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During the whole of Borrow's manhood there was probably only one period when he was unquestionably happy in his work and content with his surroundings. From an unknown hack-writer, who hawked about unsaleable translations of Welsh and Danish bards, a travelling tinker and a vagabond Ulysses, he became a person of considerable importance.
He collected data which can be verified, but do not often give an impression of life, except the life of a young Cambridge man who is devoted to Gypsies. For Borrow's dialogues do produce an effect of some kind of life; those of Hindes Groome instruct us or pique our curiosity, but unless we know Gypsies, they produce no life-like effect.
After this, intercourse proved easy. At Borrow's suggestion they walked to the Bald-Faced Stag, in Kingston Vale, to inspect Jerry Abershaw's sword. Many people have testified to the pleasure of being in the company of the whimsical, eccentric, humbug-hating Borrow. "He was a choice companion on a walk," writes Mr A. Egmont Hake, "whether across country or in the slums of Houndsditch.
In the same way Borrow stands above other English writers on Spain and Wales, for the insight and life that are lacking in the works of the authorities. As a master of the living word, Borrow's place is high, and it is unnecessary to make other claims for him. He was a wilful roamer in literature and the world, who attained to no mastery except over words.
"Life, a Drama," was to have been published in 1849, and proof sheets with this name and date on the title page were lately in my hands: as far as page 168 the left hand page heading is "A Dramatic History," which is there crossed out and "Life, a Drama" thenceforward substituted. Borrow's corrections are worth the attention of anyone who cares for men and books.
He had a brain of his own, and preferred to form theories from the knowledge he had acquired first hand, a most excellent thing for a man of the nature of George Borrow, but scarcely calculated to advance learning. He hated anything academic. This quotation clearly explains Borrow's attitude towards philology. As he told the emigre priest, he hoped to become something more than a philologist.
Borrow's subsequent remark that the manuscript "was written by a country amanuensis and probably contains many ridiculous errata," was scarcely gracious to the wife, who seems to have comprehended so well the first principle of wifely duty to an illustrious and, it must be admitted, autocratic genius viz., self-extinction.
He was obviously unfriendly towards Borrow during the latter portion of his agency. It was clear that the period of Borrow's further association with the Bible Society was to be limited. If he replied at all to this rather unfair criticism, he must have done so privately to Mr Brandram, as there is no record of his having referred to it in any subsequent letters among the Society's archives.
The Russian Government, desirous of maintaining friendly relations with China, declined to risk her displeasure for a missionary project in which Russia had neither interest nor reasonable expectation of gain. This determination on Borrow's part to become a missionary filled his mother with alarm.
William Ireland Knapp, says that Borrow's first name "expressed the father's admiration for the reigning monarch," George III.; but there is no reason to believe this, and certainly Borrow himself made of the combination which he finally adopted George Borrow something that retains not the slightest flavour of any other George. Such changes are common enough.
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