onceal, or because he wished to regard certain chapters in his life as a
closed book.

III

Mention has been made of Borrow's feeling for the picaresque elements in
life. Give him a rogue, a wastrel, any character with a touch of the
untamed about him, and no one delighted him more in exhibiting the
fascinating points of this character and his own power in attracting
these rough, unsocial fellows towards him and eliciting their
confidences. Failing the genuine article, however, Borrow had quite as
remarkable a knack of giving even for conventional people and highly
respectable thoroughfares a roguish and adventurous air. Indeed it was
this sympathy with the picaresque side of life, this thorough
understanding of the gypsy temperament, that gives Borrow's genius its
unique distinction. Other characteristics, though important, are
subsidiary to this. Writers such as Stevenson have given us discursive
books of travel; other Vagabonds have shown an equal zest for the life of
the open air--Thoreau and Whitman, for example. But contact with the
gypsies revealed Borrow to himself, made him aware of his powers. It is
not so much a case of like seeking like, as of like seeking unlike.
Affinities there were, no doubt, between the Romany and the "Gorgio"
Borrow, but they are strong temperamental differences. On the one side
an easy, unconscious nonchalance, a natural vivacity; on the other a
morbid self-consciousness and a pronounced strain of melancholy. And it
was doubtless the contrast that appealed to him so strongly and helped
him to throw off his habitual moody reserve.

For beneath that unpromising reserve, as a few chosen friends knew, and
as the gypsies knew, there was a frank camaraderie that won their hearts.

Was he, one naturally asks, when once this barrier of reserve had been
broken down, a lovable man? Certainly he seems to have won the affection
of the gypsies; and the warm admiration of men like Mr. Watts-Dunton
points to an affirmative answer. And yet one hesitates. He attracted
people, that cannot be gainsaid; he won many affections, that also is
uncontrovertible. But to call a man lovable it is not sufficient that he
should win affection, he must retain it. Was Borrow able to do this?
There is the famous case of Isopel to answer in the negative. She loved
him, but she found him out. Was it not so? How else explain the gradual
change of demeanour, and the sad, disillusioned departure.