Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
_Lavengro: The Scholar--The Gipsy--The Priest_, by GEORGE BORROW
(published by Harper and Brothers, and George P. Putnam), is the title
of certain portions of the unique autobiography of the erratic author of
"The Bible in Spain." Among the many things which he professes to have
aimed at in this book, is the encouragement of charity, and free and
genial manners, as well as the exposure of humbug in various forms. The
incidents related are in accordance with this design. Borrow's early
life was filled with strange and startling adventures. With a taste from
the cradle for savage freedom, he never became subject to social
conventionalisms. His soul expanded in the free air, by the side of
running streams, and in the mountain regions of liberty. He received the
strongest impressions from all the influences of nature. He was led by a
strange magnetism to intimacy with the most eccentric characters. An
ample fund of material for an interesting narrative was thus provided.
He has made use of them in his own peculiar and audacious manner. A more
self-reliant writer is not to be found in English literature. He has no
view to the effect of his words on the reader, but aims only to tell the
story with which his mind teems. Hence his pages are as fresh as morning
dew, and often run riot with a certain gipsy wildness. His narrative has
little continuity. He piles up isolated incidents, which remain in his
memory, but with no regard to regular sequence or completeness. On this
account he is sometimes not a little provoking. He shuts off the stream
at the moment your curiosity is most strongly excited. But the joyous
freedom of his spirit, his consummate skill as a story teller, and the
startling eccentricities of his life, so little in accordance with the
tameness and dull proprieties of English society, give an elastic
vitality to his book, and make it of more interest to the reader than
almost any recent issue of the English press.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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