FOOTNOTES:
[205] This was said by FitzGerald to his friend Frederick Spalding.
[206] Edward FitzGerald to George Borrow, in Knapp's Life, vol. ii. p. 346.
[207] The Works of Edward FitzGerald, vol. ii. p. 59 (Macmillan).
[208] FitzGerald was staying with his friends Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Browne. There is no letter other than this one to Borrow to recall that visit, which is, however, referred to in the FitzGerald Correspondence (Works, vol. ii. p. 75) by the following sentence:—'When in Bedfordshire I put away almost all Books except Omar Khayyám! which I could not help looking over in a Paddock covered with Buttercups and brushed by a delicious Breeze, while a dainty racing Filly of Browne's came startling up to wonder and to snuff about me.' The 'friend' of the letter was of course Mr. W. K. Browne, who was more of an open air man than a bookman.
[209] I am indebted to Mr. Edward Heron-Allen for the information that this is the original of the last verse but one in FitzGerald's first version of the Rubáiyát:
r 74. Ah Moon of my Delight, who knowest no wane,
The Moon of Heaven is rising once again,
How oft, hereafter rising, shall she look
Through this same Garden after me—in vain.
The literal translation is:
[Persian]
Since no one will guarantee thee a to-morrow,
[Persian]
Make thou happy now this lovesick heart;
[Persian]
Drink wine in the moonlight, O Moon, for the Moon
[Persian]
Shall seek us long and shall not find us.
[210] The Works of Edward FitzGerald, vol. ii. p. 74 (Macmillan).
[211] Letters of Edward FitzGerald, vol. ii. p. 15.
[212] Ibid., vol. iv. p. 85 (Macmillan).
[213] First published in The Sphere, October 31, 1903. The letter was written to Mr. James Hooper of Norwich.
[214] Works of Edward FitzGerald, vol. ii. p. 135 (Macmillan).
[215] Published by Dr. Knapp in Borrow's Life, vol. ii. p. 348 (Murray).
[216] We learn from FitzGerald that Borrow's eyesight gave way about this time, and his wife had to keep all books from him.
[217] There are two or three references to Borrow in William Bodham Donne and his Friends, edited by Catharine B. Johnson (Methuen). The most important of these is in a letter from Donne to Bernard Barton, dated from Bury St. Edmunds, September 12th, 1848:
'We have had a great man here, and I have been walking with him and aiding him to eat salmon and mutton and drink port—George Borrow; and what is more, we fell in with some gypsies and I heard the speech of Egypt, which sounded wonderously like a medley of broken Spanish and dog Latin. Borrow's face lighted by the red turf fire of the tent was worth looking at. He is ashy white now, but twenty years ago, when his hair was like a raven's wing, he must have been hard to discriminate from a born Bohemian. Borrow is best on the tramp, if you can walk four and a half miles per hour—as I can with ease and do by choice—and can walk fifteen of them at a stretch—which I can compass also—then he will talk Iliads of adventures even better than his printed ones. He cannot abide those amateur pedestrians who saunter, and in his chair he is given to groan and be contradictory. But on Newmarket Heath, in Rougham Woods, he is at home, and specially when he meets with a thorough vagabond like your present correspondent.'
In June 1874 FitzGerald writes to Donne:
'I saw in some Athenæum a somewhat contemptuous notice of G. B.'s Rommany Lil or whatever the name is. I can easily understand that B. should not meddle with science of any sort; but some years ago he would not have liked to be told so; however, old age may have cooled him now.'
[218] Mr. Robert Cooke was a partner in John Murray's firm at this time.
[219] It is to be found in Dr. Knapp's Life, vol. ii. pp. 248-9.
[220] I have a copy of FitzGerald's.
[221] Dr. Aldis Wright tells me that he did go over to Oulton to see Mrs. MacOubrey, and gave her the best advice he could, but it was neglected.
CHAPTER XXXII
WILD WALES
The year 1854 was an adventurous one in Borrow's life, for he, so essentially a Celt, as Mr. Watts-Dunton has more than once reminded us,[222] had in that year two interesting experiences of the 'Celtic Fringe.' He spent the first months of the year in Cornwall, as we have seen, and from July to November he was in Wales. That tour he recorded in pencilled notebooks, four of which are in the Knapp Collection in New York, and are duly referred to in Dr. Knapp's biography, and two of which are in my possession. In addition to this I have the complete manuscript of Wild Wales in Borrow's handwriting, and many variants of it in countless, carefully written pages. Therein lie the possibilities of a singularly interesting edition of Wild Wales should opportunity offer for its publication. When I examine the manuscript, with its demonstration of careful preparation, I do not wonder that it took Borrow eight years—from 1854 to 1862—to prepare this book for the press. Assuredly we recognise here, as in all his books, that he realised Carlyle's definition of genius—'the transcendent capacity of taking trouble—first of all.'
WILD WALES IN ITS BEGINNINGS.
Two pages from one of George Borrow's Pocket-books with pencilled notes made on his journey through Wales.
It was on 27th July 1854 that Borrow, his wife and her daughter, Henrietta Clarke, set out on their journey to North Wales. Dr. Knapp prints two kindly letters from Mrs. Borrow to her mother-in-law written from Llangollen on this tour. 'We are in a lovely quiet spot,' she writes, 'Dear George goes out exploring the mountains.... The poor here are humble, simple, and good.' In the second letter Mrs. Borrow records that her husband 'keeps a daily journal of all that goes on, so that he can make a most amusing book in a month.' Yet Borrow took eight years to make it. The failure of The Romany Rye, which was due for publication before Wild Wales, accounts for this, and perhaps also the disappointment that another book, long since ready, did not find a publisher. In the letter from which I have quoted Mary Borrow tells Anne Borrow that her son will, she expects at Christmas, publish The Romany Rye, 'together with his poetry in all the European languages.' This last book had been on his hands for many a day, and indeed in Wild Wales he writes of 'a mountain of unpublished translations' of which this book, duly advertised in The Romany Rye, was a part.[223]
After an ascent of Snowdon arm in arm with Henrietta, Mrs. Borrow remaining behind, Borrow left his wife and daughter to find their way back to Yarmouth, and continued his journey, all of which is most picturesquely described in Wild Wales. Before that book was published, however, Borrow was to visit the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Ireland. He was to publish Lavengro (1857); to see his mother die (1858); and to issue his very limited edition of The Sleeping Bard (1860); and, lastly, to remove to Brompton (1860). It was at the end of the year 1862 that Wild Wales was published. It had been written during the two years immediately following the tour in Wales, in 1855 and 1856. It had been announced as ready for publication in 1857, but doubtless the chilly reception of The Romany Rye in that year, of which we have written, had made Borrow lukewarm as to venturing once more before the public. The public was again irresponsive. The Cornhill Magazine, then edited by Thackeray, declared the book to be 'tiresome reading.' The Spectator reviewer was more kindly, but nowhere was there any enthusiasm. Only a thousand copies were sold,[224] and a second edition did not appear until 1865, and not another until seven years after Borrow's death. Yet the author had the encouragement that comes from kindly correspondents. Here, for example, is a letter that could not but have pleased him:
West Hill Lodge, Highgate,
Dec. 29th, 1862.
Dear Sir,—We have had a great Christmas pleasure this year—the reading of your Wild Wales, which has taken us so deliciously into the lovely fresh scenery and life of that pleasant mountain-land. My husband and myself made a little walking tour over some of your ground in North Wales this year; my daughter and her uncle, Richard Howitt, did the same; and we have been ourselves collecting material for a work, the scenes of which will be laid amidst some of our and your favourite mountains. But the object of my writing was not to tell you this; but after assuring you of the pleasure your work has given us—to say also that in one respect it has tantalised us. You have told over and over again to fascinated audiences, Lope de Vega's ghost story, but still leave the poor reader at the end of the book longing to hear it in vain.
May I ask you, therefore, to inform us in which of Lope de Vega's numerous works this same ghost story is to be found? We like ghost stories, and to a certain extent believe in them, we deserve therefore to know the best ghost story in the world:
Wishing for you, your wife and your Henrietta, all the compliments of the season in the best and truest of expression.—I am, dear sir, yours sincerely,
Mary Howitt.[225]
FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE-PAGE OF WILD WALES
From the original Manuscript in the possession of the Author of 'George Borrow and his Circle.'
The reference to Lope de Vega's ghost story is due to the fact that in the fifty-fifth chapter of Wild Wales, Borrow, after declaring that Lope de Vega was 'one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived,' added, that among his tales may be found 'the best ghost story in the world.' Dr. Knapp found the story in Borrow's handwriting among the manuscripts that came to him, and gives it in full. In good truth it is but moderately interesting, although Borrow seems to have told it to many audiences when in Wales, but this perhaps provides the humour of the situation. It seems clear that Borrow contemplated publishing Lope de Vega's ghost story in a later book. We note here, indeed, a letter of a much later date in which Borrow refers to the possibility of a supplement to Wild Wales, the only suggestion of such a book that I have seen, although there is plenty of new manuscript in my Borrow collection to have made such a book possible had Borrow been encouraged by his publisher and the public to write it.
FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF WILD WALES
From the original Manuscript in the possession of the Author of 'George Borrow and his Circle.'