Street. Borrow responded by
starting on an account of his wanderings in Spain.

"At first I proceeded slowly--sickness was in the land, and the face of
Nature was overcast--heavy rainclouds swam in the heavens, the blast
howled amid the pines which nearly surround my lonely dwelling, and the
waters of the lake, which lies before it, so quiet in general and
tranquil, were fearfully agitated . . . A dreary summer and autumn passed
by, and were succeeded by as gloomy a winter. I still proceeded with the
Bible in Spain. The winter passed, and spring came, with cold dry winds
and occasional sunshine, whereupon I arose, shouted, and mounting my
horse, even Sidi Habismilk, I scoured all the surrounding district, and
thought but little of the Bible in Spain. So I rode about the country,
over the heaths, and through the green lanes of my native land,
occasionally visiting friends at a distance, and sometimes, for variety's
sake, I stayed at home and amused myself by catching huge pike, which lie
perdue in certain deep ponds skirted with lofty reeds, upon my land, and
to which there is a communication from the lagoon by a deep and narrow
watercourse. I had almost forgotten the Bible in Spain. Then came the
summer with much heat and sunshine, and then I would lie for hours in the
sun and recall the sunny days I had spent in Andalusia, and my thoughts
were continually reverting to Spain, and at last I remembered that the
Bible in Spain was still unfinished; whereupon I arose and said: 'This
loitering profiteth nothing,' and I hastened to my summer-house by the
side or the lake, and there I thought and wrote, and thought and wrote,
until I had finished the 'Bible in Spain.'"

Within a few weeks of the publication of the "Bible in Spain," Borrow's
name was in everyone's mouth. Attempts were made to "lionise" him; but
were met with his distinct disapproval, though it was always a pleasure
to him to be looked upon as a celebrity. To escape from the Mrs. Leo
Hunters of fashionable society, he almost immediately fled to the
Continent, where he went on another pilgrimage. Having journeyed through
Turkey, Albania, Hungary, and Wallachia, he again came home to Oulton,
and completed "Lavengro," which had been commenced almost as soon as the
manuscript of "The Bible in Spain" had left his hands. This book was
finished in the summer-house of his garden by the broad where most of his
future work was done, and was issued in 1851.

D