The Life of George Borrow [206]
1880 Borrow sent for his solicitor from Lowestoft, and made his will, by which he bequeathed all his property, real and personal, to his stepdaughter Henrietta, devising that it should be held in trust for her by his friend Elizabeth Harvey. It was evidently Borrow's intention so to tie up the bequest that Dr MacOubrey could not in any way touch his wife's estate.
The end came suddenly. On the morning of 26th July 1881 Dr and Mrs MacOubrey drove into Lowestoft, leaving Borrow alone in the house. When they returned he was dead. Throughout his life Borrow had been a solitary, and it seems fitting that he should die alone. It has been urged against his stepdaughter that she disregarded Borrow's appeals not to be left alone in the house, as he felt himself to be dying. He may have made similar requests on other occasions; still, whatever the facts, it was strange to leave so old and so infirm a man quite unattended.
On 4th August the body was brought to London, and buried beside that of Mrs George Borrow in Brompton Cemetery. On the stone, which is what is known as a saddle-back, is inscribed:
IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF GEORGE HENRY BORROW, ESQ., WHO DIED JULY 26TH, 1881 (AT HIS RESIDENCE "OULTON COTTAGE, SUFFOLK") IN HIS 79TH YEAR. (AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE IN SPAIN, LAVENGRO--AND OTHER WORKS.) "IN HOPE OF A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION."
A fruitless effort was made by the late J. J. Colman of Carrow to purchase the whole of Borrow's manuscripts, library, and papers for the Carrow Abbey Library; but the price asked, a thousand pounds, was considered too high, and they passed into the possession of another. Eventually they found their way into the reverent hands of the man who subsequently made Borrow his hero, and who devoted years of his life to the writing of his biography--Dr W. J. Knapp.
It was Borrow's fate, a tragic fate for a man so proud, to outlive the period of his fame. Not only were his books forgotten, but the world anticipated his death by some seven or eight years. His was a curiously complex nature, one that seems specially to have been conceived by Providence to arouse enmity among the many, and to awaken in the hearts of the few a sterling, unwavering friendship. It is impossible to reconcile the accounts of those who hated him with those whose love and respect he engaged.
He was in sympathy with vagrants and vagabonds--a taste that was perhaps emphasised by the months he spent in preparing Celebrated Trials. If those months of hack work taught him sympathy with pariahs, it also taught him to write strong, nervous English.
He was one of the most remarkable characters of his century-- whimsical, eccentric, lovable, inexplicable; possessed of an odd, dry humour that sometimes failed him when most he needed it. He lived and died a stranger to the class to which he belonged, and was the intimate friend and associate of that dark and mysterious personage, Mr Petulengro. He hated his social equals, and admired Tamerlane and Jerry Abershaw. It has been said that he was born three centuries too late, and that he belonged to the age when men dropped mysteriously down the river in ships, later to return with strange stories and great treasure from the Spanish Main. Mr Watts-Dunton has said:-
"When Borrow was talking to people in his own class of life there was always in his bearing a kind of shy, defiant egotism. What Carlyle called the 'armed neutrality' of social intercourse oppressed him. He felt himself to be in the enemy's camp. In his eyes there was always a kind of watchfulness, as if he were taking stock of his interlocutor and weighing him against himself. He seemed to be observing what effect his words were having, and this attitude repelled people at first. But the moment he approached a gypsy on the heath, or a poor Jew in Houndsditch, or a homeless wanderer by the wayside, he became another man. He threw off the burden of restraint. The feeling of the 'armed neutrality' was left behind, and he seemed to be at last enjoying the only social intercourse that could give him
The end came suddenly. On the morning of 26th July 1881 Dr and Mrs MacOubrey drove into Lowestoft, leaving Borrow alone in the house. When they returned he was dead. Throughout his life Borrow had been a solitary, and it seems fitting that he should die alone. It has been urged against his stepdaughter that she disregarded Borrow's appeals not to be left alone in the house, as he felt himself to be dying. He may have made similar requests on other occasions; still, whatever the facts, it was strange to leave so old and so infirm a man quite unattended.
On 4th August the body was brought to London, and buried beside that of Mrs George Borrow in Brompton Cemetery. On the stone, which is what is known as a saddle-back, is inscribed:
IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF GEORGE HENRY BORROW, ESQ., WHO DIED JULY 26TH, 1881 (AT HIS RESIDENCE "OULTON COTTAGE, SUFFOLK") IN HIS 79TH YEAR. (AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE IN SPAIN, LAVENGRO--AND OTHER WORKS.) "IN HOPE OF A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION."
A fruitless effort was made by the late J. J. Colman of Carrow to purchase the whole of Borrow's manuscripts, library, and papers for the Carrow Abbey Library; but the price asked, a thousand pounds, was considered too high, and they passed into the possession of another. Eventually they found their way into the reverent hands of the man who subsequently made Borrow his hero, and who devoted years of his life to the writing of his biography--Dr W. J. Knapp.
It was Borrow's fate, a tragic fate for a man so proud, to outlive the period of his fame. Not only were his books forgotten, but the world anticipated his death by some seven or eight years. His was a curiously complex nature, one that seems specially to have been conceived by Providence to arouse enmity among the many, and to awaken in the hearts of the few a sterling, unwavering friendship. It is impossible to reconcile the accounts of those who hated him with those whose love and respect he engaged.
He was in sympathy with vagrants and vagabonds--a taste that was perhaps emphasised by the months he spent in preparing Celebrated Trials. If those months of hack work taught him sympathy with pariahs, it also taught him to write strong, nervous English.
He was one of the most remarkable characters of his century-- whimsical, eccentric, lovable, inexplicable; possessed of an odd, dry humour that sometimes failed him when most he needed it. He lived and died a stranger to the class to which he belonged, and was the intimate friend and associate of that dark and mysterious personage, Mr Petulengro. He hated his social equals, and admired Tamerlane and Jerry Abershaw. It has been said that he was born three centuries too late, and that he belonged to the age when men dropped mysteriously down the river in ships, later to return with strange stories and great treasure from the Spanish Main. Mr Watts-Dunton has said:-
"When Borrow was talking to people in his own class of life there was always in his bearing a kind of shy, defiant egotism. What Carlyle called the 'armed neutrality' of social intercourse oppressed him. He felt himself to be in the enemy's camp. In his eyes there was always a kind of watchfulness, as if he were taking stock of his interlocutor and weighing him against himself. He seemed to be observing what effect his words were having, and this attitude repelled people at first. But the moment he approached a gypsy on the heath, or a poor Jew in Houndsditch, or a homeless wanderer by the wayside, he became another man. He threw off the burden of restraint. The feeling of the 'armed neutrality' was left behind, and he seemed to be at last enjoying the only social intercourse that could give him