efore in his memory
the importance which his nature had decreed for them, and among these
things no doubt he exercised a conscious choice. Behind all was the
inexplicable singular force which, Celtic or not, gave the "dream"-like,
illusory quality which pervades the books in spite of more positive and
arresting qualities sometimes apparently hostile to this one. It is true
that his books have in them many rude or simple characters of Gypsies,
jockeys, and others, living chiefly by their hands, and it is part of the
conscious and unconscious object of the books to exalt them. But these
people in Borrow's hands seldom or never give the impression of coarse
solid bodies well endowed with the principal appetites. There is, for
example, a famous page where the young doubting Borrow listens to a
Wesleyan preacher and wishes that his life had been like that man's, and
then comes upon his Gypsy friend after a long absence. He asks the Gypsy
for news and hears of some deaths:

"'What is your opinion of death, Mr. Petulengro?' said I, as I sat down
beside him

"'My opinion of death, brother, is much the same as that in the old song
of Pharaoh, which I have heard my grandam sing--

"Canna marel o manus chivios ande puv,
Ta rovel pa leste o chavo ta romi."

When a man dies, he is cast into the earth, and his wife and child sorrow
over him. If he has neither wife nor child, then his father and mother,
I suppose; and if he is quite alone in the world, why, then, he is cast
into the earth, and there is an end of the matter.'

"'And do you think that is the end of man?'

"'There's an end of him, brother, more's the pity.'

"'Why do you say so?'

"'Life is sweet, brother.'

"'Do you think so?'

"'Think so!--There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun,
moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on
the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?'

"'I would wish to die--'

"'You talk like a gorgio--which is the same as talking like a fool--were
you a Rommany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die, indeed!--A Rommany
Chal would wish to live for ever!"

"'In sickness, Jasper?'

"'There's the sun and stars, brother.'

"'In blindness, Jasper?'

"'There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I
would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put on
the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be