At this juncture, the sound of wheels is heard, and the girl has work
enough to extricate her bebee, and hurry her off, before a car arrives.
It is pulled up by the fallen tent. Lavengro hears a sound of voices;
but the language is neither Rommany nor English: it is Welsh.
The Samaritan--who immediately doctors Lavengro with oil, and relieves
him from the effect of the poison--is a Methodist preacher, who, in
company with his wife, pays an annual visit to certain stations, where
his ministry is greatly prized. The portrayment of this family--Peter,
and his helpmate Winifred--would have been nearly perfect, had Mr
Borrow not chosen to represent the man as haunted by the most horrible
and overwhelming remorse for an imaginary sin of childhood. The idea
is evidently taken from a melancholy passage in the life of Cowper,
who, as every one knows, was, owing to constitutional hypochondria,
the victim of hideous delusions. To select such themes wantonly and
unnecessarily, argues the worst possible taste. They ought not, on any
account, to have been introduced in a work of this kind; and Mr Borrow
must not be surprised if very grave objections should be urged against
his book, arising from the manner in which he has chosen to treat of so
awful and inscrutable a dispensation. It will be no apology to say that
the thing actually occurred, and that the writer is merely relating
what passed under his own observation. No man is bound to set down and
publish everything which he hears or sees. On the contrary, he is bound
to use a just discretion, in order that he may not profanely enter
on forbidden ground, or cruelly parade confessions and doubts which,
surely, were never intended for the public ear.
But, as we have already indicated, we have no belief in the reality of
the preacher's story. Even had the main incidents of the episode been
true, it is not only improbable, but incredible, that a person, such
as the preacher is represented to be, would have confided his history
to Lavengro, who had certainly few recommendations as a spiritual
adviser. We are thoroughly convinced that our hypothesis is correct,
and that Mr Borrow--whose birth-place was Dereham, the town in which
Cowper was buried--has been led, through a diseased and vicious taste,
to reproduce a picture which no one can contemplate without a shudder.
But enough on this painful subject. There is, however, a point of minor
morals which we must notice. Is Mr Borrow aware that the conduct of his
hero in concealing his knowledge of the Welsh language from the people
who had just rescued him from death, so as to induce them to utter
their most private thoughts and feelings within his hearing, was, to
say the least of it, a very ungrateful return for all their kindness?
It would appear not. However, we are tolerably certain that no one who
peruses the book will differ from us in this opinion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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