There are three people in the world who might possibly be able to write sections of his life. Most of his intimate friends are dead, but there are still a few left. One would describe him as a Deist, one as an Agnostic, and one as an Atheist and Freethinker, but I can only describe the Richard that I knew, not the Richard that they knew. I, his wife, who lived with him day and night for thirty years, believed him to be half-Sufi, half-Catholic, or I prefer to say (as nearer the truth) alternately Sufi and Catholic, because I did not in the least count all his wild talk at table or in Society, nor what he wrote; I minded only what he thought and what he did, and this is why I cannot truthfully join in the general opinion. He was like the Druzes, who adopt the national religion for peace' sake; but they have their own private religion all the same. I can distinctly remember a speech which he made in London—I believe it was in 1865, I think at the Anthropological—in which he said, "My religious opinions are of no importance to anybody but myself; no one knows what my religious views are. I object to confessions, and I will not confess. My standpoint is, and I hope ever will be, 'The Truth' as far as it is in me, but known only to myself." This was a public statement, and might silence those who jabber upon things of which they are entirely ignorant.
How beautiful and how sad a mentor is friendship! A noble character must contain three qualities to contend with this one great element of our lives—a sincere, staunch, loyal heart, philosophy, and discernment. The World is a kind, pleasant place to live in, whatever cynics may say. Be in trouble, and you must wonder at the innumerable kind hearts who will call and write, and offer every assistance and consolation in their power. This will not prevent your nearest and dearest relative from snubbing you if you want anything; nor that friend to whom you clung with all your soul, as to a rock, failing you just at the crisis of your life when you most counted upon his support. Then you must call in your philosophy. Again, if a cloud comes over you, how many will disappear, and reappear again as soon as the world has decided in your favour, to join in the applause. Do not blame the weaklings, but your own discernment; they do not want to hurt you, but they hold themselves ready to go on the popular side, whichever way it turns. And why should they not? It is not because they dislike you, but because they fear others more than they love you. In sensitive youth these facts make our misery; but we should learn to rejoice in our riper years when a weak, uncertain friend falls away. Carry the true gold about your own strong heart, and shake off the dross, which is but the superfluous ballast which clogs and impedes the ship's free sailing.
Now, I ask, who is unjust enough, inhuman enough, to grudge me this last consolation? From 1842 to 1890, for forty-eight years, he was before the public; he had a strong band of friends, a strong band of admirers; but the world at large, and notably England, never understood him because he was so above his time, and the larger part did not know how to appreciate him. Who from 1856 to 1859 kept him so supplied with daily written journals of news, of daily cuttings from the newspapers, that when he returned, people said to him, "How come you so well informed of all that has been passing, just as if you had never been away, and you living beyond the pale of civilization?" "Ah, how?" he said. By many mails he never received a line from any one but me. Who cheered him on in danger, toil, and heart-breaking sickness? Who, when he came back from Tanganyika (Africa) in 1859, coldly looked upon by the Government, bullied by the India House, rejected by the Geographical Society, almost tabooed by Society on account of the machinations of Captain Speke, so that he scarcely had ten friends to say good-morning to him,—who sought his side to comfort him? I did! Then we married. Who for thirty years daily attended to his comforts, watched his going out and coming in, had his slippers, dressing-gown, and pipe ready for him every evening, sat sick at heart if he was an hour late, watched all night and till morning if he did not come back? Who copied and worked for and with him? Who fought for thirty years to raise his official position all she could, and wept bitter tears over his being neglected? I did. My only complaint is, that I believe he would have got infinitely more, if he had asked for things himself, and not perpetually stuck me forward; but he was too modest, and I had to obey orders. Who rode or walked at his side through hunger, thirst, cold, and burning heat, with hardships and privations and danger, in all his travels? Who nursed him through seven long illnesses, before his last illness, some lasting two or three months, and never left his bed-head day or night, and did everything for him? I did! Why, I was wife, and mother, and comrade, and secretary, and aide-de-camp, and agent to him; and I was proud, happy, and glad to do it all, and never tired day or night for thirty years. I would rather have had a crust and a tent with him, than be a Queen elsewhere. At the moment of his death I had done all I could for the body, and then I tried to follow his soul. I am following the soul, and I shall reach it before long. There we shall nevermore part. Agnostics! "Burnt manuscript" readers! where were you all then? Hail-fellow-well-met, when the world went well; running away when it pursed up its stupid lips. And do any of you pretend or wish to take him away from me in death? Oh, for shame, for shame! Let him rest where he wanted to rest, and be silent, or do not boast of your "free country" where a man may not even be buried where he will; where he may not speak his mind, and tell the truth. Be ashamed that History may have to say, that the only honour that England accorded to Richard Burton, having failed to do him justice in this life, was to bespatter his wife with mud after he was dead, and could not defend her.
Do not be so hard and prosaic as to suppose that our Dead cannot, in rare instances, come back and tell us how it is with them.
"He lives and moves, he is not dead,
He does not alter nor grow strange,
His love is still around me shed,
Untouched by time, or chance, or change;
And when he walks beside me, then
As shadows seem all living men."
——Mary Macleod.
He said always, "I am gone—pay, pack, and follow."
Reader! I have paid, I have packed, I have suffered. I am waiting to join his Caravan. I am waiting for a welcome sound—
"The tinkling of his camel-bell."