sterne, with something else upon a Victorian
foundation. Borrow's something else, which dominates and welds the rest,
is the most important. It expresses the man, or rather it allows the
man's qualities to appear, his melancholy, his independence, his
curiosity, his love of strong men and horses. Of little felicities there
are very few. It has gusto always at command, and mystery also. We feel
in it a kind of reality not often associated with professional
literature, but rather with the letters of men who are not writers and
with the speech of illiterate men of character. The great difference
between them and Borrow is that their speech can rarely be represented in
print except by another genius, and that their letters only now and then
reach the level which Borrow continues at and often rises above. Yet he
has something in common with such men--for example, in his feeling for
Nature. In Spain, it is true, he gave way to declamatory descriptions of
grandeur and desolation: in England, where he saw nothing of the kind, he
wrote little description, and the impression of the country through which
he is passing is that of an inarticulate outdoor man, strong and sincere
but vague. Here, again, he has something in common with the eighteenth-
century man, who liked the country, but would probably agree that one
green field was like another. He writes like the man who desired a
gentle wife, an Arabic book, the haunch of a buck, and Madeira old. He
reminds us of an even older or simpler type when he apostrophises the
retired pugilist:
"'Tis a treat to see thee, Tom of Bedford, in thy 'public' in Holborn
way, whither thou hast retired with thy well-earned bays. 'Tis Friday
night, and nine by Holborn clock. There sits the yeoman at the end of
his long room, surrounded by his friends: glasses are filled, and a song
is the cry, and a song is sung well suited to the place; it finds an echo
in every heart--fists are clenched, arms are waved, and the portraits of
the mightly fighting men of yore, Broughton, and Slack, and Ben, which
adorn the walls, appear to smile grim approbation, whilst many a manly
voice joins in the bold chorus:
'Here's a health to old honest John Bull,
When he's gone we shan't find such another,
And with hearts and with glasses brim full,
We will drink to old England, his mother.'"
There is little doubt of the immortality of this good old style, and it
testifies to the full heart and perhaps the full glass also of George
Borrow; but it was not this passage in particular that made Whitwell
Elwin call his writing "almost affectedly simple."
{picture: Ned Turner, Tom Cribb: page253.jpg}