“When they used some word peculiar to Norfolk (or Suffolk) countrymen, he would say, ‘Why, that’s a Danish word.’ By and by the man would use another peculiar expression: ‘Why, that’s Saxon!’ A little later, another: ‘Why, that’s French! . . . What a wonderful man you are to speak so many languages!’ One man got very angry, but Mr. Borrow was quite unconscious that he had given any offence.”
His taste revolted against the use of foreign words or phrases in common conversation, though he resorted to the practice very largely in his books and correspondence. He would chaff his wife or Miss Clarke if either of them introduced a French word into talk around the table, crying, “What’s that? Trying to come over me with strange languages!” The picture of his life at this time, apart from the petty distractions of his disputes with neighbours and the controversies with his publisher, is that of a quiet and pleasant domesticity, occasionally disturbed by fits of “the Horrors.” When, nervously depressed into the depths of gloom, he was unable to sleep, he would get up in the night and set off on long walks, often stretching them over the twenty-five miles of road to Norwich. He would return the next night invigorated by the exercise, and freed from his enemy. While in good health his existence at the Cottage was that of a quiet, studious man, spending his evenings with his wife and her daughter, reading voraciously, entertaining his acquaintances, and behaving in a tamely rational manner till his passion was roused or his prejudices were assailed. His personal habits were quite temperate. He ate little breakfast, a hearty dinner, and subsequently took only a glass of cold water before going to bed.
He did not drink nearly so much ale as his panegyrics of malt liquor might lead the unwary to suppose. Miss Harvey spoke to him of a lady who had a fondness for a certain gentleman. “Well,” said Borrow, “did he make her an offer?” “No,” answered Miss Harvey. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “if she had given him some good ale he would.”
He appears never to have concerned himself about the character of the food he ate so long as he had substantial fare. He amazed the landlady of a Cromer hotel by replying to her inquiry what he would have for dinner, “Give me a piece of flesh!” The landlady mentioned the strange request to a lady staying in the hotel, and described the person who made it. “Oh!” she laughed, “that’s Mr. Borrow. What he wants is a good rump steak.” And a rump steak, being served, quite satisfied him, for it was his favourite dish. He was exceedingly susceptible to music—we have seen his comparison of Mrs. Berkeley’s piano to David’s harp—but he does not appear to have possessed a highly cultured ear, for Miss Harvey tells us that “one piece he seemed never to tire of hearing. It was a polka, ‘The Redowa,’ I think, and when I had finished he used to say, ‘Play that again, H—.’”
Richard Ford summarises Borrow’s character in three sentences: “Borrow is a queer chap. . . . I believe Borrow to be honest, albeit a gitano. His biography will be passing strange if he tells the whole truth.” [347] There is one strange error in this. Borrow was not a gypsy, of course, though the vagrant spirit was lively in him. But he was honest, even when most mistaken. The most deplorable thing in his career was his unfounded and grotesque libels upon Bowring, about which it can only be suggested that he was beside himself with rage and disappointment when he wrote them, having failed to obtain the mission from the Government which was the ignis fatuus of his life. There can be as little question that Borrow believed himself to have been ill-treated by Bowring as there is that Bowring was innocent of his charges. The subtle hint in Ford’s phrase, “if he tells the whole truth,” will be appreciated. Borrow did not reveal everything in his books. It is unreasonable to expect any man to do so; but in Borrow’s case, ellipsis was often used where statement would have been preferable and more straight-forward. Yet the criticism must fall when we cease to regard his works as purely personal documents and consider them as works of art. In this respect, addition would not improve them. Elimination might be tolerated in the interests of some of the victims of his wrath; but the destruction of the Appendix, for example, would deprive us of some of the most powerful vituperative writing in English literature. The debt that literature owes to Borrow is great, for he sustained into the nineteenth century the traditions of the great narrative writers, and his successor is still to seek.
THE END
INDEX
A
“Aager and Eliza,” 331, 334
Abraham, John, of Liskeard, 152