The Life of George Borrow [38]
those of another generation. Men who have overcome adverse conditions and achieved fame are not as a rule averse from publishing, or at least allowing to be known, the difficulties that they had to contend with. Borrow was in no sense of the word an ordinary man. He unquestionably suffered acutely during the years of failure, when it seemed likely that his life was to be wasted, barren of anything else save the acquirement of a score or more languages; keys that could open literary storehouses that nobody wanted to explore, to the very existence of which, in fact, the public was frigidly indifferent.
"Poor George . . . I wish he was making money . . . He works hard and remains poor," is the comment of his brother John, written in the autumn of 1830. To no small degree Borrow was responsible for his own failure, or perhaps it would be more just to say that he had been denied many of the attributes that make for success. His independence was aggressive, and it offended people. Even with the Welsh Preacher and his wife he refused to unbend.
"'What a disposition!'" Winifred had exclaimed, holding up her hands; "'and this is pride, genuine pride--that feeling which the world agrees to call so noble. Oh, how mean a thing is pride! never before did I see all the meanness of what is called pride!'" {91a}
This pride, magnificent as the loneliness of kings, and about as unproductive of a sympathetic view of life, always constituted a barrier in the way of Borrow's success. There were innumerable other obstacles: his choice of friends, his fierce denunciatory hatred of gentility, together with humbug, which he always seemed to confuse with it, the attacks of the "Horrors," his grave bearing, which no laugh ever disturbed, and, above all, his uncompromising hostility to the things that the world chose to consider excellent. The world in return could make nothing of a man who was a mass of moods and sensibilities, strange tastes and pursuits. It is not remarkable that he should fail to make the stir that he had hoped to make.
With the unerring instinct of a hypersensitive nature, he knew his merit, his honesty, his capacity--knew that he possessed one thing that eventually commands success, which "through life has ever been of incalculable utility to me, and has not unfrequently supplied the place of friends, money, and many other things of almost equal importance--iron perseverance, without which all the advantages of time and circumstance are of very little avail in any undertaking." {91b} It was this dogged determination that was to carry him through the most critical period of his life, enable him to earn the approval of those in whose interests he worked, and eventually achieve fame and an unassailable place in English literature.
CHAPTER VI: JANUARY-JULY 1833
It is not a little curious that no one should have thought of putting Borrow's undoubted gifts as a linguist to some practical use. He himself had frequently cast his eyes in the direction of a political appointment abroad. It remained, however, for the Rev. Francis Cunningham, {92a} vicar of Lowestoft, in Suffolk, to see in this young man against whom the curse of Babel was inoperative, a sword that, in the hands of the British and Foreign Bible Society, might be wielded with considerable effect against the heathen.
Borrow appears to have become acquainted with the Rev. Francis Cunningham through the Skeppers of Oulton Hall, near Lowestoft, of whom it is necessary to give some account. Edmund Skepper had married Anne Breame of Beetley, who, on the death of her father, came into 9000 pounds. She and her husband purchased the Oulton Hall estate, upon which Anne Skepper seems to have been given a five per cent. mortgage. There were two children of the marriage, Breame (born 1794) and Mary (born 1796). The boy inherited the estate, and the girl the mortgage, worth about 450 pounds per annum. Mary married Henry Clarke, a lieutenant in the Navy (26th July 1817), who within eight months died of consumption. Two months later Mrs
"Poor George . . . I wish he was making money . . . He works hard and remains poor," is the comment of his brother John, written in the autumn of 1830. To no small degree Borrow was responsible for his own failure, or perhaps it would be more just to say that he had been denied many of the attributes that make for success. His independence was aggressive, and it offended people. Even with the Welsh Preacher and his wife he refused to unbend.
"'What a disposition!'" Winifred had exclaimed, holding up her hands; "'and this is pride, genuine pride--that feeling which the world agrees to call so noble. Oh, how mean a thing is pride! never before did I see all the meanness of what is called pride!'" {91a}
This pride, magnificent as the loneliness of kings, and about as unproductive of a sympathetic view of life, always constituted a barrier in the way of Borrow's success. There were innumerable other obstacles: his choice of friends, his fierce denunciatory hatred of gentility, together with humbug, which he always seemed to confuse with it, the attacks of the "Horrors," his grave bearing, which no laugh ever disturbed, and, above all, his uncompromising hostility to the things that the world chose to consider excellent. The world in return could make nothing of a man who was a mass of moods and sensibilities, strange tastes and pursuits. It is not remarkable that he should fail to make the stir that he had hoped to make.
With the unerring instinct of a hypersensitive nature, he knew his merit, his honesty, his capacity--knew that he possessed one thing that eventually commands success, which "through life has ever been of incalculable utility to me, and has not unfrequently supplied the place of friends, money, and many other things of almost equal importance--iron perseverance, without which all the advantages of time and circumstance are of very little avail in any undertaking." {91b} It was this dogged determination that was to carry him through the most critical period of his life, enable him to earn the approval of those in whose interests he worked, and eventually achieve fame and an unassailable place in English literature.
CHAPTER VI: JANUARY-JULY 1833
It is not a little curious that no one should have thought of putting Borrow's undoubted gifts as a linguist to some practical use. He himself had frequently cast his eyes in the direction of a political appointment abroad. It remained, however, for the Rev. Francis Cunningham, {92a} vicar of Lowestoft, in Suffolk, to see in this young man against whom the curse of Babel was inoperative, a sword that, in the hands of the British and Foreign Bible Society, might be wielded with considerable effect against the heathen.
Borrow appears to have become acquainted with the Rev. Francis Cunningham through the Skeppers of Oulton Hall, near Lowestoft, of whom it is necessary to give some account. Edmund Skepper had married Anne Breame of Beetley, who, on the death of her father, came into 9000 pounds. She and her husband purchased the Oulton Hall estate, upon which Anne Skepper seems to have been given a five per cent. mortgage. There were two children of the marriage, Breame (born 1794) and Mary (born 1796). The boy inherited the estate, and the girl the mortgage, worth about 450 pounds per annum. Mary married Henry Clarke, a lieutenant in the Navy (26th July 1817), who within eight months died of consumption. Two months later Mrs