III
Mention has been made of Borrow’s feeling for the picaresque elements in life. Give him a rogue, a wastrel, any character with a touch of the untamed about him, and no one delighted him more in exhibiting the fascinating points of this character and his own power in attracting these rough, unsocial fellows towards him and eliciting their confidences. Failing the genuine article, however, Borrow had quite as remarkable a knack of giving even for conventional people and highly respectable thoroughfares a roguish and adventurous air. Indeed it was this sympathy with the picaresque side of life, this thorough understanding of the gypsy temperament, that gives Borrow’s genius its unique distinction. Other characteristics, though important, are subsidiary to this. Writers such as Stevenson have given us discursive books of travel; other Vagabonds have shown an equal zest for the life of the open air—Thoreau and Whitman, for example. But contact with the gypsies revealed Borrow to himself, made him aware
of his powers. It is not so much a case of like seeking like, as of like seeking unlike. Affinities there were, no doubt, between the Romany and the “Gorgio” Borrow, but they are strong temperamental differences. On the one side an easy, unconscious nonchalance, a natural vivacity; on the other a morbid self-consciousness and a pronounced strain of melancholy. And it was doubtless the contrast that appealed to him so strongly and helped him to throw off his habitual moody reserve.
For beneath that unpromising reserve, as a few chosen friends knew, and as the gypsies knew, there was a frank camaraderie that won their hearts.
Was he, one naturally asks, when once this barrier of reserve had been broken down, a lovable man? Certainly he seems to have won the affection of the gypsies; and the warm admiration of men like Mr. Watts-Dunton points to an affirmative answer. And yet one hesitates. He attracted people, that cannot be gainsaid; he won many affections, that also is uncontrovertible. But to call a man lovable it is not sufficient that he should win affection, he must retain it. Was Borrow able to do this? There is the famous case of Isopel to answer in the negative. She loved him, but she found him out. Was it not so? How else explain the gradual change of demeanour, and the sad, disillusioned departure. Perhaps at first the independence of the man, his freedom from sentimentality, piqued, interested, and attracted her. This is often the case with women. They may fall in love with an unsentimental man, but they can never be happy with him.
Isopel retained a regard for her fellow-comrade of the road, but she would not be his wife.
Of his literary friends no one has written so warmly in defence of Borrow, or shown a more discerning admiration of his qualities than Mr. Watts-Dunton.
And yet in the warm tribute which Mr. Watts-Dunton has paid to Borrow I cannot help feeling that some of the illustrations he gives in justification of his eulogy are scarcely adequate. It may well be that he has a wealth of personal reminiscences which he could quote if so inclined, and make good his asseverations. As it is, one can judge only by what he tells us. And what does he tell us?
To show that Borrow took an interest in children, Mr. Watts-Dunton quotes a story about Borrow and the gipsy child which “Borrow was fond of telling in support of his anti-tobacco bias.” The point of the story lies in the endeavours of Borrow to dissuade a gypsy woman from smoking her pipe, whilst his friend pointed out to the woman how the smoke was injuring the child whom she was suckling. Borrow used his friend’s argument, which obviously appealed to the maternal instinct in order to persuade the woman to give up her pipe. There is no reason to think that Borrow was especially concerned for the child’s welfare. What concerned him was a human being poisoning herself with nicotine, and his dislike particularly to see a woman smoking. After the woman had gone he said to his friend: “It ought to be a criminal offence for a woman to smoke at all.” And that it was frankly as an anti-tobacco crusader that he considered the episode, is proved surely by Mr. Watts-Dunton
himself, when he adds: “Whenever he (Borrow) was told, as he sometimes was, that what brought on the ‘horrors’ when he lived alone in the Dingle, was the want of tobacco, this story was certain to come up.”
One cannot accept this as a specially striking instance of Borrow’s interest in children, any more than the passing reference (already noted) to the extraordinarily beautiful gypsy girl, as an instance of his susceptibility to feminine charms.
Failing better illustrations at first hand, one turns toward his books, where he reveals so many characteristics, and here one is struck by the want of susceptibility, the obvious lack of interest in the other sex, showed by his few references to women, and what is even more significant the absence of any love story in his own life, apart from his books (his marriage with the well-to-do widow, though a happy one, can scarcely be called romantic). These things certainly outweigh the trivial incident which Mr. Watts-Dunton recalls.
As for the pipe episode, it reminds me of Macaulay’s well-known gibe at the Puritans, who objected to bear-baiting, he says, less because it gave pain to the bear than because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Similarly his objection to the pipe seems not so much on account of the child suffering, as because the woman took pleasure in this “pernicious habit.”
But enough of fault-finding. After all, Mr. Watts-Dunton has done a signal service to literature by preferring the claims of Borrow, and has upheld him loyally against attacks which were too frequently mean-spirited and unfair.
Obviously, Borrow was a man of an ingratiating personality, which is a very different thing from saying that he was a man with an ingratiating manner. Of all manners, the ingratiating is the one most likely to arouse suspicion in the minds of all but the most obtuse. An ingratiating personality, however, is one that without effort and in the simplest way attracts others, as a magnet attracts iron. Once get Borrow interested in a man, it followed quite naturally that the man was interested in Borrow. He might be a rough, unsociable fellow with whom others found it hard to get on, but Borrow would win his confidence in a few moments.
Borrow seemed to know exactly how to approach people, what to say, and how to say it. Sometimes he may have preferred to stand aloof in moody reserve; that is another matter. But given the inclination, he had a genius for companionship, as some men have a genius for friendship. As a rule it will be found that the Vagabond, the Wanderer, is far better as a companion than as friend. What he cares for is to smile, chatter, and pass on. Loyal he may be to those who have done him service, but he is not ready to encroach upon his own comfort and convenience for any man. Borrow remained steadfast to his friends, but a personal slight, even if not intended, he regarded as unforgivable.
The late Dr. Martineau was at school with him at Norwich, and after a youthful escapade on Borrow’s part, Martineau was selected by the master as the boy to “horse” Borrow while he was undergoing corporal punishment. Probably the proceeding was quite as distasteful to the young Martineau as to the scapegrace.
But Borrow never forgot the incident nor forgave the compulsory participator in his degradation. And years afterwards he declined to attend a social function when he had ascertained that Martineau would be there, making a point of deliberately avoiding him. Another instance this of the morbid egotism of the man.
Where, however, no whim or caprice stood in the way, Borrow reminds one of the man who knows as soon as he has tapped the earth with the “divining rod” whether or no there is water there. Directly he saw a man he could tell by instinct whether there was stuff of interest there; and he knew how to elicit it. And never is he more successful than when dealing with the “powerful, uneducated man.” Consequently, no portion of his writings are more fascinating than when he has to deal with such figures. Who can forget his delightful pictures of the gypsy—“Mr. Petulengro”? Especially the famous meeting in Lavengro, when he and the narrator discourse on death.
“‘Life is sweet, brother.’
“‘Do you think so?’
“‘Think so! There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother. Who would wish to die?’
“‘I would wish to die.’
“‘You talk like a Gorgio—which is the same as talking like a fool—were you a Romany chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die indeed! A Romany chal would wish to live for ever.’
“‘There’s the sun and stars, brother.’
“‘In blindness, Jasper?’
“‘There’s the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we’ll now go to the tents and put on the gloves; and I’ll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive.’”
Then again there is the inimitable ostler in The Romany Rye, whose talk exhales what Borrow would call “the wholesome smell of the stable.” His wonderful harangues (Borrovized to a less extent than usual) have all the fine, breathless garrulity of this breed of man, and his unique discourse on “how to manage a horse on a journey” occupies a delightful chapter. Here are the opening sentences:—
“‘When you are a gentleman,’ said he, ‘should you ever wish to take a journey on a horse of your own, and you could not have a much better than the one you have here eating its fill in the box yonder—I wonder, by the by, how you ever came by it—you can’t do better than follow the advice I am about to give you, both with respect to your animal and yourself. Before you start, merely give your horse a couple of handfuls of corn and a little water, somewhat under a quart, and if you drink a pint of water yourself out of the pail, you will feel all the better during the whole day; then you may walk and trot your animal for about ten miles, till you come to some nice inn, where you may get down, and see your horse led into a nice stall, telling him not to feed him till you come. If the ostler happens to be a dog-fancier, and has an English terrier dog like that of mine there, say what a nice dog it is, and praise its black and fawn; and if he does not happen to be a dog-fancier, ask him how he’s getting on, and whether he ever knew worse times; that kind of thing will please the ostler, and he will let you do just what you please with your own horse, and when your back is turned he’ll say to his comrades what a nice gentleman you are, and how he thinks he has seen you before; then go and sit down to breakfast, get up and go and give your horse a feed of corn; chat with the ostler two or three minutes till your horse has taken the shine out of his oats, which will prevent the ostler taking any of it away when your back is turned, for such things are sometimes done—not that I ever did such a thing myself when I was at the inn at Hounslow; oh, dear me, no! Then go and finish your breakfast.’”