ment--said, that his appearance before the public as a devout
agent of the Bible Society excited a 'burst of laughter from all who
remembered the old Norwich days'; what matter if another 'scribbling
woman,' as Carlyle called such strident female writers as were in vogue
in mid-Victorian days--Frances Power Cobbe--thought him 'insincere';
these were unable to comprehend the abnormal heart of Borrow, so
entirely at one with Goethe in _Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre_:

Bleibe nicht am Boden heften,
Frisch gewagt und frisch hinaus!
Kopf und Arm, mit heitern Kraften,
Ueberall sind sie zu Haus;
Wo wir uns der Sonne freuen,
Sind wir jede Sorge los;
Dass wir uns in ihr zerstreuen,
Darum ist die Welt so gross.[92]

Here was Borrow's opportunity indeed. Verily I believe that it would
have been the same had it been a society for the propagation of the
writings of Defoe among the Persians. With what zest would Borrow have
undertaken to translate _Moll Flanders_ and _Captain Singleton_ into the
languages of Hafiz and Omar! But the Bible Society was ready to his
hand, and Borrow did nothing by halves. A good hater and a staunch
friend, he was loyal to the Bible Society in no half-hearted way, and
not the most pronounced quarrel with forces obviously quite out of tune
with his nature led to any real slackening of that loyalty. In the end a
portion of his property went to swell the Bible Society's funds.[93]

When Borrow became one of its servants, the Bible Society was only in
its third decade. It was founded in the year 1804, and had the names of
William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, and Zachary Macaulay on its first
committee. To circulate the authorised version of the Bible without note
or comment was the first ideal that these worthy men set before them;
never to the entire satisfaction of the great printing organisations,
which already had a considerable financial interest in such a
circulation. For long years the words 'Sold under cost price' upon the
Bibles of the Society excited mingled feelings among those interested in
the book trade[94]. The Society's first idea was limited to Bibles in
the English tongue. This was speedily modified. A Bible Society was set
up in Nuremberg to which money was granted by the parent organisation. A
Bible in the Welsh language was circulated broadcast through the
Principality, and so the movement grew. From the first it had one of its
principal centres in No