t. Whether or no he
"satisfied his roving demon for a time," as Mr. Walling puts it, is
unknown. What is known is that he did not make this journey a subject of
mystery or boasting, and that he stayed in England thereafter. He had
tasted comfort and celebrity; he had a wife; he was an older man, looking
weak in the eyes by the time he was fifty; and he had no motive for
travel except discontent with staying at home. He tried to get away
again on a mission to the Convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, to
acquire manuscripts for the British Museum; but he failed, and the
manuscripts went to St. Petersburg instead of Bloomsbury.

In 1843 Henry Wyndham Phillips, R.A., painted his portrait. He was a
restless sitter until the painter remarked: "I have always heard, Mr.
Borrow, that the Persian is a very fine language; is it so?" "It is,
Phillips; it is." "Perhaps you will not mind reciting me something in
the Persian tongue?" said Phillips. "Dear me, no; certainly not." And
then "Mr. Borrow's face lit up with the light that Phillips longed for,
and he kept declaiming at the top of his voice, while the painter made
the most of his opportunity." {205} According to the story, Phillips had
the like success with Turkish and Armenian, and successfully stilled
Borrow's desire "to get out into the fresh air and sunlight."

In the same way, writing and literary ambition kept Borrow from travel.
He stayed at home and he wrote "Lavengro," where, speaking of the rapid
flow of time in the years of his youth, he says: "Since then it has
flagged often enough; sometimes it has seemed to stand entirely still:
and the reader may easily judge how it fares at the present, from the
circumstance of my taking pen in hand, and endeavouring to write down the
passages of my life--a last resource with most people." At one moment he
got satisfaction from professing scorn of authorship, at another,
speaking of Byron, he reflected:

"Well, perhaps after all it was better to have been mighty Milton in his
poverty and blindness--witty and ingenious Butler consigned to the tender
mercies of bailiffs, and starving Otway; they might enjoy more real
pleasure than this lordling; they must have been aware that the world
would one day do them justice--fame after death is better than the top of
fashion in life. They have left a fame behind them which shall never
die, whilst this lordling--a time will come when he will be out of
fashion and forgotte