my of caravanners, with Lady Grosvenor
and Mr. J. Harris Stone at their head. The people who cannot appreciate
Borrow are those who will not lift their eyes from the pavement to be
rapt in admiration of a glorious sunset, to whom, indeed, Borrow would
appear a silly enigma, or a boor. For, when "the Heavens declare the
glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handy work," comes that rare
time when the spirit--unconsciously worshipping--is uplifted in an
ecstasy of wonder and joy, who then can but pity the dull eye ever abased
to the grime of the trodden path?

"In matters of taste you never are sure--
Your curry's a poison, your tastelessness pure!"

Borrow's sturdy forthrightness, his abhorrence of suave ambiguities and
formal inanities, found vent in most vigorous and unmistakeable language;
dogmatic _obiter dicta_ came from his mouth or his pen like so many
cudgel-thwacks. His nature was tense and intense, very excitable and
subject to aberrant moods--and he was often the victim of a false ply, as
the French would say. It cannot be gainsaid that his suspicions of
society ways, and of ordinarily conventional literary men, often betrayed
him into tactless discourtesies. It is needless to repeat the anecdotes
in which he appears in an unfavourable light, some of them probably
exaggerations, as, for instance, the well-known story of Borrow snubbing
Thackeray, as told by Dr. Hake. Miss Jay, whose father was of the firm
of Jay and Pilgrim, told me (November 22nd, 1893) that Borrow was loud in
his denunciation of Thackeray's meanness on a certain occasion, and she
utterly refused to believe Dr. Hake's version of the alleged boorishness
at Hardwick Hall. Borrow was a man of many moods, and Miss Jay seems to
have seen him only in his brighter hours: she described him to me as
open-hearted and generous, always thought highly of good old ale, and
liked Burgundy. "It puts fire into your veins," he would say; if he
poured out wine for anyone, he was angry if they did not drink it. But
she never knew him to exceed, and, though she often saw him highly
excited, never heard him swear. Very similar accounts appeared in the
_Eastern Daily Press_, of October 1st, 1892, over the signature "E.H."

[Picture: Corner of George Borrow's Bedroom, showing a view of city
roofs. By C. M. Nichols, R.E.]

Another friend of Borrow's with whom I had many talks was the late Rev.
Whitwell Elwin, at Boot