Of course you knew my intention of coming here, therefore you can
express no surprise at the name of the village. I have seen the Court
at a distance--a red-brick structure embosomed in pine woods--but as
yet I have not called on the old lady who lives there. I cannot very
well present myself in my character of a vagabond, as you may suppose;
and, moreover, this wild life is so delightful that I wish to keep to
myself as much as possible.
When I think of you dawdling in park and club, I pity you heartily. I,
too, have been in--shall I call it Arcady?--and suffered the ennui of
the season. Now I live, not in your artificial manner, but after a
hale and lusty fashion which precludes weariness. I rise with the
lark, and retire with the dicky birds. For the most part my bed is a
fur rug beside a roaring fire under the stars, and I am thoroughly
enjoying myself. This last statement appears extraordinary, but it is
precisely true.
I begin to think civilization is a mistake, and that a cultivated man
does not get so much out of his life as does the untutored savage.
This is a somewhat quixotic way of looking at things, I admit; but,
having tried both existences, I heartily pronounce in favour of the
latter. I have an appetite which Gargantua might envy; I feel the
blood rush through my veins; and I enjoy my life with a zest of which
you, puny club-lounger, can have no conception. Such primevalism suits
me, and I can well understand the fascination it has for so many men.
I protest, Jack, that I never truly appreciated the history of the
Scholar Gipsy till I read Arnold's poem by the light of my camp-fire.
You get at the inmost soul of the thing from such circumstance.
And talking about gipsies, I am at present fraternizing with a tribe
of genuine vagrants who have pitched their ragged tents close at hand.
When I go there and see their Eastern looks, I feel as though some
genie had transported me to an encampment of Bedouins in Arabia. My
location is in a dell almost hidden by overhanging trees, but on
occasions I descend through the pine woods to see my brother-vagrants
on the edge of the moor. Though I do not know a word of Romany, and am
clearly an alien, they receive me most amicably, which says much for
their innate good breeding. Were I but a proficient in their tongue,
no doubt they would call me "brother" and "Romany Rye," as their
grandparents did Borrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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