George Borrow and His Circle Part 40

What Borrow lacked in adaptability was in great degree compensated by his personal appearance. No one who has ever walked with him, either through the streets of London or along the country roads, could fail to remark how his appearance arrested the attention of the pa.s.sers-by. As a gypsy woman once remarked to the present writer, 'Everybody as ever see'd the white-headed Romany Rye never forgot him.' When he chanced to meet troops marching along a country road, it was noticeable that every soldier, whether on foot or horseback, would involuntarily turn to look at Borrow's striking figure. He stood considerably above six feet in height, was built as perfectly as a Greek statue, and his practice of athletic exercises gave his every movement the easy elasticity of an athlete under training. Those East Anglians who have bathed with him on the east coast, or others who have done the same in the Thames or the Ouse, can vouch for his having been an almost faultless model of masculine symmetry, even as an old man. With regard to his countenance, 'n.o.ble' is the only word which can be used to describe it. When he was quite a young man his thick crop of hair had become of a silvery whiteness.[241] There was a striking relation between the complexion, which was as luminous and sometimes rosy as an English girl's, and the features--almost perfect Roman-Greek in type, with a dash of Hebrew. To the dark l.u.s.tre of the eyes an increased intensity was lent by the fair skin. No doubt, however, what most struck the observer was the marked individuality, not to say singularity, of his expression. If it were possible to describe this expression in a word or two, it might, perhaps, be called a self-consciousness that was both proud and shy.[242]

Here is another picture by Mr. Watts-Dunton of this London period:[243]

At seventy years of age, after breakfasting at eight o'clock in Hereford Square, he would walk to Putney, meet one or more of us at Roehampton, roam about Wimbledon and Richmond Park with us, bathe in the Fen Ponds with a north-east wind cutting across the icy water like a razor, run about the gra.s.s afterwards, like a boy to shake off some of the water-drops, stride about the park for hours, and then, after fasting for twelve hours, eat a dinner at Roehampton that would have done Sir Walter Scott's eyes good to see. Finally, he would walk back to Hereford Square, getting home late at night. And if the physique of the man was bracing, his conversation, unless he happened to be suffering from one of his occasional fits of depression, was still more so. Its freshness, raciness, and eccentric whim no pen could describe. There is a kind of humour, the delight of which is that while you smile at the pictures it draws, you smile quite as much to think that there is a mind so whimsical, crotchety, and odd as to draw them.

This was the humour of Borrow.

And there is yet another description, equally illuminating, in which Mr.

Watts-Dunton records how he won Borrow's heart by showing a familiarity with Douglas Jerrold's melodrama _Ambrose Gwinett_:

From that time I used to see Borrow often at Roehampton, sometimes at Putney, and sometimes, but not often, in London. I could have seen much more of him than I did had not the whirlpool of London, into which I plunged for a time, borne me away from this most original of men; and this is what I so greatly lament now: for of Borrow it may be said, as it was said of a greater man still, that 'after Nature made _him_ she forthwith broke the mould.' The last time I ever saw him was shortly before he left London to live in the country. It was, I remember well, on Waterloo Bridge, where I had stopped to gaze at a sunset of singular and striking splendour, whose gorgeous clouds and ruddy mists were reeling and boiling over the West-End. Borrow came up and stood leaning over the parapet, entranced by the sight, as well he might be. Like most people born in flat districts, he had a pa.s.sion for sunsets. Turner could not have painted that one, I think, and certainly my pen could not describe it; for the London smoke was flushed by the sinking sun, and had lost its dunness, and, reddening every moment as it rose above the roofs, steeples, and towers, it went curling round the sinking sun in a rosy vapour, leaving, however, just a segment of a golden rim, which gleamed as dazzlingly as in the thinnest and clearest air--a peculiar effect which struck Borrow deeply. I never saw such a sunset before or since, not even on Waterloo Bridge; and from its a.s.sociation with 'the last of Borrow' I shall never forget it.[244]

Mr. Watts-Dunton concludes his reminiscences--the most valuable personal record that we have of Borrow--with a sonnet that now has its place in literature:

We talked of 'Children of the Open Air'

Who once in Orient valleys lived aloof, Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair, Till, on a day, across the mystic bar Of moonrise, came the 'Children of the Roof,'

Who find no balm 'neath Evening's rosiest woof, Nor dews of peace beneath the Morning Star.

We looked o'er London where men wither and choke, Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies, And lore of woods and wild wind-prophecies-- Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke: And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and smoke Leave never a meadow outside Paradise.

FOOTNOTES:

[237] Theodore Watts-Dunton's memoir of Thomas Gordon Hake in the _Athenaeum_, January 19, 1895.

An interesting letter that I have received from Mr. Watts-Dunton clears up several points and may well have place here:--

'THE PINES, 11 PUTNEY HILL, S.W., _31st May 1913._

'You ask me what I have written upon George Borrow. When Borrow died (26th July 1881), the first obituary notice of him in the _Athenaeum_ was not by me, but by W. Elwin. This appeared on the 6th August 1881. At this time the general public had so forgotten that Borrow was alive that I remember once, at one of old Mrs. Procter's receptions, it had been discussed, as Lowell and Browning afterwards told me, as to whether I was or was not "an archer of the long bow" because I said that on the previous Sunday I had walked with Borrow in Richmond Park, and was frequently seeing him, and that on the Sunday before I had walked in the same beautiful park with Dr. Gordon Latham, another celebrity of the past "known to be dead." The fact is, Borrow's really great books were _Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_, and the latter had fallen almost dead from the press, smothered by Victorian respectability and philistinism.

He was thoroughly soured and angry, and no wonder! He fought shy of literary society. He quite resented being introduced to strangers.

'Elwin's article was considered very unsatisfactory. Knowing that the most competent man in England to write about Borrow was my old friend, Dr. Gordon Hake, I suggested that MacColl should ask the doctor (one of the few men whom Borrow really loved) to furnish the _Athenaeum_ with another article. This was agreed to, and another article was written, either by Dr. Hake himself, or by one of his sons--I don't quite remember at this distance of time. It appeared in the _Athenaeum_ of the 13th August 1881. But even this article did not seem to MacColl to vitalise one of the most remarkable personalities of the 19th century; and as I was then a leading writer in the literary department of the _Athenaeum_, MacColl asked me to give him an article upon Borrow whom I had known so well. I did so, and the article "caught on," as MacColl said, more than had any _Athenaeum_ article for a long time. This appeared 3rd September 1881. When MacColl read the article he was so much pleased with it that he urged me to follow it up with an article on Borrow in connection with the Children of the Open Air--a subject upon which I had previously written a good deal in the _Athenaeum_. This appeared on the 10th September 1881, and became still more popular, and the _Athenaeum_ containing it had quite an exceptional sale.

'The Hake whom you inquire about, Egmont Hake, has drifted out of my ken. He at one time lived in Paris, and wrote a book called _Paris Originals_. I know that he did, at one time, contemplate writing upon Borrow, and corresponded with Mrs. MacOubrey with this view; but the affair fell through. As a son of Dr. Hake's he could not fail to know Borrow. He wrote a brief article about him, in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. But the two Hakes who were thrown across Borrow most intimately were Thomas Hake and George Hake, the latter of whom lately died in Africa. Thomas Hake, the eldest of the family, knew Borrow in his own childhood, which the other members of the family did not. After Dr. Gordon Hake went to live in Germany, after the Roehampton home was broken up, I saw a good deal of Borrow. He always thought that no one sympathised with him and understood him so thoroughly as I did,--Ever most cordially yours,

'THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON.'

Since receiving this letter I have been in communication with Mr. Egmont Hake, who generously offered to place his Borrow material at my disposal, but this offer came too late to be of service. Mr. Hake will, however, shortly publish his _Memoirs_ in which he will include some interesting impressions of George Borrow which it has been my privilege to read in ma.n.u.script.

[238] Dr. Hake was equally severe in his references to Thackeray, of whom scarcely any one has spoken ill. 'Thackeray spent a good deal of his time on stilts,' he says. '... He was a very disagreeable companion to those who did not want to boast that they knew him.'--_Memoirs_, p.

86. 'Thackeray,' he says elsewhere, 'as if under the impression that the party was invited to look at him, thought it necessary to make a figure.... Borrow knew better how to behave in good company.'--_Memoirs_, p. 166.

[239] _Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic_. By James Douglas.

Hodder and Stoughton, 1904, p. 96.

[240] 'Recollections of George Borrow,' by A. Egmont Hake in _The Athenaeum_, Aug. 13, 1881.

[241] Borrow's hair was black until he was about twenty years of age, when it turned white.

[242] _Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature_, vol. iii. p. 430.

[243] _The Athenaeum_, September 3, 1881.

[244] _The Athenaeum_, September 10, 1881. I am indebted to my friend Mr.

John Collins Francis., of _The Athenaeum_ newspaper, for generously placing the columns of that journal at my disposal for the purposes of this book.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

BORROW'S UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS

To many in our day, less utilitarian than those of an earlier era, Borrow must have been an interesting man of letters had he not written his four great books. Single-minded devotion to the less commercially remunerative languages has now become respectable and even estimable.

Students of the Scandinavian languages, and of the Celtic, abound in our midst. Borrow was a forerunner with Bowring of much of this 'useless'

learning. Borrow came to consider Bowring's apparent neglect of him to be unforgivable. But that time had not arrived, when in 1842 he wrote to him as follows:

To Dr. John Bowring

OULTON, LOWESTOFT, SUFFOLK, _July 14th, 1842._

DEAR DEAR SIR,--Pray excuse my troubling you with a line. I wish you would send as many of the papers and ma.n.u.scripts, which I left at yours some twelve years ago, as you can find.

Amongst others there is an essay on Welsh poetry, a translation of the _Death of Balder_, etc. If I am spared to the beginning of next year, I intend to bring out a volume called _Songs of Denmark_, consisting of some selections from the _Kaempe Viser_ and specimens from Ewald, Grundtvig, Oehlenschlager, and I suppose I must give a few notices of those people. Have you any history of Danish literature from which I could glean a few hints. I think you have a book in two volumes containing specimens of Danish poetry. It would be useful to me as I want to translate Ingemann's _Dannebrog_; and one or two other pieces. I shall preface all with an essay on the Danish language. It is possible that a book of this description may take, as Denmark is quite an untrodden field.

Could you lend me for a short time a Polish and French or Polish and German dictionary. I am going carefully through Makiewitz, about whom I intend to write an _article_.

_The Bible in Spain_ is in the press, and with G.o.d's permission will appear about November in three volumes. I shall tell Murray to send a copy to my oldest, I may say my _only_ friend.

Pray let me know how you are getting on. I every now and then see your name in the _Examiner_, the only paper I read. Should you send the papers and the books it must be by the Yarmouth coach which starts from Fetter Lane. Address: George Borrow, Crown Inn, Lowestoft, Suffolk. With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Bowring, Miss Bowring, and family--I remain, Dear Sir, ever yours,

GEORGE BORROW.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE OF A POEM FROM _TARGUM_

A Translation from the French by George Borrow

My Eighteenth Year

Where is my eighteenth year? far back Upon life's variegated track; Yet fondly oft I turn my eye, And for my eighteenth year I sigh.

Each pleasure then I took with zest, And hope was inmate of my breast, Enchanting hope, consoling thing, The plucker out of sorrow's sting.

The sun above shone brighter then Fairer were women, kinder men If tears I shed they soon were o'er And I was happier than before.]

Now with the achieved success of _The Bible in Spain_ and the leisure of a happy home Borrow could for the moment think of the ambition of 'twelve years ago'--an ambition to put before the public some of the results of his marvellous industry. The labours of the dark, black years between 1825 and 1830 might now perchance see the light. Three such books got themselves published, as we have seen, _Romantic Ballads_, _Targum_, and _The Talisman_. _The Sleeping Bard_ had been translated and offered to 'a little Welsh bookseller' of Smithfield in 1830, who, however, said, when he had read it, 'were I to print it I should be ruined.' That fate followed the book to the end, and Borrow was premature when he said in his Preface to _The Sleeping Bard_ that such folly is on the decline, because he found 'Albemarle Street in '60 willing to publish a harmless but plain-speaking book which Smithfield shrank from in '30.' At the last moment John Murray refused to publish, but seems to have agreed to give his imprint to the t.i.tle-page. Borrow published the book at his own expense, it being set up by James Matthew Denew, of 72 Hall Plain, Great Yarmouth. Fourteen years later--in 1874--Mr. Murray made some amends by publis.h.i.+ng _Romano Lavo-Lil_, in which are many fine translations from the Romany, and that, during his lifetime, was the 'beginning and the end' of Borrow's essays in publis.h.i.+ng so far as his translations were concerned. Webber, the bookseller of Ipswich, did indeed issue _The Turkish Jester_--advertised as ready for publication in 1857--in 1884, and Jarrold of Norwich _The Death of Balder_ in 1889; but enthusiasts have asked in vain for _Celtic Bards_, _Chiefs and Kings_, _Songs of Europe_, and _Northern Skalds, Kings and Earls_. It is not recorded whether Borrow offered these to any publisher other than 'Glorious John' of Albemarle Street, but certain it is that Mr. Murray would have none of them. The 'mountains of ma.n.u.script' remained to be the sorrowful interest of Borrow as an old man as they had--many of them--been the sorrow and despair of his early manhood. Here is a memorandum in his daughter's handwriting of the work that Borrow was engaged upon at the time of his death:

Songs of Ireland.