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Hence a book like ‘In Gypsy Tents’ has for a student of Romany subjects an interest altogether different from that which Borrow’s books command; for while Borrow, the man of genius, throws by the very necessities of his temperament the colours of romance around his gipsies, the characters of ‘In Gypsy Tents,’ depicted by a man of remarkable talent merely, are as realistic as though painted by Zola, while the wealth of gipsy lore at his command is simply overwhelming.
In walking through Richmond Park he would step out of his way constantly to touch a tree, and he was offended if the friend he was with seemed to observe it. Many of the peculiarities of the man who taught himself Chinese were also Borrow’s own.
An introduction from Joseph John Gurney to the British and Foreign Bible Society resulted in Borrow’s leaving England in 1830 for the Continent, where he went on another wanderjahre not unlike that he had taken in his native land. After visiting France, Austria and Italy, we eventually find him in St.
Edmunds was contemporary with Borrow’s settling down at Oulton, writes in his Memoirs: “George Borrow was one of those whose mental powers are strong, and whose bodily frame is yet stronger—a conjunction of forces often detrimental to a literary career in an age of intellectual predominance.
Our close friendship dated no further back than 1881—the year in which died the great Romany Rye. Indeed, it was owing to Borrow’s death, coupled with Groome’s interest in that same Romany girl Sinfi Lovell, whom the eloquent Romany preacher “Gipsy Smith” has lately been expiating upon to immense audiences, that I first became acquainted with Groome.
The self-consciousness which in the presence of man produces that kind of shyness which was Borrow’s characteristic left him at once when he was with Nature alone or in the company of an intimate friend. At her, no man’s gaze was more frank and childlike than his. Hence the charm of his books.
When he comes to delineate a heroine, Isopel Bernes, she is physically the very opposite of the Romany chi—a Scandinavian Brynhild, in short.” Mr. Watts has remarked on Borrow’s neglect to portray the higher traits in the gipsy woman’s character. Mrs.
His ideal poet was Pope, and when he read, or rather looked into, Hake’s ‘World’s Epitaph,’ he thought he did Hake the greatest honour by saying, “There are lines here and there that are nigh as good as Pope’s.” On the other hand, Hake’s acquaintance with Borrow’s works was far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in the flesh, such as Mr. Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell.
No man’s writing can take you into the country as Borrow’s can: it makes you feel the sunshine, see the meadows, smell the flowers, hear the skylark sing and the grasshopper chirrup. Who else can do it? I know of none. And as to personal intercourse with him, if I were asked what was the chief delight of this, I should say that it was the delight of bracingness.
This alone would lend an especial interest to Borrow’s biography—the fact, we mean, of his life having been extraordinary. For in these days no lives, as a rule, are less adventurous, none, as a rule, less tinged with romance, than the lives of those who attain eminence in the world of letters.
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