The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lavengro, by George Borrow, Illustrated by E.
J. Sullivan

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Title: Lavengro
The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest

Author: George Borrow

Release Date: May 15, 2006 [eBook #452]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAVENGRO***

Transcribed from the 1900 Macmillian and Co. Edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org

LAVENGRO
THE SCHOLAR, THE GYPSY, THE PRIEST

BY
GEORGE BORROW

ILLUSTRATED BY E. J. SULLIVAN

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY AUGUSTINE
BIRRELL, Q.C., M.P.

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1900

_All rights reserved_

_First published in_ "_Macmillan's Illustrated Standard Novel_," 1896
_Reprinted_ 1900

{picture:George Borrow: page0.jpg}

INTRODUCTION

The author of _Lavengro_, _the Scholar_, _the Gypsy_, _and the Priest_
has after his fitful hour come into his own, and there abides securely.
Borrow's books,--carelessly written, impatient, petulant, in parts
repellant,--have been found so full of the elixir of life, of the charm
of existence, of the glory of motion, so instinct with character, and
mood, and wayward fancy, that their very names are sounds of enchantment,
whilst the fleeting scenes they depict and the deeds they describe have
become the properties and the pastimes for all the years that are still
to be of a considerable fraction of the English-speaking race.

And yet I suppose it would be considered ridiculous in these fine days to
call Borrow a great artist. His fascination, his hold upon his reader,
is not the fascination or the hold of the lords of human smiles and
tears. They enthrall us; Borrow only bewitches. Isopel Berners, hastily
limned though she be, need fear comparison with no damsel that ever lent
sweetness to the stage, relish to rhyme, or life to novel. She can hold
up her head and take her own part amidst all the Rosalinds, Beatrices,
and Lucys that genius has created and memory can muster. But how she
came into existence puzzles us not a little. Was she summoned out of
nothingness by the creative fancy of Lavengro, or did