The resumption of a story after an interval of over six years, with appendages so extravagant, whether we regard their tenor or their length, and with an indifference so sublime to the popular desire that he should get along with his personal narrative, was hardly calculated to conciliate critical opinion; but it had one capital effect. It drew from Whitwell Elwin, himself a Norfolk man, and a literary critic of the widest grasp and knowledge, this remarkable testimony: that far from exaggerating such incidents as were drawn from his own experience (not a few, as he himself could verify), Borrow's descriptions were rather _within the truth than beyond it_. "However picturesquely they may be drawn, the lines are invariably those of nature. . . . There can be no doubt that the larger part, and possibly the whole of the work, is a narrative of actual occurrences." Here, then, is the heart of the mystery, or of the mystery that is apparent; the phenomenon is due primarily to the fact that Borrow's book is so abnormally true as regards the matter, while in manner of presentation it is so strikingly original. There are superficial traces, no doubt, of not a few writers of the eighteenth century. In some of his effects Borrow reproduces Sterne: essentially Sternean, for instance, is the interview between the youthful author and the experienced Mr. Taggart. "Well, young gentleman," said Taggart to me one morning when we chanced to be alone, a few days after the affair of cancelling, "how do you like authorship?" "I scarcely call authorship the drudgery I am engaged in," said I. "What do you call authorship?" said Taggart. "I scarcely know," said I; "that is, I can scarcely express what I think it." "Shall I help you out?" said Taggart, turning round his chair, and looking at me. "If you like," said I. "To write something grand," said Taggart, taking snuff; "to be stared at--lifted on people's shoulders." "Well," said I, "that is something like it." Taggart took snuff. "Well," said he, "why don't you write something grand?" "I have," said I. "What?" said Taggart. "Why," said I, "there are those ballads." Taggart took snuff. "And those wonderful versions from Ab Gwilym." Taggart took snuff again. "You seem to be very fond of snuff," said I, looking at him angrily. Taggart tapped his box. "Have you taken it long?" "Three-and-twenty years." "What snuff do you take?" "Universal Mixture." "And you find it of use?" Taggart tapped his box. "In what respect?" said I. "In many--there is nothing like it to get a man through; but for snuff I should scarcely be where I am now." "Have you been long here?" "Three-and-twenty years." "Dear me," said I; "and snuff brought you through? Give me a pinch--pah, I don't like it," and I sneezed. "Take another pinch," said Taggart. "No," said I; "I don't like snuff."