h order." He is capable of
calling the eye the "orb of vision," and the moon "the beauteous
luminary." I quote a passage lest it should seem incredible:

"The moon had arisen when we mounted our horses to return to the village,
and the rays of the beauteous luminary danced merrily on the rushing
waters of the Tagus, silvered the plain over which we were passing, and
bathed in a flood of brightness the bold sides of the calcareous hill of
Villaluengo, the antique ruins which crowned its brow. . . ."

Description, taking him away from men and from his active self, often
lured him into this kind of thing. And, nevertheless, such is Borrow
that I should by no means employ a gentleman of refinement to go over
"The Bible in Spain" and cross out the like. It all helps in the total
of half theatrical and wholly wild exuberance and robustness. Another
minute contributory element of style is the Biblical phrasing. His home
and certainly his work for the Society had made him familiar with the
Bible. He quotes it several times in passages which bring him into
comparison, if not equality, with Jesus and with Paul. A little after
quoting, "Ride on, because of the word of righteousness," he writes: "I
repaired to the aqueduct, and sat down beneath the hundred and seventh
arch, where I waited the greater part of the day, _but he came not_,
_whereupon I arose and went into the city_." He is fond of "even,"
saying, for example, or making Judah Lib say, "He bent his way unto the
East, _even to Jerusalem_." The "beauteous luminary" vein and the
Biblical vein may be said to be inseparable from the long cloak, the
sombrero, the picturesque romance and mystery of Spain, as they appeared
to one for whom romance and mystery alike were never without pomp. But
with all his rant he is invariably substantial, never aerial, and he
chequers it in a Byronic manner with a sudden prose reference to bugs, or
a question, or a piece of dialogue.

His dialogue can hardly be over-praised. It is life-like in its effect,
though not in its actual phrases, and it breaks up the narrative and
description over and over again at the right time. What he puts into the
mouth of shepherds with whom he sits round the fire is more than twice as
potent as if it were in his own narrative; he varies the point of view,
and yet always without allowing himself to disappear from the scene--he,
the _senor_ traveller. These spoken words are, it is true, in Borrow's