Borrow was not a great correspondent, and he left behind him very few letters from distinguished men of his time. Among those few were several from Edward FitzGerald, whose character contrasted so strangely with that of the tempestuous Borrow. In 1856 FitzGerald wrote:-
31 GREAT PORTLAND STREET, LONDON, 27th October 1856.
My Dear Sir,--It is I who send you the new Turkish Dictionary [Redhouse's Turkish English Dictionary] which ought to go by this Post; my reasons being that I bought it really only for the purpose of doing that little good to the spirited Publisher of the book (who thought when he began it that the [Crimean] War was to last), and I send it to you because I should be glad of your opinion, if you can give it. I am afraid that you will hardly condescend to USE it, for you abide in the old Meninsky; but if you WILL use it, I shall be very glad. I don't think _I_ ever shall; and so what is to be done with it now it is bought?
I don't know what Kerrich told you of my being too LAZY to go over to Yarmouth to see you a year ago. No such thing as that. I simply had doubts as to whether you would not rather remain unlookt for. I know I enjoyed my evening with you a month ago. I wanted to ask you to read some of the Northern Ballads too; but you shut the book.
I must tell you. I am come up here on my way to Chichester to be married! to Miss Barton (of Quaker memory) and our united ages amount to 96!--a dangerous experiment on both sides. She at least brings a fine head and heart to the bargain--worthy of a better market. But it is to be, and I dare say you will honestly wish we may do well.
Keep the book as long as you will. It is useless to me. I shall be to be heard of through Geldeston Hall, Beccles. With compliments to Mrs Borrow, believe me,
Yours truly, EDWARD FITZGERALD.
P.S.--Donne is well, and wants to know about you.
A few months later FitzGerald wrote again:
ALBERT HOUSE, GORLESTON, 6th July 1857.
Dear Borrow,--Will you send me [The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam] by bearer. I only want to look at him, for that Frenchman {427a} has been misquoting him in a way that will make [Professor] E. Cowell [of Cambridge] answerable for another's blunder, which must not be. You shall have 'Omar back directly, or whenever you want him, and I should really like to make you a copy (taking my time) of the best Quatrains. I am now looking over the Calcutta MS. which has 500!-- very many quite as good as those in the MS. you have; but very many in BOTH MSS. are well omitted.
I have been for a fortnight to Geldeston where Kerrich is not very well. I shall look for you one day in my Yarmouth rounds, and you know how entirely disengaged and glad to see you I am here. I have two fresh Nieces with me--and I find I gave you the WORST wine of two samples Diver sent me. I wish you would send word by bearer you are better--this one word written will be enough you see.
My old Parson Crabbe is bowing down under epileptic fits, or something like, and I believe his brave old white head will soon sink into the village Churchsward. Why, OUR time seems coming. Make way, Gentlemen!--Yours very truly,
EDWARD FITZGERALD.
What effect the sweet gentleness of FitzGerald's nature had upon that of Borrow is not known, for the replies have not been preserved. FitzGerald was a man capable of soothing the angriest and most discontented mind, and it is a misfortune that he saw so little of Borrow. In the early part of the following year (24th Jan. 1857) FitzGerald wrote to Professor E. B. Cowell of Cambridge:-
"I was with Borrow a week ago at Donne's, and also at Yarmouth three months ago: he is well, but not yet agreed with Murray. He read me a long Translation he had made from the Turkish: which I could not admire, and his Taste becomes stranger than ever." {428a}
From Wales Mrs George Borrow had written (Sept. 1854) to old Mrs Borrow: "He [Borrow] will, I expect at Christmas, publish his other work [The Romany Rye] together with his poetry in all the European languages." {428b} In November (1854) the manuscript of The Romany Rye was delivered to John Murray, who appears to have taken his time in reading it; for it was not until 23rd December that he expressed his views in the following letter. Even when the letter was written it was allowed to remain in John Murray's desk for five weeks, not being sent until 27th January:-
My Dear Borrow,--I have read with care the MS. of The Romany Rye and have pondered anxiously over it; and in what I am about to write I think I may fairly claim the privilege of a friend deeply interested in you personally, as well as in your reputation as author, and by no means insensible to the abilities displayed in your various works. It is my firm conviction then, that you will incur the certainty of failure and run the risque of injuring your literary fame by publishing the MS. as it stands. Very large omissions seem to me-- and in this, Elwin, {429a} no mean judge, concurs--absolutely indispensable. That Lavengro would have profited by curtailment, I stated before its publication. The result has verified my anticipations, and in the present instance I feel compelled to make it the condition of publication. You can well imagine that it is not my INTEREST to shorten a book from two volumes to one unless there were really good cause.
Lavengro clearly has not been successful. Let us not then risque the chance of another failure, but try to avoid the rock upon which we then split. You have so great store of interesting matter in your mind and in your notes, that I cannot but feel it to be a pity that you should harp always upon one string, as it were. It seems to me that you have dwelt too long on English ground in this new work, and have resuscitated some characters of the former book (such as F. Ardry) whom your readers would have been better pleased to have left behind. Why should you not introduce us rather to those novel scenes of Moscovite and Hungarian life respecting which I have heard you drop so many stimulating allusions. Do not, I pray, take offence at what I have written. It is difficult and even painful for me to assume the office of critic, and this is one of the reasons why this note has lingered so long in my desk. Fortunately, in the advice I am tendering I am supported by others of better literary judgment than myself, and who have also deep regard for you. I will specify below some of the passages which I would point out for omission.-- With best remembrances, I remain, my dear Borrow, Your faithful publisher and sincere friend,
JOHN MURRAY.
Suggestions for Omission.
The Hungarian in No. 6. The Jockey Story, terribly spun out, No. 7. Visit to the Church, too long. Interview with the Irishman, Do. Learning Chinese, too much repetition in this part of a very interesting chapter. The Postilion and Highwayman. Throughout the MS. condensation is indispensable. Many of the narratives are carried to a tedious length by details and repetition. The dialogue with Ursula, the song, etc., border on the indelicate. I like much Horncastle Fair, the Chinese scholar, except objection noted above. Grooming of the horse. January 27, 1855.
On 29th January, Mrs Borrow wrote to John Murray a letter that was inspired by Borrow himself. Dr Knapp discovered the original draft, some of which was in Borrow's own hand. It runs:-
Dear Mr Murray,--We have received your letters. In the first place I beg leave to say something on a very principal point. You talk about CONDITIONS of publishing. Mr Borrow has not the slightest wish to publish the book. The MS. was left with you because you wished to see it, and when left, you were particularly requested not to let it pass out of your own hands. But it seems you have shown it to various individuals whose opinions you repeat. What those opinions are worth may be gathered from the following fact.
The book is one of the most learned works ever written; yet in the summary of the opinions which you give, not one single allusion is made to the learning which pervades the book, no more than if it contained none at all. It is treated just as if all the philological and historical facts were mere inventions, and the book a common novel . . .
With regard to Lavengro it is necessary to observe that if ever a book experienced infamous and undeserved treatment it was that book. It was attacked in every form that envy and malice could suggest, on account of Mr Borrow's acquirements and the success of The Bible in Spain, and it was deserted by those whose duty it was, in some degree to have protected it. No attempt was ever made to refute the vile calumny that it was a book got up against the Popish agitation of '51. It was written years previous to that period--a fact of which none is better aware than the Publisher. Is that calumny to be still permitted to go unanswered?
If these suggestions are attended to, well and good; if not, Mr Borrow can bide his time. He is independent of the public and of everybody. Say no more on that Russian Subject. Mr Borrow has had quite enough of the press. If he wrote a book on Russia, it would be said to be like The Bible in Spain, or it would be said to be unlike The Bible in Spain, and would be blamed in either case. He has written a book in connection with England such as no other body could have written, and he now rests from his labours. He has found England an ungrateful country. It owes much to him, and he owes nothing to it. If he had been a low ignorant impostor, like a person he could name, he would have been employed and honoured.--I remain, Yours sincerely,
MARY BORROW.
On 5th April 1856 Mrs Borrow wrote again, requesting Murray to return the manuscript, but for what purpose she does not state. Two days later it was despatched by rail from Albemarle Street.
Some years before, Borrow had met Rev. Whitwell Elwin, Rector of Booton, somewhere about the time he (Elwin) came up to London to edit The Quarterly Review, viz., 1853. {431a} The first interview between the two men has been described as characteristic of both.
"Borrow was just then very sore with his slashing critics, and on someone mentioning that Elwin was a 'Quartering reviewer,' he said, 'Sir, I wish you a better employment.' Then hastily changing the subject, he called out, 'What party are you in the Church-- Tractarian, Moderate, or Evangelical? I am happy to say, _I_ am the old HIGH.' 'I am happy to say I am NOT,' was Elwin's emphatic reply. Borrow boasted of his proficiency in the Norfolk dialect, which he endeavoured to speak as broadly as possible. 'I told him,' said Elwin, 'that he had not cultivated it with his usual success.' As the conversation proceeded it became less disputatious, and the two ended by becoming so cordial that they promised to visit each other. Borrow fulfilled his promise in the following October, when he went to Booton, and was 'full of anecdote and reminiscence,' and delighted the rectory children by singing them songs in the gypsy tongue. Elwin during this visit urged him to try his hand at an article for the Review. 'Never,' he said, 'I have made a resolution never to have anything to do with such a blackguard trade.'" {432a}
Elwin became greatly interested in The Romany Rye. He endeavoured to influence its composition, and even wrote to Borrow begging him "to give his sequel to Lavengro more of an historical, and less of a romancing air." He was not happy about the book. He wrote to John Murray in March:-
"'It is not the statements themselves which provoke incredulity, but the melodramatic effect which he tries to impart to all his adventures.' Instead of 'roaring like a lion,' in reply, as Elwin had expected, he returned quite a 'lamb-like' note, which gave promise of a greater success for his new work than its precursor." {432b}
Borrow appears to have become tired of biding his time with regard to The Romany Rye, and on 27th Feb. 1857 he wrote to John Murray to say that "the work must go to press, and that unless the printing is forthwith commenced, I must come up to London and make arrangements myself. Time is passing away. It ought to have appeared many years ago. I can submit to no more delays." The work was accordingly proceeded with, and Elwin wrote a criticism of the work for The Quarterly Review from the proof-sheets:-
"When the review was almost finished, it was on the point of being altogether withdrawn, owing to a passage in Romany Rye which Elwin said was clearly meant to be a reflection on his friend Ford, 'to avenge the presumed refusal of the latter to praise Lavengro in The Quarterly Review.' 'I am very anxious,' he said, 'to get Borrow justice for rare merits which have been entirely overlooked, but if he persists in publishing an attack of this kind I shall, I fear, not be able to serve him.' The objectionable paragraphs had been written by Borrow under a misapprehension, and he cancelled them as soon as he was convinced of his error." {433a}
John Murray determined not to publish the book unless the offending passage were removed. He wrote to Borrow the following letter:-
8th April 1857.
My Dear Borrow,--When I have done anything towards you deserving of apology I will not hesitate to offer one. As it is, I have acted loyally towards you, and with a view to maintain your interests.
I agreed to publish your present work solely with the object of obliging you, and in a great degree at the strong recommendation of Cooke. I meant (as was my duty) to do my very best to promote its success. You on your side promised to listen to me in regard to any necessary omissions; and on the faith of this, I pointed out one omission, which I make the indispensable condition of my proceeding further with the book. I have asked nothing unfair nor unreasonable- -nay, a compliance with the request is essential for your own character as an author and a man.
You are the last man that I should ever expect to "frighten or bully"; and if a mild but firm remonstrance against an offensive passage in your book is interpreted by you into such an application, I submit that the grounds for the notion must exist nowhere but in your own imagination. The alternative offered to you is to omit or publish elsewhere. Nothing shall compel me to PUBLISH what you have written. Think calmly and dispassionately over this, and when you have decided let me know.
Yours very faithfully, JOHN MURRAY.
The reference that had so offended Murray and Elwin had, in all probability been interpolated in proof form, otherwise it would have been discovered either when Murray read the manuscript or Elwin the proofs. By return of post came the following reply from Borrow, then at Great Yarmouth:-
Dear Sir,--Yesterday I received your letter. You had better ask your cousin [Robert Cooke] to come down and talk about matters. AFTER Monday I shall be disengaged and shall be most happy to see him. And now I must tell you that you are exceedingly injudicious. You call a chapter heavy, and I, not wishing to appear unaccommodating, remove or alter two or three passages for which I do not particularly care, whereupon you make most unnecessary comments, obtruding your private judgment upon matters with which you have no business, and of which it is impossible that you should have a competent knowledge. If you disliked the passages you might have said so, but you had no right to say anything more. I believe that you not only meant no harm, but that your intentions were good; unfortunately, however, people with the best of intentions occasionally do a great deal of harm. In your language you are frequently in the highest degree injudicious; for example, in your last letter you talk of obliging me by publishing my work. Now is not that speaking very injudiciously? Surely you forget that I could return a most cutting answer were I disposed to do so.
I believe, however, that your intentions are good, and that you are disposed to be friendly.--Yours truly,
GEORGE BORROW.
The tone of this letter is strangely reminiscent of some of the Rev Andrew Brandram's admonitions to Borrow himself, during his association with the Bible Society. Borrow bowed to the wind, and the offending passage was deleted, and The Romany Rye eventually appeared on 30th April 1857, in an edition of a thousand copies. The public, or such part of it as had not forgotten Borrow, had been kept waiting six years to know what had happened on the morning after the storm. Lavengro had ended by the postilion concluding his story with "Young gentleman, I will now take a spell on your blanket--young lady, good-night," and presumably the three, Borrow, Isopel Berners and their guest had lain down to sleep, and a great quiet fell upon the dingle, and the moon and the stars shone down upon it, and the red glow from the charcoal in the brazier paled and died away.
The Romany Rye is a puzzling book. The latter portion, at least, seems to suggest "spiritual autobiography." It reveals the man, his atmosphere, his character, and nowhere better than among the jockeys at Horncastle. It gives a better and more convincing picture of Borrow than the most accurate list of dates and occurrences, all vouched for upon unimpeachable authority. It is impressionism applied to autobiography, which has always been considered as essentially a subject for photographic treatment. Borrow thought otherwise, with the result that many people decline to believe that his picture is a portrait, because there is a question as to the dates.
Among the reviews, which were on the whole unfriendly, was the remarkable notice in The Quarterly Review, by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin:- {435a}
"Nobody," he wrote, "sympathises with wounded vanity, and the world only laughs when a man angrily informs it that it does not rate him at his true value. The public to whom he appeals must, after all, be the judge of his pretensions. Their verdict at first is frequently wrong, but it is they themselves who must reverse it, and not the author who is upon his trial before them. The attacks of critics, if they are unjust, invariably yield to the same remedy. Though we do not think that Mr Borrow is a good counsel in his own cause, we are yet strongly of the opinion that Time in this case has some wrongs to repair, and that Lavengro has NOT obtained the fame which was its due. It contains passages which in their way are not surpassed by anything in English Literature."
The value of these prophetic words lies in the fine spirit of fatherly reproof in which the whole review was written. It is the work of a critic who regarded literature as a thing to be approached, both by author and reviewer, with grave and deliberate ceremony, not with enthusiasm or prejudice. From any other source the following words would not have possessed the significance they did, coming from a man of such sane ideas with the courage to express them:-
"Various portions of the history are known to be a faithful narrative of Mr Borrow's career, while we ourselves can testify, as to many other parts of his volumes, that nothing can excel the fidelity with which he has described both men and things. Far from his showing any tendency to exaggeration, such of his characters as we chance to have known, and they are not a few, are rather within the truth than beyond it. However picturesquely they may be drawn, the lines are invariably those of nature. Why under these circumstances he should envelop the question in mystery is more than we can divine. There can be no doubt that the larger part, and possibly the whole, of the work is a narrative of actual occurrences." {436a}
The Appendix itself, which had drawn from Elwin the grave declaration that "Mr Borrow is very angry with his critics," is a fine piece of rhetorical denunciation. It opens with the deliberate restraint of a man who feels the fury of his wrath surging up within him. It tells again the story of Lavengro, pointing morals as it goes. Then the studied calm is lost--Priestcraft, "Foreign Nonsense," "Gentility Nonsense," "Canting Nonsense," "Pseudo-Critics," "Pseudo-Radicals" he flogs and pillories mercilessly until, arriving at "The Old Radical," he throws off all restraint and lunges out wildly, mad with hate and despair. As a piece of literary folly, the Appendix to The Romany Rye has probably never been surpassed. It alienated from Borrow all but his personal friends, and it sealed his literary fate as far as his own generation was concerned. In short, he had burnt his boats.
Borrow had sent a copy of The Romany Rye to FitzGerald, which is referred to by him in a letter written from Gorleston to Professor Cowell (5th June 1857):-
"Within hail almost lives George Borrow who has lately published, and given me, two new Volumes of Lavengro called Romany Rye, with some excellent things, and some very bad (as I have made bold to write to him--how shall I face him!). You would not like the Book at all, I think." {437a}
Borrow was bitterly disappointed at the effect produced by The Romany Rye. On someone once saying that it was the finest piece of literary invective since Swift, he replied, "Yes, I meant it to be; and what do you think the effect was? No one took the least notice of it!" {437b}
The Romany Rye was not a success. The thousand copies lasted a year. When it appeared likely that a second edition would be required, Borrow wrote to John Murray urging him not to send the book to the press again until he "was quite sure the demand for it will at least defray all attendant expenses." He saw that whatever profits had resulted from the publication of the first edition, were in danger of being swallowed up in the preparation of a second. When this did eventually make its appearance in 1858, it was limited to 750 copies, which lasted until 1872.
Borrow's own attitude with regard to the work and his wisdom in publishing it is summed up in a letter to John Murray (17th Sept. 1857):-
"I was very anxious to bring it out," he writes; "and I bless God that I had the courage and perseverance to do so. It is of course unpalatable to many; for it scorns to foster delusion, to cry 'peace where there is no peace,' and denounces boldly the evils which are hurrying the country to destruction, and which have kindled God's anger against it, namely, the pride, insolence, cruelty, covetousness, and hypocrisy of its people, and above all the rage for gentility, which must be indulged in at the expense of every good and honourable feeling."
The writing of the Appendix had aroused in Borrow all his old enthusiasm, and he appears to have come to the determination to publish a number of works, including a veritable library of translations. At the end of The Romany Rye appeared a lengthy list of books in preparation. {438a}
In August 1857 Borrow paid a second visit to Wales, walking "upwards of four hundred miles." Starting from Laugharne in Carmarthenshire, he visited Tenby, Pembroke, Milford Haven, Haverford, St David's, Fishguard, Newport, Cardigan, Lampeter; passing into Brecknockshire, he eventually reached Mortimer's Cross in Hereford and thence to Shrewsbury. In October he was at Leighton, Donnington and Uppington, where he found traces of Gronwy Owen, the one-time curate and all- time poet.
Throughout his life Borrow had shown by every action and word written about her, the great love he bore his mother. When his wife wrote to her and he was too restless to do so himself, he would interpolate two or three lines to "My dear Mamma." She was always in his thoughts, and he never wavered in his love for her and devotion to her comfort; whilst she looked upon him as only a mother so good and so tender could look upon a son who had become her "only hope."
For many years of her life it had been ordained that this brave old lady should live alone. {439a} In the middle of August 1858 the news reached Borrow that his mother had been taken suddenly ill. She was in her eighty-seventh year, and at such an age all illnesses are dangerous. Borrow hastened to Oulton, and arrived just in time to be with her at the last.
Thus on 16th August 1858, of "pulmonary congestion," died Anne Borrow, who had followed her husband about with his regiment, and had reared and educated her two boys under circumstances of great disadvantage. She had lost one; but the other, her youngest born, whom she had so often shielded from his father's reproaches, had been spared to her, and she had seen him famous. Upon her grave in Oulton Churchyard the son caused to be inscribed the words, "She was a good wife and a good mother," than which no woman can ask more. {440a}
The death of his mother was a great shock to Borrow. "He felt the blow keenly," Mrs Borrow wrote to John Murray, "and I advised a tour in Scotland to recruit his health and spirits." Accordingly he went North early in October, leaving his wife and Henrietta at Great Yarmouth. He visited the Highlands, walking several hundred miles. Mull struck him as "a very wild country, perhaps the wildest in Europe." Many of its place-names reminded him strongly of the Isle of Man. At the end of November he finished up the tour at Lerwick in Shetland, where he bought presents for his "loved ones," having seen Greenock, Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Wick, Thurso among other places. His impressions were not altogether favourable to the Scotch. "A queerer country I never saw in all my life," he wrote later . . . "a queerer set of people than the Scotch you would scarcely see in a summer's day." {440b}
In the following year (1859) an excursion was made to Ireland by Borrow and his family. Making Dublin his headquarters, where he left his wife and Henrietta comfortably settled, he tramped to Connemara and the Giant's Causeway, the expedition being full of adventure and affording him "much pleasure," in spite of the fact that he was "frequently wet to the skin, and indifferently lodged."
Borrow had inherited from his mother some property at Mattishall Burgh, one and a half miles from his birth-place, consisting of some land, a thatched house and outbuildings, now demolished. This was let to a small-holder named Henry Hill. Borrow thought very highly of his tenant, and for hours together would tramp up and down beside him as he ploughed the land, asking questions, and hearing always something new from the amazing stores of nature knowledge that Henry Hill had acquired. This Norfolk worthy appears to have been possessed of a genius for many things. He was well versed in herbal lore, a self-taught 'cellist, playing each Sunday in the Congregational Chapel at Mattishall, and an equally self-taught watch-repairer; but his chief claim to fame was as a bee-keeper, local tradition crediting him with being the first man to keep bees under glass. He would solemnly state that his bees, whom he looked upon as friends, talked to him. On Sundays the country folk for miles round would walk over to Mattishall Burgh to see old Henry Hill's bees, and hear him expound their lore. It was perforce Sunday, there was no other day for the Norfolk farm-labourer of that generation, who seemed always to live on the verge of starvation. Borrow himself expressed regret to Henry Hill that it had not been possible to add the education of the academy to that of the land. He saw that the combination would have produced an even more remarkable man.
In Norfolk all strangers are regarded with suspicion. Lifelong friendships are not contracted in a day. The East Anglian is shrewd, and requires to know something about those whom he admits to the sacred inner circle of his friendship. Borrow was well-known in the Mattishall district, and was looked upon with more than usual suspicion. He was unquestionably a strange man, in speech, in appearance, in habits. He could and would knock down any who offended him; but, worst of all, he was the intimate of gypsies, sat by their fires, spoke in their tongue. The population round about was entirely an agricultural one, and all united in hating the gypsies as their greatest enemies, because of their depredations. Add to this the fact that Borrow was a frequenter of public-houses, of which there were SEVEN in the village, and was wont to boast that you could get at the true man only after he had been mellowed into speech by good English ale. Then he would open his heart and unburden his mind of all the accumulated knowledge that he possessed, and add something to the epic of the soil. Borrow's overbearing manner made people shy of him. On one occasion he told John, the son and successor of Henry Hill, that he ought to be responsible for the debt of his half-brother; the debt, it may be mentioned, was to Borrow.
There is no better illustration of the suspicion with which Borrow was regarded locally, than an incident that occurred during one of his visits to Mattishall. He called upon John Hill at Church Farm to collect his rent. The evening was spent very agreeably. Borrow recited some of his ballads, quoted Scripture and languages, and sang a song. He was particularly interested on account of Mrs Hill being from London, where she knew many of his haunts. He remained the whole evening with the family and partook of their meal; but was allowed to go to one of the seven public-houses for a bed, although there were spare bedrooms in the house that he might have occupied. Such was the suspicion that Borrow's habits created in the minds of his fellow East Anglians. {442a}
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