CHAPTER XXII

_THE BIBLE IN SPAIN_

In an admirable appreciation of our author, the one in which he gives the oft-quoted eulogy concerning him as 'the delightful, the bewitching, the never-sufficiently-to-be-praised George Borrow,' Mr. Birrell records the solace that may be found by small boys in the ambiguities of a title-page, or at least might have been found in it in his youth and in mine. In those days in certain Puritan circles a very strong line was drawn between what was known as Sunday reading, and reading that might be permitted on week-days. The Sunday book must have a religious flavour. There were magazines with that particular flavour, every story in them having a pious moral withal. Very closely watched and scrutinised was the reading of young people in those days and in those circles. Mr. Birrell, doubtless, speaks from autobiographical memories when he tells us of a small boy with whose friends _The Bible in Spain_ passed muster on the strength of its title-page. For Mr. Birrell is the son of a venerated Nonconformist minister; and perhaps he, or at least those who were of his household, had this religious idiosyncrasy. It may be that the distinction which pervaded the evangelical circles of Mr. Birrell's youth as to what were Sunday books, as distinct from books to be read on week-days, has disappeared. In any case think of the advantage of the boy of that generation who was able to handle a book with so unexceptionable a title as _The Bible in Spain_. His elders would succumb at once, particularly if the boy had the good sense to call their attention to the sub-title--'The Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula.' Nothing could be said by the most devout of seniors against so prepossessing a title-page.[155] But what of the boy who had thus passed the censorship? What a revelation of adventure was open to him! Perhaps he would skip the 'preachy' parts in which Borrow was doubtless sincere, although the sincerity has so uncertain a ring to-day. Here are five passages, for example, which do not seem to belong to the book:

In whatever part of the world I, a poor wanderer in the Gospel's cause, may chance to be

* * * * *

very possibly the fate of St. Stephen might overtake me; but does the man deserve the name of a follower of Christ who would shrink from danger of any kind in the cause of Him whom he calls his Master? 'He who loses his life for my sake shall find it,' are words which the Lord Himself uttered. These words were fraught with consolation to me, as they doubtless are to every one engaged in propagating the Gospel, in sincerity of heart, in savage and barbarian lands.

* * * * *

Unhappy land! not until the pure light of the Gospel has illumined thee, wilt thou learn that the greatest of all gifts is charity!

* * * * *

and I thought that to convey the Gospel to a place so wild and remote might perhaps be considered an acceptable pilgrimage in the eyes of my Maker. True it is that but one copy remained of those which I had brought with me on this last journey; but this reflection, far from discouraging me in my projected enterprise, produced the contrary effect, as I called to mind that, ever since the Lord revealed Himself to man, it has seemed good to Him to accomplish the greatest ends by apparently the most insufficient means; and I reflected that this one copy might serve as an instrument for more good than the four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine copies of the edition of Madrid.

* * * * *

I shall not detain the course of my narrative with reflections as to the state of a Church which, though it pretends to be founded on scripture, would yet keep the light of scripture from all mankind, if possible. But Rome is fully aware that she is not a Christian Church, and having no desire to become so, she acts prudently in keeping from the eyes of her followers the page which would reveal to them the truths of Christianity.

All this does not ring quite true, and in any case it is too much on the lines of 'Sunday reading' to please the small boy, who must, however, have found a thousand things in that volume that were to his taste--some of the wildest adventures, hairbreadth escapes, extraordinary meetings again and again with unique people--with Benedict Mol, for example, who was always seeking for treasure. Gypsies, bull-fighters, quaint and queer characters of every kind, come before us in rapid succession. Rarely, surely, have so many adventures been crowded into the same number of pages. Only when Borrow remembers, as he has to do occasionally, that he is an agent of the Bible Society does the book lose its vigour and its charm. We have already pointed out that the foundations of the volume were contained in certain letters written by Borrow during his five years in Spain to the secretaries of the Bible Society in London. The recent publication of these letters has revealed to us Borrow's methods. When he had settled down at Oulton he took down his notebooks, one of which is before me, but finding this was not sufficient, he asked the Bible Society for the loan of his letters to them.[156] Other letters that he hoped to use were not forthcoming, as the following note from Miss Gurney to Mrs. Borrow indicates:

To Mrs. George Borrow

EARLHAM, _12th June 1840._

DEAR MRS. BORROW,--I am sorry I cannot find any of Mr. Borrow's letters from Spain. I don't think we ever had any, but my brother is from home and I therefore cannot inquire of him. I send you the only two I can find. I am very glad he is going to publish his travels, which I have no doubt will be very interesting. It must be a pleasant object to assist him by copying the manuscripts. If I should visit Lowestoft this summer I shall hope to see you, but I have no immediate prospect of doing so. With kind regards to all your party, I am, Dear Mrs. Borrow, Yours sincerely,

C. GURNEY.[157]

The Bible Society applied to in the same manner lent Borrow all his letters to that organisation and its secretaries. Not all were returned. Many came to Dr. Knapp when he purchased the half of the Borrow papers that were sold after Borrow's death; the remainder are in my possession. It is a nice point, seventy years after they were written, as to whom they belong. In any case the Bible Society must have kept copies of everything, for when, in 1911, they came to publish the _Letters_[158] the collection was sufficiently complete. That publication revealed some interesting sidelights. It proved on the one hand that Borrow had drawn more upon his diaries than upon his letters, although he frequently reproduced fragments of his diaries in his letters. It revealed further the extraordinary frankness with which Borrow wrote to his employers. But the main point is in the discovery revealed to us that Borrow was not an artist in his letters. Borrow was never a good letter writer, although I think that many of the letters that appear for the first time in these pages will prove that his letters are very interesting as contributions to biography. If some of the letters that helped to make up _The Bible in Spain_ are interesting, it is because in them Borrow incorporated considerable fragments of anecdote and adventure from his notebooks. It is quite a mistake to assume, as does Dr. Knapp, that the 'Rev. and Dear Sir' at the head of a letter was the only variation. You will look in vain in the Bible Society correspondence for many a pearl that is contained in _The Bible in Spain_, and you will look in vain in _The Bible in Spain_ for many a sentence which concludes some of the original letters. In one case, indeed, a letter concludes with Heber's hymn--

'From Greenland's Icy Mountains,'

with which Borrow's correspondent must already have been sufficiently familiar. But Borrow could not be other than Borrow, and the secretaries of the Bible Society had plentiful matter with which to astonish them. The finished production, however, is a fascinating book. You read it again and it becomes still more entertaining. No wonder that it took the world by storm and made its author the lion of a season. 'A queer book will be this same _Bible in Spain_,' wrote Borrow to John Murray in August 1841, 'containing all my queer adventures in that queer country ... it will make two nice foolscap octavo volumes.'[159] It actually made three volumes, and Borrow was as irritated at Mr. Murray's delay in publishing as that publisher afterwards became at Borrow's own delay over _Lavengro_. The whole book was laboriously copied out by Mrs. Borrow. When this copy was sent to Mr. Murray, it was submitted to his 'reader,' who reported 'numerous faults in spelling and some in grammar,' to which criticism Borrow retorted that the copy was the work of 'a country amanuensis.' The book was published in December 1842, but has the date 1843 on its title-page.[160] In its three-volumed form 4750 copies of the book were issued by July 1843, after which countless copies were sold in cheaper one-volumed form. Success had at last come to Borrow. He was one of the most talked-of writers of the day. His elation may be demonstrated by his discussion with Dawson Turner as to whether he should leave the manuscript of _The Bible in Spain_ to the Dean and Chapter's Library at Norwich or to the British Museum, by his gratification at the fact that Sir Robert Peel referred to his book in the House of Commons, and by his pleasure in the many appreciative reviews which, indeed, were for the most part all that an ambitious author could desire. 'Never,' said _The Examiner_, 'was book more legibly impressed with the unmistakable mark of genius.' 'There is no taking leave of a book like this,' said the _Athenæum_. 'Better Christmas fare we have never had it in our power to offer our readers.'

The publication of _The Bible in Spain_ made Borrow famous for a time. Hitherto he had been known only to a small religious community, the coterie that ran the Bible Society. Even the large mass of people who subscribed to that Society knew its agent in Spain only by meagre allusions in the Annual Reports. Now the world was to talk about him, and he enjoyed being talked about. Borrow declared--in 1842--that the five years he passed in Spain were the most happy years of his existence. But then he had not had a happy life during the previous years, as we have seen, and in Russia he had a toilsome task with an added element of uncertainty as to the permanence of his position. The five years in Spain had plentiful adventure, and they closed in a pleasant manner. Yet the year that followed, even though it found him almost a country squire, was not a happy one. Once again the world did not want him and his books--not the _Gypsies of Spain_ for example. Seven weeks after publication it had sold only to the extent of some three hundred copies.[161] But the happiest year of Borrow's life was undoubtedly the one that followed the publication of _The Bible in Spain_. Up to that time he had been a mere adventurer; now he was that most joyous of beings--a successful author; and here, from among his Papers, is a carefully preserved relic of his social triumph:

To George Borrow, Esq., at Mr. Murray's, Bookseller, Albemarle Street.

4 CARLTON TERRACE, _Tuesday, 30th May._

The Prussian Minister and Madam Bunsen would be very happy to see Mr. Borrow to-morrow, Wednesday evening, about half past nine o'clock or later, when some German national songs will be performed at their house, which may possibly suit Mr. Borrow's taste. They hoped to have met him last night at the Bishop of Norwich's, but arrived there too late. They had already commissioned Lady Hall (sister to Madam Bunsen) to express to Mr. Borrow their wish for his acquaintance.

In a letter to his wife, of which a few lines are printed in Dr. Knapp's book, he also writes of this visit to the Prussian Minister, where he had for company 'Princes and Members of Parliament.' 'I was the star of the evening,' he says; 'I thought to myself, "what a difference!"'[162] The following letter is in a more sober key:

To Mrs. George Borrow, Oulton, Suffolk.

_Wednesday_, 58 JERMYN STREET.

DEAR CARRETA,--I was glad to receive your letter; I half expected one on Tuesday. I am, on the whole, very comfortable, and people are kind. I passed last Sunday at Clapham with Mrs. Browne; I was glad to go there for it was a gloomy day. They are now glad enough to ask me: I suppose I must stay in London through next week. I have an invitation to two grand parties, and it is as well to have something for one's money. I called at the Bible Society--all remarkably civil, Joseph especially so. I think I shall be able to manage with my own Dictionary. There is now a great demand for Morrison. Yesterday I again dined at the Murrays. There was a family party; very pleasant. To-morrow I dine with an old schoolfellow. Murray is talking of printing a new edition to sell for five shillings: those rascals, the Americans, have, it seems, reprinted it, and are selling it for _eighteen_ pence. Murray says he shall print ten thousand copies; it is chiefly wanted for the Colonies. He says the rich people and the libraries have already got it, and he is quite right, for nearly three thousand copies have been sold at 27s.[163] There is no longer the high profit to be made on books there formerly was, as the rascals abroad pirate the good ones, and in the present state of copyright there is no help; we can, however, keep the American edition out of the Colonies, which is something. I have nothing more to say save to commend you not to go on the water without me; perhaps you would be overset; and do not go on the bridge again till I come. Take care of Habismilk and Craffs; kiss the little mare and old Hen.

GEORGE BORROW.

The earliest literary efforts of Borrow in Spain were his two translations of St. Luke's Gospel--the one into Romany, the other into Basque. This last book he did not actually translate himself, but procured 'from a Basque physician of the name of Oteiza.'

FOOTNOTES:

[155] Yet one critic of Borrow--Jane H. Findlater, in the _Cornhill Magazine_, November 1899--actually says that '_The Bible in Spain_ was perhaps the most ill-advised title that a well-written book ever laboured under, giving, as it does, the idea that the book is a prolonged tract.'

[156] Borrow had really written a great deal of the book in Spain. The 'notebook' contained many of his adventures, and moreover on August 20, 1836, the _Athenæum_, published two long letters from him under the title of 'The Gypsies in Russia and in Spain,' opening with the following preliminary announcement:

We have been obligingly favoured with the following extracts from letters of an intelligent gentleman, whose literary labours, the least important of his life, we not long since highly praised, but whose name we are not at liberty, on this occasion, to make public. They contain some curious and interesting facts relating to the condition of this peculiar people in very distant countries.

The first letter is dated September 23, 1835, and gives an account of his experiences with the gypsies in Russia. The whole of this account he incorporated in _The Gypsies of Spain_. Following this there are two columns, dated Madrid, July 19, 1836, in which he gives an account of the gypsies in Spain. All the episodes that he relates he incorporated in _The Bible in Spain_. The two letters so plainly indicate that all the time Borrow was in Spain his mind was more filled with the subject of the gypsies than with any other question. He did his work well for the Bible Society no doubt, and gave them their money's worth, but there is a humorous note in the fact that Borrow should have utilised his position as a missionary--for so we must count him--to make himself so thoroughly acquainted with gypsy folklore and gypsy songs and dances as these two fragments by an 'intelligent gentleman' imply. It is not strange that under the circumstances Borrow did not wish that his name should be made public.

[157] This was Miss Catherine Gurney, who was born in 1776, in Magdalen Street, Norwich, and died at Lowestoft in 1850, aged seventy-five. She twice presided over the Earlham home. The brother referred to was Joseph John Gurney.

[158] _Letters of George Borrow to the British and Foreign Bible Society_. Published by direction of the Committee. Edited by T. H. Darlow. Hodder and Stoughton, 1911.

[159] Samuel Smiles: _A Publisher and his Friends_, vol. ii. p. 485.

[160] _The Bible in Spain; or The Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula_. By George Borrow, author of _The Gypsies of Spain_. In three volumes. London: John Murray, Albemarle St., 1843.

[161] Herbert Jenkins: _Life_, p. 341.

[162] Knapp's _Life_, vol. i. p. 398. In the _Annals of the Harford Family_, edited by Alice Harford (Westminster Press, 1909), there is an account of this gathering in a letter from J. Harford-Battersby to Louisa Harford. There was present 'the amusing author of _The Bible in Spain_, a man who is remarkable for his extraordinary powers as a linguist, and for the originality of his character, not to speak of the wonderful adventures he narrates, and the ease and facility with which he tells them. He kept us laughing a good part of breakfast time by the oddity of his remarks, as well as the positiveness of his assertions, often rather startling, and, like his books, partaking of the marvellous.'

[163] 4750 copies were sold in the three volume form in 1843, and a sixth and cheaper edition the same year sold 9000 copies.