o the highway and the dingle and the picturesque group of
moochers and gipsies enshrined for ever in the pages of "Lavengro." The
central portion of this marvellous composition is occupied by the Dingle
episode, in which Lavengro (the "word-master," Borrow's gipsy name for
himself) is revealed to us in conflict with "the flaming Tinman" and in
colloquy with his Romany friend, Jasper Petulengro, with a subtle
papistical propagandist, "the man in black," with the typical gipsy chi,
Ursula, and with the peerless Isopel Berners. His account of his
relations with her we take to be strictly and almost literally accurate.
He was powerfully attracted by the magnanimity of spirit no less than by
the physical charm of this Brynhildic damsel, tall, straight, and blonde,
with loose-flowing flaxen hair, and with a carriage, especially of the
neck and shoulders, which reminded the postilion of a certain marchioness
of his acquaintance. But Borrow was of a cold temperament, a despiser
and mistruster of young women, whom he regarded primarily as invaluable
repositories of nursery lore, folk-song, tradition, and similar toys,
about which his male friends were apt to be reticent. The attraction was
so strong that he had serious thoughts of emigrating with "the beauteous
Queen of the Dingle," but he dallied with the idea with characteristic
waywardness until it was too late. He sought to postpone awkward
decisions, to divert himself and amuse Isopel by making his charmer learn
Armenian--the language which he happened at the time to be studying.
Isopel bore with it for some time, but the imposition of the verb "to
love" in Armenian convinced her that the word-master was not only insane,
but also inhuman. Love-making and Armenian do not go well together, and
Belle could not feel that the man who proposed to conjugate the verb "to
love" in Armenian was master of his intentions in plain English. It was
even so. The man of tongues lacked speech wherewith to make manifest his
passion; the vocabulary of the word-master was insufficient to convince
the workhouse girl of one of the plainest meanings a man can well have.
When the distracted Borrow had reached the decision that it was high time
to give over his "mocking and scoffing," and returned with this resolve
to the dingle, Isopel Berners had quitted it, never to return. She ran
away to the nearest sea-port, and took shipping to America. Lavengro
with some anguish steeled his heart agai