GEORGE BORROW

A SERMON PREACHED INNORWICH CATHEDRAL ON:: :: JULY 6, 1913 :: ::

BYH. C. BEECHING, D. D. , D. LITT. DEAN OF NORWICH

LONDON_JARROLD & SONS_PUBLISHERS

 "As for me, I would seek unto God, which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number. "--_Job_ _v. _ 8. 

You may desire some explanation of why we in this Cathedral, have thoughtit right to take part with the city in the public commemoration of GeorgeBorrow. It is not, of course, merely because he was a devoted lover ofour ancient house, though for that we are not ungrateful. Nor again isit merely because he was for the most active years of his life a zealousservant of the Bible Society; and our Church has taken a special interestin that society since the day when Bishop Bathurst, first of hisepiscopal brethren, appeared upon its platforms side by side with JosephJohn Gurney. Nor again is it merely because he was an accomplished manof letters. Religion and literature indeed have much that is common intheir purpose. The Church exists to propagate a certain interpretationof the world and human life. Literature also exists to interpret life, and the great literatures of the world have never in theirinterpretations shown themselves antagonistic to religion; on thecontrary, they have always tended to discover more and more elements ofpermanent value in human life, confirming the Church's message of itsDivine origin and destiny. But, unhappily, there have always been, andare still, men of letters whom the Church cannot honour, because theirbooks, although technically meritorious, take a view of life which is inour judgment against good morals, or in some other way mischievous. If, then, we in this Mother Church claim our share in the commemoration ofGeorge Borrow, it is because he was, as we think, a true seer andinterpreter; because he opened to us fresh springs of delight in thenatural world; because he aroused new and living interest in the lives ofmen of many kindreds and tongues; and because he held up to our ownnation an ideal of conduct which could not but benefit those whom itattracted. 

Let me, as shortly as I can, remind you of some characteristics of thatideal. 

Every reader of the Old Testament is familiar with the two great typeswhich the early Israelitish civilisation sets before us again and againin Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Esau and Jacob--the contrast of thewild and vagabond hunter and the "plain man, dwelling in tents. " Thesetypes as they appear in the Bible have in them a characteristicallySemitic element, but they have still more of our common humanity. Weobserve the two types among our own children, and it is a contrast thatinterests us all. Our affections perhaps go out to the romantic Esaurather than to his business-like brother; while at the same time werecognise that the future of civilisation must lie not with the child ofimpulse, but with him who can forecast the future and rank somethinghigher than his momentary whim. It was this fundamental contrast thatwas so interesting to Borrow. He studied it in the cities and in thewildernesses of this and many other lands; and because he studied it hewas not content to accept the easy verdict of civilisation that findsnothing but profanity in Esau, or the equally easy paradox of a return-to-nature philosophy, which finds all virtue in the noble savage. Borrowstudied Esau in his wandering life with interested eyes, and won hisconfidence and a glimpse of his secret; and he studied Jacob in hiscounting house and workshop with no less understanding, if with a lessdegree of sympathy; and then he exhibited to his countrymen an idealwhich at the time vexed and disquieted them, because there were elementsin it drawn from both. 

Look first at those which he drew from his intercourse with the gipsies. He was puzzled by the problem of their wonderful persistence. What couldbe its cause? Their faults were proverbs. They lived by drawing foolsinto a circle and cheating them. Stealing and lying were firstprinciples in their code of life. And yet because Borrow held thatNature did not forgive faults, much less allow men to profit by them, hecould not but ask whether those gipsies were so thoroughly vicious as wassupposed. One day, in a conversation with a gipsy girl under a hedge--oneof the strangest talks in the chronicle of literature--he elicited thefact that domestic honour was held among them to be a primary law, andfemale unchastity an unpardonable offence. And he left that conversationon record for our admonition. That, you will say, is no new ideal toEnglish women. As an ideal, no. But our English practice is somethingvery different. And we have lived to see literature challenge even theideal. 

And then there was the secret, an open one indeed, but hidden from manyEnglishmen of Borrow's generation, though it had been recently proclaimedby the gentle and thoughtful poet who lay buried in Borrow's native townof Dereham, that though civilisation arose from life in cities, yet thejoy of life was apt to escape the city liver. The vagabond gipsy hadsomething which man was the better for having, a delight in the sun andair and wind and rain. We in Norwich are not likely to forget thosemagical words put into the mouth of the gipsy on Mousehold Heath, "There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life isvery sweet, brother. " Allied with this love of nature was a keensatisfaction in manly exercises, walking, riding, boxing, swimming, whichBorrow contrasted somewhat scornfully with the baser sports of dogfighting and cock fighting, then in vogue among gentlemen. And as aconsequence of this love of the open air and the open country Borrowfound in the gipsies a sense of freedom and independence, and so a self-respect, which he compared unfavourably with the mingled arrogance andservility of many city-bred people. 

Here then we have some of the elements of the ideal, largely drawn fromthe despised gipsies, which Borrow held up before his generation. Hedoes not indeed promulgate it as the whole duty of man, though we whohave learned the lesson may think he is apt to over-emphasise it. Hedoes not ignore other qualities of manliness. He holds that from theroot of a self-respecting freedom, if the environment be but favourable, as with the gipsies it was not, other manly qualities will spring. Fromthe strength of self-respect should spring the courage of truthfulness, and justice, and tenderness, and perseverance. On the love of truth andjustice I need not dwell; they are conspicuous in every page that Borrowwrote. Perseverance is still more emphasised, because it was the maincontribution of Jacob to the human ideal, the quality most lacking inEsau. Tenderness may seem to be less evident; and I know it is a commonopinion that Borrow's ideal of life was too self-absorbed to allow ofmuch sympathy with others. I think this view is mistaken. There wasundoubtedly a strong stress laid on the duty of protecting one's own lifeand personality from outside influence, and a corresponding stress on theduty of respect for the independence of others; but where there was aclaim, whether of blood, or friendship, or need, Borrow's ideal admittedit to the full. I have wished to confine myself this morning to theideal of conduct which Borrow offers us in his books, because it was aconscious and reasoned ideal, and he wrote to propagate it. The questionhow far he himself attained to his own standard we are right in passingby unless there was any conspicuous contrast between his theory and hispractice. But there was no such contrast. So far as our informationgoes, Borrow lived by his ideal resolutely. His truthfulness andperseverance and love of justice cannot be questioned; and on the pointof tenderness it is not those who knew him best--his mother, or his wife, or his friends--who have found him wanting. 

Let me pass on to indicate how this ideal connected itself with religion. The fundamental dogma of Borrow's religion was the providence of God. Sofar as I know, he did not formulate his notion of the purpose of theworld; he accepted the view of St. Paul, that the creation is moving tosome "divine event"; and that within the great scheme there arenumberless subservient ends which man is being urged by Divine admonitionto fulfil. Such admonitions come to men in many ways; we speak of themas modes of inspiration; and even those who question the inspiration ofprophets do not refuse the word in speaking of poets and musicians. Borrow did not question prophetic inspiration in the past, because hebelieved in it as a present fact. He believed that to the man who byprayer kept himself in touch with the Divine Spirit intimations werevouchsafed of the Divine will, which brought clear light into the darkplaces of life. He somewhat shocked the good but precise secretary ofthe Bible Society by declaring in a letter from Spain that he had been"very passionate in prayer during the last two or three days, " and inconsequence, as he thought, saw his way "with considerable clearness": onanother occasion, by saying that he was "what the world calls exceedinglysuperstitious" because he had changed some plan in consequence of adream; and again by saying, "My usual wonderful good fortune accompaniedme. " For the last expression he apologised; but, whatever the particularexpression used, there can be no doubt that Borrow was a firm believer inwhat our fathers called "particular providences, " "leadings of the DivineSpirit. " He believed, for example, that he was doing the will of God incirculating the Bible, and he also believed that God made his way plainfor so doing. We have known since Borrow another great Englishman whoheld a similar faith, Charles Gordon; and the lives of both supply somany instances of what look like acts of special protection, that thequestion will present itself to the student of their lives whether theremay not be some such connexion between faith and miracle, as our Saviourasserted. At any rate, we shall never understand Borrow if we excludefrom our notion of religion the idea of the miraculous, meaning by thatword not the contravention of natural law, but the providential guidanceof events. 

There is one special side of this doctrine of Providence which must bereferred to specially, because Borrow himself calls attention to it inthe curious commentary which he annexed to "The Romany Rye"; the doctrineso familiar to the last generation in the poems of Browning, thattrouble, to which "man is born, as the sparks fly upward, " is ordained bythe Creator as a stimulus to endeavour, because "where least man suffers, longest he remains. " Some of you may remember that he argues in thatappendix that the old man who had learnt Chinese to distract his mindwould have played but a sluggard's part in life if no affliction hadbefallen him, since he had never taken the pains to learn how to tell thetime from a clock. "Nothing but extreme agony, " says Borrow, "could haveinduced such a man to do anything useful. " And every one will recall thepassage in "Lavengro" where he speaks of the fit of horrors that attackedhis hero, may we not say himself, when recovering from an illness. "Inthe recollection and prospect of such woe, " he asks, "Is it not lawful toexclaim, 'Better that I had never been born'"? And he replies, "Fool, for thyself thou wast not born, but to fulfil the inscrutable decrees ofthy Creator; and how dost thou know that this dark principle is not, after all, thy best friend; that it is not that which tempers the wholemass of thy corruption? It may be, for what thou knowest, the mother ofwisdom and of great works, it is the dread of the horror of the nightthat makes the pilgrim hasten on his way. When thou feelest it nigh, letthy safety word be 'Onward!' If thou tarry, thou art overwhelmed. Courage! Build great works; 'tis urging thee. "

In the passage just quoted Borrow speaks of God's "inscrutable" decrees. After sitting as a young man at the feet of William Taylor and learningfrom him some philosophy and much scepticism, he had come back to the oldHebrew idea that in religion reverence was the beginning of wisdom. Thisdid not mean that he had discarded Western science, or put a bridle uponhis own insatiable curiosity. No man was more ready to learn what couldanyhow or anywhere be learned. It meant that when all had been learnedthat science could teach, the really vital questions remained stillwithout an answer, because natural science can throw no light on whatnature itself really is. The only clue within our reach to that firstand last problem lay, in his judgment, with the simple-hearted and lowly-minded, those in whom this wonderful world still aroused wonder. In thuscalling to the soul of man not to lose its power of wonder, Borrow is insympathy with the deepest thought of our time. 

 For ah! how surely, How soon and surely will disenchantment come, When first to herself she boasts to walk securely, And drives the master spirit away from his home; Seeing the marvellous things that make the morning Are marvels of every day, familiar, and some Have lost with use, like earthly robes, their adorning, As earthly joys the charm of a first delight, And some are fallen from awe to neglect and scorning. {12}

Let us say then with the ancient seer: "As for me, I would seek unto God;which doeth great things and unsearchable, marvellous things withoutnumber. "

Footnotes:

{12} Robert Bridges, _Prometheus the Firegiver_, 824.