The Romany Rye

by George Borrow

  APPENDIX {313}

  CHAPTER I--A WORD FOR LAVENGRO

  Lavengro is the history up to a certain period of one of rather apeculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior shy and cold, underwhich lurk much curiosity, especially with regard to what is wild andextraordinary, a considerable quantity of energy and industry, and anunconquerable love of independence. It narrates his earliest dreams andfeelings, dwells with minuteness on the ways, words, and characters ofhis father, mother, and brother; lingers on the occasional resting-placesof his wandering half military childhood; describes the gradual hardeningof his bodily frame by robust exercises, his successive struggles, afterhis family and himself have settled down in a small local capital, toobtain knowledge of every kind, but more particularly philological lore;his visits to the tent of the Romany chal and the parlour of theAnglo-German philosopher; the effect produced upon his character by hisflinging himself into contact with people all widely differing from eachother, but all extraordinary; his reluctance to settle down to theordinary pursuits of life; his struggles after moral truth; his glimpsesof God and the obscuration of the Divine Being to his mind's eye; and hisbeing cast upon the world of London, by the death of his father, at theage of nineteen. {314a} In the world within a world, the world ofLondon, it shows him playing his part for some time as he best can in thecapacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes what he sawand underwent whilst labouring in that capacity; it represents him,however, as never forgetting that he is the son of a brave but poorgentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise a scholar. Itshows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionallyassociates with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify thecuriosity of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman ofLondon Bridge the scholar is ever apparent, so, again, in hisacquaintance with the man of the table, for the book is no raker up ofthe uncleanness of London; and if it gives what at first sight appearsrefuse, it invariably shows that a pearl of some kind, generally aphilological one, is contained amongst it. It shows its hero alwaysaccompanied by his love of independence, scorning in the greatest povertyto receive favours from anybody, and describes him finally rescuinghimself from peculiarly miserable circumstances by writing a book, anoriginal book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have written his'Rasselas,' and Beckford his 'Vathek,' and tells how, leaving London, hebetakes himself to the roads and fields.

  In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure, becomingtinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various kinds ofpeople, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits aredescribed; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from the bookthat his habits are neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still follows toa certain extent his favourite pursuits--hunting after strangecharacters, or analyzing strange words and names. At the conclusion ofthe fifth volume, which terminates the first part of the history, ithints that he is about to quit his native land on a grand philologicalexpedition.

  Those who read this book with attention--and the author begs to observethat it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly--may derive muchinformation with respect to matters of philology and literature; it willbe found treating of most of the principal languages from Ireland toChina, and of the literature which they contain; and it is particularlyminute with regard to the ways, manners, and speech of the Englishsection of the most extraordinary and mysterious clan or tribe of peopleto be found in the whole world--the children of Roma. {314b} But itcontains matters of much more importance than anything in connection withphilology, and the literature and manners of nations. Perhaps no workwas ever offered to the public in which the kindness and providence ofGod have been set forth by more striking examples, or the machinations ofpriestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers whichresult to a nation when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage forwhat is novel and fashionable, than the present.

  With respect to the kindness and providence of God, are they notexemplified in the case of the old apple-woman and her son? These arebeings in many points bad, but with warm affections, who, after anagonizing separation, are restored to each other, but not until thehearts of both are changed and purified by the influence of affliction.Are they not exemplified in the case of the rich gentleman, who touchesobjects in order to avert the evil chance? This being has great giftsand many amiable qualities; but does not everybody see that his besettingsin is selfishness? He fixes his mind on certain objects, and takesinordinate interest in them because they are his own, and those veryobjects, through the providence of God, which is kindness in disguise,becomes snakes and scorpions to whip him. Tired of various pursuits, heat last becomes an author, and publishes a book, which is very muchadmired, and which he loves with his usual inordinate affection. Thebook, consequently, becomes a viper to him, and at last he flings itaside and begins another. The book, however, is not flung aside by theworld, who are benefited by it, deriving pleasure and knowledge from it;so the man who merely wrote to gratify self has already done good toothers, and got himself an honourable name. But God will not allow thatman to put that book under his head and use it as a pillow; the book hasbecome a viper to him, he has banished it, and is about another, which hefinishes and gives to the world. It is a better book than the first, andeveryone is delighted with it, but it proves to the writer a scorpionbecause he loves it with inordinate affection; but it was good for theworld that he produced this book, which stung him as a scorpion. Yes,and good for himself, for the labour of writing it amused him, andperhaps prevented him from dying of apoplexy. But the book is banished,and another is begun, and herein, again, is the providence of Godmanifested; the man has the power of producing still, and God determinesthat he shall give to the world what remains in his brain, which he wouldnot do had he been satisfied with the second work; he would have gone tosleep upon that as he would upon the first, for the man is selfish andlazy. In his account of what he suffered during the composition of thiswork, his besetting sin of selfishness is manifest enough; the work onwhich he is engaged occupies his every thought--it is his idol, hisdeity, it shall be all his own, he won't borrow a thought from anyoneelse, and he is so afraid lest, when he publishes it, that it should bethought that he had borrowed from anyone, that he is continually touchingobjects, his nervous system, owing to his extreme selfishness, havingbecome partly deranged. He is left touching, in order to banish the evilchance from his book, his deity. No more of his history is given; butdoes the reader think that God will permit that man to go to sleep on histhird book, however extraordinary it may be? Assuredly not. God willnot permit that man to rest till He has cured him to a certain extent ofhis selfishness, which has, however, hitherto been very useful to theworld.

  Then, again in the tale of Peter Williams, is not the hand of Providenceto be seen? This person commits a sin in his childhood--utters words ofblasphemy--the remembrance of which in after life, preying upon hisimagination, unfits him for quiet pursuits, to which he seems to havebeen naturally inclined; but for the remembrance of that sin, he wouldhave been Peter Williams the quiet, respectable Welsh farmer, somewhatfond of reading the ancient literature of his country in winter eveningsafter his work was done. God, however, was aware that there wassomething in Peter Williams to entitle him to assume a higher calling; Hetherefore permits this sin, which, though a childish affair, was yet asin, and committed deliberately, to prey upon his mind till he becomes atlast an instrument in the hand of God, a humble Paul, the great preacher,Peter Williams, who, though he considers himself a reprobate and acastaway, instead of having recourse to drinking in mad desperation--atmany do who consider themselves reprobates--goes about Wales and Englandpreaching the Word of God, dilating on His power and majesty, andvisiting the sick and afflicted, until God sees fit to restore to him hispeace of mind, which He does not do, however, until that mind is in aproper condition to receive peace--till it has been purified by the painof the one idea which has so long been
permitted to riot in his brain,which pain, however, an angel, in the shape of a gentle faithful wife,had occasionally alleviated; for God is merciful even in the blows whichHe bestoweth, and will not permit anyone to be tempted beyond the measurewhich he can support. And here it will be as well for the reader toponder upon the means by which the Welsh preacher is relieved from hismental misery; he is not relieved by a text from the Bible, by the wordsof consolation and wisdom addressed to him by his angel-minded wife, norby the preaching of one yet more eloquent than himself, but by aquotation made by Lavengro from the life of Mary Flanders, cut-purse andprostitute, which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at thestall of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who hadherself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though without anyprofit whatever. Should the reader be dissatisfied with the manner inwhich Peter Williams is made to find relief, the author would wish toanswer, that the Almighty frequently accomplishes His purposes by meanswhich appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time toobserve that the manner in which that relief is obtained is calculated toread a lesson to the proud, fanciful, and squeamish, who are ever in afidget lest they should be thought to mix in low society, or to bestow amoment's attention on publications which are not what is called of aperfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed theacquaintance of the old apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not havehad an opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders, and,consequently, of storing in a memory which never forgets anything, apassage which contained a balm for the agonized mind of Peter Williams.The best medicines are not always found in the finest shops. Suppose,for example, if, instead of going to London Bridge to read, he had goneto Albemarle Street, and had received from the proprietors of theliterary establishment in that very fashionable street permission to readthe publications on the tables of the saloons there, does the readerthink he would have met any balm in those publications for the case ofPeter Williams? Does the reader suppose that he would have found MaryFlanders there? He would certainly have found that highly objectionablepublication, 'Rasselas,' and the 'Spectator,' or 'Lives of Royal andIllustrious Personages,' but, of a surety, no Mary Flanders. So, whenLavengro met with Peter Williams, he would have been unprovided with abalm to cure his ulcerated mind, and have parted from him in a way notquite so satisfactory as the manner in which he took his leave of him;for it is certain that he might have read 'Rasselas,' and all the otherunexceptionable works to be found in the library of Albemarle Street,over and over again, before he would have found any cure in them for thecase of Peter Williams. Therefore the author requests the reader to dropany squeamish nonsense he may wish to utter about Mary Flanders and themanner in which Peter Williams was cured.

  And now with respect to the old man who knew Chinese, but could not tellwhat was o'clock. This individual was a man whose natural powers wouldhave been utterly buried and lost beneath a mountain of sloth andlaziness had not God determined otherwise. He had in his early yearschalked out for himself a plan of life in which he had his own ease andself-indulgence solely in view; he had no particular bad passions togratify, he only wished to lead an easy quiet life, just as if thebusiness of this mighty world could be carried on by innocent people fondof ease and quiet, or that Providence would permit innocent quiet dronesto occupy any portion of the earth and to cumber it. God had, at anyrate, decreed that this man should not cumber it as a drone. He brings acertain affliction upon him, the agony of which produces that terriblewhirling of the brain which, unless it is stopped in time, producesmadness; he suffers indescribable misery for a period, until one morninghis attention is arrested and his curiosity is aroused by certain Chineseletters on a teapot; his curiosity increases more and more, and, ofcourse, in proportion as his curiosity is increased with respect to theChinese marks, the misery in his brain produced by his mental afflictiondecreases. He sets about learning Chinese, and after the lapse of manyyears, during which his mind subsides into a certain state oftranquillity, he acquires sufficient knowledge of Chinese to be able totranslate with ease the inscriptions to be found on its singularcrockery. Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence ofGod--a being, too, of rather inferior capacity--acquires the written partof a language so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion,none but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to acquireit. But God did not intend that man should merely acquire Chinese. Heintended that he should be of use to his species, and, by theinstrumentality of the first Chinese inscription which he translates, theone which first arrested his curiosity, he is taught the duties ofhospitality; yes, by means of an inscription in the language of a peoplewho have scarcely an idea of hospitality themselves, God causes theslothful man to play a useful and beneficent part in the world, relievingdistressed wanderers, and, amongst others, Lavengro himself. But astriking indication of the man's surprising sloth is still apparent inwhat he omits to do; he has learnt Chinese, the most difficult oflanguages, and he practises acts of hospitality because he believeshimself enjoined to do so by the Chinese inscription, but he cannot tellthe hour of the day by the clock within his house; he can get on, hethinks, very well without being able to do so; therefore, from this oneomission, it is easy to come to a conclusion as to what a sluggard's partthe man would have played in life but for the dispensation of Providence;nothing but extreme agony could have induced such a man to do anythinguseful. He still continues, with all he has acquired, with all hisusefulness, and with all his innocence of character, without any propersense of religion, though he has attained a rather advanced age. If itbe observed that this want of religion is a great defect in the story,the author begs leave to observe that he cannot help it. Lavengrorelates the lives of people so far as they were placed before him, but nofurther. It was certainly a great defect in so good a man to be withoutreligion; it was likewise a great defect in so learned a man not to beable to tell what was o'clock. It is probable that God, in His lovingkindness, will not permit that man to go out of the world withoutreligion--who knows but some powerful minister of the Church, full ofzeal for the glory of God, will illumine that man's dark mind--perhapssome clergyman will come to the parish who will visit him and teach himhis duty to his God. Yes, it is very probable that such a man, before hedies, will have been made to love his God; whether he will ever learn toknow what's o'clock is another matter. It is probable that he will goout of the world without knowing what's o'clock. It is not so necessaryto be able to tell the time of day by the clock as to know one's Godthrough His inspired word; a man cannot get to heaven without religion,but a man can get there very comfortably without knowing what's o'clock.

  But, above all, the care and providence of God are manifested in the caseof Lavengro himself by the manner in which he is enabled to make his wayin the world up to a certain period without falling a prey either to viceor poverty. In his history there is a wonderful illustration of part ofthe text, quoted by his mother: 'I have been young, and now am old, yetnever saw I the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread.' He is theson of good and honourable parents, but at the critical period of life,that of entering into the world, he finds himself without any earthlyfriend to help him, yet he manages to make his way. He does not become acaptain in the Life Guards, it is true, nor does be get into Parliament,nor does the last volume conclude in the most satisfactory andunobjectionable manner by his marrying a dowager countess--as that wiseman Addison did--or by his settling down as a great country gentleman,perfectly happy and contented, like the very moral Roderick Random or theequally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author, gypsy, tinker, andpostillion, yet upon the whole he seems to be quite as happy as theyounger sons of most earls, to have as high feelings of honour; and, whenthe reader loses sight of him, he has money in his pocket honestlyacquired to enable him to commence a journey quite as laudable as thosewhich the younger sons of earls generally undertake. Surely all this isa manifestation of the kindness and providence of God, and yet he is no
ta religious person--up to the time when the reader loses sight of him heis decidedly not a religious person, he has glimpses, it is true, of thatGod who does not forsake him, but he prays very seldom, is not fond ofgoing to church, and, though he admires Tate and Brady's version of thePsalms, his admiration is rather caused by the beautiful poetry whichthat version contains than the religion; yet his tale is notfinished--like the tale of the gentleman who touched objects, and that ofthe old man who knew Chinese without knowing what was o'clock; perhaps,like them, he is destined to become religious, and to have, instead ofoccasional glimpses, frequent and distinct views of his God; yet, thoughhe may become religious, it is hardly to be expected that he will becomea very precise and straight-laced person; it is probable that he willretain with his scholarship something of his gypsyism, his predilectionfor the hammer and tongs, and perhaps some inclination to put on certaingloves, not white kid, with any friend who may be inclined for a littleold English diversion, and a readiness to take a glass of ale, withplenty of malt in it and as little hop as may well be--ale at least twoyears old--with the aforesaid friend when the diversion is over; for, asit is the belief of the writer that a person may get to heaven verycomfortably without knowing what's o'clock, so it is his belief that hewill not be refused admission there because to the last he has been fondof healthy and invigorating exercises, and felt a willingness to partakeof any of the good things which it pleases the Almighty to put within thereach of His children during their sojourn upon earth.