Carolyn Wells - "Patty's Butterfly Days"

Gilbert Parker - "The Judgment House"

Susan Coolidge - "What Katy Did At School"

Grant Allen - "Michael's Crag"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Life of George Borrow

H >> Herbert Jenkins >> The Life of George Borrow




It has been stated that, during a portion of his association with the
Bible Society, Borrow acted as a foreign correspondent for The
Morning Herald. Dr Knapp has very satisfactorily disproved the
statement, which the Rev. Wentworth Webster received from the Marques
de Santa Coloma. Either the Marques or Mr Webster is responsible for
the statement that Borrow was wrecked, instead of nearly wrecked, off
Cape Finisterre. As the Marques was a passenger on the boat, the
mistake must be ascribed to Mr Webster. The further statement that
Borrow was imprisoned at Pamplona by Quesada is scarcely more
credible than that about the wreck. His imprisonment could not very
well have taken place, as stated, in 1837-9, because General Quesada
was killed in 1836. Mention is made of this foreign correspondent
rumour only because it has been printed and reprinted. It may be
that Borrow was imprisoned at Pamplona during the "Veiled Period";
there is certainly one imprisonment (according to his own statement)
unaccounted for. It is curious how the fact first became impressed
upon the Marques' mind, unless he had heard it from Borrow. It is
quite likely that he confused the date.

It would be interesting to identify the two men whom Borrow describes
in Lavengro as being at the offices of the Bible Society in Earl
Street, when he sought to exchange for a Bible the old Apple-woman's
copy of Moll Flanders. "One was dressed in brown," he writes, "and
the other was dressed in black; both were tall men--he who was
dressed in brown was thin, and had a particularly ill-natured
countenance; the man dressed in black was bulky, his features were
noble, but they were those of a lion." {329a} Again, in The Romany
Rye, he makes the man in black say with reference to the Bible
Society:- "There is one fellow amongst them for whom we entertain a
particular aversion: a big, burly parson, with the face of a lion,
the voice of a buffalo, and a fist like a sledge-hammer." {329b} Who
these two worthies were it is impossible to say with any degree of
certainty. Caroline Fox describes Andrew Brandram no further than
that he "appeared before us once more with his shaggy eyebrows."
{329c} Mr Brandram was not thin and his countenance was not ill-
natured.



CHAPTER XXI: MAY 1840-MARCH 1841



Early in May, Borrow, his wife and step-daughter left London to take
up their residence at Oulton, in Suffolk. After years of wandering
and vagabondage he was to settle down as a landed proprietor. His
income, or rather his wife's, amounted to 450 pounds per annum, and
he must have saved a considerable sum out of the 2300 pounds he had
drawn from the Bible Society, as his mother appears to have regarded
the amounts he had sent to her as held in trust. He was therefore
able to instal himself, Sidi Habismilk and the Jew of Fez upon his
wife's small estate, with every prospect of enjoying a period of
comfort and rest after his many years of wandering and adventure.

Oulton Cottage was ideally situated on the margin of the Broad. It
was a one-storied building, with a dormer-attic above, hanging "over
a lonely lake covered with wild fowl, and girt with dark firs,
through which the wind sighs sadly. {330a} A regular Patmos, an
ultima Thule; placed in an angle of the most unvisited, out-of-the-
way portion of England." {330b} A few yards from the water's edge
stood the famous octagonal Summer-house that Borrow made his study.
Here he kept his books, a veritable "polyglot gentleman's" library,
consisting of such literary "tools" as a Lav-engro might be expected
to possess. There were also books of travel and adventure, some
chairs, a lounge and a table; whilst behind the door hung the sword
and regimental coat of the sleeping warrior to whom his younger son
had been an affliction of the spirit, because his mind pursued paths
that appeared so strangely perilous.

Here in this Summer-house Borrow wrote his books. Here when
"sickness was in the land, and the face of nature was overcast--heavy
rain-clouds swam in the heavens--the blast howled amid the pines
which nearly surround the lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake
which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, were
fearfully agitated," Borrow shouted, "'Bring lights hither, O Hayim
Ben Attar, son of the miracle!' And the Jew of Fez brought in the
lights," {331a} and his master commenced writing a book that was to
make him famous. When tired of writing, he would sometimes sing
"strange words in a stentorian voice, while passers-by on the lake
would stop to listen with astonishment and curiosity to the singular
sounds." {331b}

Life at Oulton Cottage was delightfully simple. Borrow was a good
host. "I am rather hospitable than otherwise," {331c} he wrote, and
thoroughly disliked anything in the nature of meanness. There was
always a bottle of wine of a rare vintage for the honoured guest.
Sometimes the host himself would hasten away to the little Summer-
house by the side of the Broad to muse, his eyes fixed upon the
military coat and sword, or to scribble upon scraps of paper that,
later, were to be transcribed by Mrs Borrow. Borrow would spend his
evenings with his wife and Henrietta, generally in reading until
bedtime.

In the Norwich days Borrow had formed an acquaintance with another
articled-clerk named Harvey (probably one of his colleagues at Tuck's
Court). They had kindred tastes, in particular a love of the open
air and vigorous exercise. After settling at Oulton, the Borrows and
the Harveys (then living at Bury St Edmunds) became very intimate,
and frequently visited each other. Elizabeth Harvey, the daughter of
Borrow's contemporary, has given an extremely interesting account of
the home life of the Borrows. She has described how sometimes Borrow
would sing one of his Romany songs, "shake his fist at me and look
quite wild. Then he would ask: 'Aren't you afraid of me?' 'No, not
at all,' I would say. Then he would look just as gentle and kind,
and say, 'God bless you, I would not hurt a hair of your head.'"
{332a}

Miss Harvey has also given us many glimpses into Borrow's character.
"He was very fond of ghost stories," she writes, "and believed in the
supernatural." {332b} He enjoyed music of a lively description, one
of his favourite compositions being the well-known "Redowa" polka,
which he would frequently ask to have played to him again.

As an eater Borrow was very moderate, he "took very little breakfast
but ate a very great quantity of dinner, and then had only a draught
of cold water before going to bed . . . He was very temperate and
would eat what was set before him, often not thinking of what he was
doing, and he never refused what was offered him." {332c} On one
occasion when he was dining with the Harveys, young Harvey, seeing
Borrow engrossed in telling of his travels, handed him dish after
dish in rapid succession, from all of which he helped himself,
entirely unconscious of what he was doing. Finally his plate was
full to overflowing, perceiving which he became very angry, and it
was some time before he could be appeased. A practical joke made no
appeal to him. {332d}

Elizabeth Harvey also tells how, when a cousin of hers was staying at
Cromer, the landlady went to her one day and said, "O, Miss, there's
such a curious gentleman been. I don't know what to think of him, I
asked him what he would like for dinner, and he said, 'Give me a
piece of flesh.'" "What sort of gentleman was it?" enquired the
cousin, and on hearing the description recognised George Borrow, and
explained that the strange visitor merely wanted a rump-steak, a
favourite dish with him.

As he did not shoot or hunt, he obtained exercise either by riding or
walking. At times "he suffered from sleeplessness, when he would get
up and walk to Norwich (25 miles) and return the next night
recovered" {333a} yet Borrow has said that "he always had the health
of an elephant."

He was proud of the Church and took great pleasure in showing to his
friends the brasses it contained, including one bearing an effigy of
Sir John Fastolf, whom he considered to be the original of Falstaff.
He was also "very fond of his trees. He quite fretted if by some
mischance he lost one." {333b}

His methods with the country people round Oulton were calculated to
earn for him a reputation for queerness. "Curiosity is the leading
feature of my character" {333c} he confessed, and the East Anglian
looks upon curiosity in others with marked suspicion. It was
impossible for Borrow to walk far without getting into conversation
with someone or other. He delighted in getting people to tell their
histories and experiences; "when they used some word peculiar to
Norfolk (or Suffolk) country men, he would say 'Why, that's a Danish
word.' By and bye the man would use another peculiar expression,
'Why, that's Saxon'; a little further on another, 'Why, that's
French.' And he would add, 'Why, 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." {334a}

He took pleasure in puzzling people about languages. Elizabeth
Harvey tells {334b} how he once put a book before her telling her to
read it, and on her saying she could not, he replied, "You ought;
it's your own language." The volume was written in Saxon. Yet for
all this he hated to hear foreign words introduced into conversation.
When he heard such adulterations of the English language he would
exclaim jocosely, "What's that, trying to come over me with strange
languages?" {334c}

Borrow's first thoughts on settling down were of literature. He had
material for several books, as he had informed Mr Brandram. Putting
aside, at least for the present, the translations of the ballads and
songs, he devoted himself to preparing for the press a book upon the
Spanish Gypsies. During the five years spent in Spain he had
gathered together much material. He had made notes in queer places
under strange and curious conditions, "in moments snatched from more
important pursuits--chiefly in ventas and posadas" {334d}--whilst
engaged in distributing the Gospel. It was a book of facts that he
meant to write, not theories, and if he sometimes fostered error, it
was because at the moment it was his conception of truth. Very
little remained to do to the manuscript. Mrs. Borrow had performed
her share of the work in making a fair copy for the printer.
Borrow's subsequent remark that the manuscript "was written by a
country amanuensis and probably contains many ridiculous errata," was
scarcely gracious to the wife, who seems to have comprehended so well
the first principle of wifely duty to an illustrious and, it must be
admitted, autocratic genius--viz., self-extinction.

"No man could endure a clever wife," Borrow once confided to the
unsympathetic ear of Frances Power Cobbe; but he had married one
nevertheless. No woman whose cleverness had not reached the point of
inspiration could have lived in intimate association with so
capricious and masterful a man as George Borrow. John Hasfeldt, in
sending his congratulations, had seemed to suggest that Borrow was
one of those abstruse works of nature that require close and constant
study. "When your wife thoroughly knows you," he wrote, "she will
smooth the wrinkles on your brow and you will be so cheerful and
happy that your grey hair will turn black again."

"In November 1840 a tall athletic gentleman in black called upon Mr
Murray, offering a manuscript for perusal and publication." {335a}
Fifteen years before, the same "tall athletic gentleman" had called a
dozen times at 50a Albemarle Street with translations of Northern and
Welsh ballads, but "never could see Glorious John." Borrow had
determined to make another attempt to see John Murray, and this time
he was successful. He submitted the manuscript of The Zincali, which
Murray sent to Richard Ford {335b} that he might pronounce upon it
and its possibilities. "I have made acquaintance," Ford wrote to H.
U. Addington, 14th Jan. 1841, "with an extraordinary fellow, George
Borrow, who went out to Spain to convert the gypsies. He is about to
publish his failure, and a curious book it will be. It was submitted
to my perusal by the hesitating Murray." {335c} On Ford's advice the
book was accepted for publication, it being arranged that author and
publisher should share the profits equally between them.

On 17th April 1841 there appeared in two volumes The Zincali; {336a}
or, An Account of the Gypsies in Spain. With an original Collection
of their Songs and Poetry, and a copious Dictionary of their
Language. By George Borrow, late Agent of the British and Foreign
Bible Society in Spain. It was dedicated to the Earl of Clarendon,
G.C.B. (Sir George Villiers), in "remembrance of the many obligations
under which your Lordship has placed me, by your energetic and
effectual interference in time of need." The first edition of 750
copies sufficed to meet the demand of two years. Ford, however,
wrote to Murray: "The book has created a great sensation far and
wide. I was sure it would, and I hope you think that when I read the
MS. my opinion and advice were sound." {336b}

The Zincali had been begun at Badajos with the Romany songs or rhymes
copied down as recited by his gypsy friends. To these he had
subsequently added, being assisted by a French courier, Juan Antonio
Bailly, who translated the songs into Spanish. These translations
were originally intended to be published in a separate work, as was
the Vocabulary, which forms part of The Zincali. Had Borrow sought
to make two separate works of the "Songs" and "Vocabulary," there is
very considerable doubt if they would have fared any better than the
everlasting Ab Gwilym; but either with inspiration, or acting on some
one's wise counsel, he determined to subordinate them to an account
of the Spanish Gypsies.

As a piece of bookmaking The Zincali is by no means notable. Borrow
himself refers to it (page 354) as "this strange wandering book of
mine." In construction it savours rather of the method by which it
was originally inspired; but for all that it is fascinating reading,
saturated with the atmosphere of vagabondage and the gypsy
encampment. It was not necessarily a book for the scholar and the
philologist, many of whom scorned it on account of its rather obvious
carelessnesses and inaccuracies. Borrow was not a writer of academic
books. He lacked the instinct for research which alone insures
accuracy.

It was particularly appropriate that Borrow's first book should be
about the Gypsies, who had always exercised so strange an attraction
for him that he could not remember the time "when the very name of
Gypsy did not awaken within me feelings hard to be described." {337a}
His was not merely an interest in their strange language, their
traditions, their folk-lore; it was something nearer and closer to
the people themselves. They excited his curiosity, he envied their
mode of life, admired their clannishness, delighted in their
primitive customs. Their persistence in warring against the gentile
appealed strongly to his instinctive hatred of "gentility nonsense";
and perhaps more than anything else, he envied them the stars and the
sun and the wind on the heath.

"Romany matters have always had a peculiar interest for me," {337b}
he affirms over and over again in different words, and he never lost
an opportunity of joining a party of gypsies round their camp-fire.
His knowledge of the Romany people was not acquired from books.
Apparently he had read very few of the many works dealing with the
mysterious race he had singled out for his particular attention.
With characteristic assurance he makes the sweeping assertion that
"all the books which have been published concerning them [the
Gypsies] have been written by those who have introduced themselves
into their society for a few hours, and from what they have seen or
heard consider themselves competent to give the world an idea of the
manners and customs of the mysterious Romany." {338a}

His attitude towards the race is curious. He recognised the Gypsies
as liars, rogues, cheats, vagabonds, in short as the incarnation of
all the vices; yet their fascination for him in no way diminished.
He could mix with them, as with other vagabonds, and not become
harmed by their broad views upon personal property, or their hundred
and one tricks and dishonesties. He was a changed man when in their
company, losing all that constraint that marked his intercourse with
people of his own class.

He had laboured hard to bring the light of the Gospel into their
lives. He made them translate for him the Scriptures into their
tongue; but it was the novelty of the situation, aided by the glass
of Malaga wine he gave them, not the beauty of the Gospel of St Luke,
that aroused their interest and enthusiasm. To this, Borrow's own
eyes were open. "They listened with admiration," he says; "but,
alas! not of the truths, the eternal truths, I was telling them, but
to find that their broken jargon could be written and read." {338b}

On one occasion, having refused to one of his congregation the loan
of two barias (ounces of gold), he proceeded to read to the whole
assembly instead the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed in Romany.
Happening to glance up, he found not a gypsy in the room, but
squinted, "the Gypsy fellow, the contriver of the jest, squinted
worst of all. Such are Gypsies." {338c}

It was indeed the novelty that appealed to them. They greeted with a
shout of exultation the reading aloud a translation that they
themselves had dictated; but they remained unmoved by the Christian
teaching it contained. For all these discouragements Borrow
persisted, and perhaps none of his efforts in Spain produced less
result than this "attempt to enlighten the minds of the Gitanos on
the subject of religion." {339a}

If the Gypsies were all that is evil, judged by conventional
standards, they at least loyally stood by each other in the face of a
common foe. Borrow knew Ambrose Petulengro to be a liar, a thief, in
fact most things that it is desirable a man should not be; yet he was
equally sure that under no circumstances would he forsake a friend to
whom he stood pledged. There seems to be little doubt that Borrow's
fame with the Gypsies spread throughout England and the Continent.
"Everybody as ever see'd the white-headed Romany Rye never forgot
him."

Borrow was by no means the first Romany Rye. From Andrew Boorde
(15th-16th Century) down the centuries they are to be found, even to
our day, in the persons of Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton and Mr John
Sampson; but Borrow was the first to bring the cult of Gypsyism into
popularity. Before he wrote, the general view of Gypsies was that
they were uncomfortable people who robbed the clothes-lines and hen-
roosts, told fortunes and incidentally intimidated the housewife if
unprotected by man or dog. Borrow changed all this. The suspicion
remained, so strongly in fact that he himself was looked at askance
for consorting with such vagabonds; but with the suspicion was more
than a spice of interest, and the Gypsies became epitomised and
immortalised in the person of Jasper Petulengro. Borrow's Gypsyism
was as unscientific as his "philology." Their language, their origin
he commented on without first acquainting himself with the literature
that had gathered round their name. Francis Hindes Groome, "that
perfect scholar-gypsy and gypsy-scholar," wrote:-


"The meagreness of his knowledge of the Anglo-Gypsy dialect came out
in his Word Book of the Romany (1874); there must have been over a
dozen Englishmen who have known it far better than he. For his
Spanish-Gypsy vocabulary in The Zincali he certainly drew largely
either on Richard Bright's Travels through Lower Hungary or on
Bright's Spanish authority, whatever that may have been. His
knowledge of the strange history of the Gypsies was very elementary,
of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically
nil. And yet I would put George Borrow above every other writer on
the Gypsies. In Lavengro and, to a less degree, in its sequel, The
Romany Rye, he communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom that is
totally wanting in the works--mainly philological--of Pott, Liebich,
Paspati, Miklosich, and their confreres." {340a}


Groome was by no means partial to Borrow, as a matter of fact he
openly taxed him {340b} with drawing upon Bright's Travels in Hungary
(Edinburgh 1819) for the Spanish-Romany Vocabulary, and was strong in
his denunciation of him as a poseur.

Borrow scorned book-learning. Writing to John Murray, Junr. (21st
Jan. 1843), about The Bible in Spain, he says, "I was conscious that
there was vitality in the book and knew that it must sell. I read
nothing and drew entirely from my own well. I have long been tired
of books; I have had enough of them," {340c} he wrote later, and
this, taken in conjunction with another sentence, viz., "My
favourite, I might say my only study, is man," explains not only
Borrow's Gypsyism, but also his casual philology. Languages he
mostly learned that he might know men. In youth he read--he had to
do something during the long office hours, and he read Danish and
Welsh literature; but he did not trouble himself much with the
literary wealth of other countries, beyond dipping into it. He had a
brain of his own, and preferred to form theories from the knowledge
he had acquired first hand, a most excellent thing for a man of the
nature of George Borrow, but scarcely calculated to advance learning.
He hated anything academic.


"I cannot help thinking," he wrote, "that it was fortunate for
myself, who am, to a certain extent, a philologist, that with me the
pursuit of languages has been always modified by the love of horses .
. . I might, otherwise, have become a mere philologist; one of those
beings who toil night and day in culling useless words for some opus
magnum which Murray will never publish and nobody ever read--beings
without enthusiasm, who, having never mounted a generous steed,
cannot detect a good point in Pegasus himself." {341a}


This quotation clearly explains Borrow's attitude towards philology.
As he told the emigre priest, he hoped to become something more than
a philologist.

There was nothing in the sale of The Zincali to encourage Borrow to
proceed with the other books he had partially prepared. Nearly seven
weeks after publication, scarcely three hundred copies had been sold.
In the spring of the following year (18th March) John Murray wrote:
"The sale of the book has not amounted to much since the first
publication; but in recompense for this the Yankees have printed two
editions, one for twenty pence COMPLETE." As Borrow did not benefit
from the sale of American editions, the news was not quite so
comforting as it would have been had it referred to the English
issue.



CHAPTER XXII: APRIL 1841-MARCH 1844



During his wanderings in Portugal and Spain Borrow had carried out
his intention of keeping a journal, from which on several occasions
he sent transcriptions to Earl Street instead of recapitulating in
his letters the adventures that befell him. Many of his letters went
astray, which is not strange considering the state of the country.
The letters and reports that Borrow wrote to the Bible Society, which
still exist, may be roughly divided as follows

From his introduction until the end
of the Russian expedition 17.50
Used for The Bible in Spain 30.00
Others written during the Spanish
and Portuguese periods and not used
for The Bible in Spain 52.50
100.00

Thirty per cent, of the whole number of the letters was all that
Borrow used for The Bible in Spain. In addition he had his Journal,
and from these two sources he obtained all the material he required
for the book that was to electrify the religious reading-public and
make famous its writer.

Between Borrow and Ford a warm friendship had sprung up, and many
letters passed between them. Ford, who was busily engaged upon his
Hand-Book, sought Borrow's advice upon a number of points, in
particular about Gypsy matters. There was something of the same
atmosphere in his letters as in those of John Hasfeldt: a frank,
affectionate interest in Borrow and what affected him that it was
impossible to resent. "How I wish you had given us more about
yourself," he wrote to Borrow apropos of The Zincali, "instead of the
extracts from those blunder-headed old Spaniards, who knew nothing
about Gypsies! I shall give you . . . a hint to publish your whole
adventures for the last twenty years." But Hayim Ben-Attar, son of
the miracle, had already brought lights, and The Bible in Spain had
been begun.

Ford's counsel was invariably sound and sane. He advised El Gitano,
as he sometimes called Borrow, "to avoid Spanish historians and
POETRY like Prussic acid; to stick to himself, his biography and
queer adventures," {343a} to all of which Borrow promised obedience.
Ford wrote to Borrow (Feb. 1841) suggesting that The Bible in Spain
should be what it actually was. "I am delighted to hear," he wrote,
"that you meditate giving us your travels in Spain. The more odd
personal adventures the better, and still more so if DRAMATIC; that
is, giving the exact conversations."