proves it--when we are disgusted at the idea of feeding on many things
which mere association and superstition render revolting. But the old
fashioned gipsy has none of these qualms--he is haunted by no ghost of
society--save the policeman, he knows none of its terrors. Whatever is
edible he eats, except horse-meat; wherever there is an empty spot he
sleeps; and the man who can do this devoid of shame, without caring a pin
for what the world says--nay, without even knowing that he does not care,
or that he is peculiar--is independent to a degree which of itself
confers a character which is not easy to understand.

I grew up as a young man with great contempt for Helvetius, D'Holbach,
and all the French philosophers of the last century, whose ideal man was
a perfect savage; but I must confess that since I have studied gipsy
nature, my contempt has changed into wonder where they ever learned in
their _salons_ and libraries enough of humanity to theorise so boldly,
and with such likeness to truth, as they did. It is not merely in the
absolute out-of-doors independence of the old-fashioned Gipsy, freer than
any wild beast from care for food, that his resemblance to a
"philosopher" consists, or rather to the ideal man, free from imaginary
cares. For more than this, be it for good or for evil, the real Gipsy
has, unlike all other men, unlike the lowest savage, positively no
religion, no tie to a spiritual world, no fear of a future, nothing but a
few trifling superstitions and legends, which in themselves indicate no
faith whatever in anything deeply seated. It would be difficult, I
think, for any highly civilised man, who had not studied Thought deeply,
and in a liberal spirit, to approach in the least to a rational
comprehension of a real Gipsy mind. During my life it has been my
fortune to become intimate with men who were "absolutely" or "positively"
free-thinkers--men who had, by long study and mere logic, completely
freed themselves from any mental tie whatever. Such men are rare; it