Possibly not everyone who tries to read _Lavengro_ will care for it very much. As people say, it is not a book that belongs to everybody. Yet _Lavengro_ is a great book, or at least a remarkable one, and numbers of people find much enjoyment in it. What those who read _Lavengro_ value in it most is a sense which it possesses of life under the open sky. In _Lavengro_ we have as our companions the winds and the stars. Its characters have no fixed place of abode, but are always ready to travel on the high road which winds away into the distance inviting us to follow it. There is something in almost all of us which answers to the call of the open sky and the winding road. Even if we have no intention of living that kind of life, a gypsy's life, we like to read about it. {77} _Lavengro_ is a book about the gypsies. The word Lavengro is romany, or gypsy, and it means word-master. George Borrow had the gift of learning languages easily and knew many different languages. The gypsies therefore called him _Lavengro_. There is a famous passage in the book, which you will find at the very end of chapter twenty-five, that gathers up the charm of the narrative, or story, in a few words. Here it is: "Life is sweet, brother." "Do you think so?" "Think so!--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 is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?" "I would wish to die--" "You talk like a gorgio--which is the same as talking like a fool--were you a Romany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die, indeed!--A Romany Chal would wish to live for ever!" "In sickness, Jasper?" "There's the sun and the stars, brother." "In blindness, Jasper?" "There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live forever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother!" Jasper Petulengro, the chief of the Smith tribe of gypsies, and Lavengro, who are the two men speaking, were skilled boxers and liked to box with each other. {78} Notice how sharply we can distinguish the difference between the points of view of the two men. Lavengro, or Borrow, wants in the future something better and more perfect than he has in his present life, but Jasper loves everything as it is, and wants to live the same kind of life always. There is truth in both points of view. We all long for perfection. But, certainly, Jasper is right when he sees and feels the deep, intense beauty and ecstasy which live in nature and which we feel in the wind on the heath, the sky, the stars, the sun and the moon. This brief quotation will give you an idea of Borrow's story at its best. Even if you have read no more than the ending of chapter twenty-five, you will know something of _Lavengro_, which is a book of adventure, and yet has a very distinct character of its own.