of fifteen, and two schoolfellows lived for three days in a cave at Acle
when they ought to have been at school. But his companions were the same
in both stories, and "three days in a cave" is a very modest increase for
such a story in half-a-century. It was only fifteen years later that
Borrow took revenge upon the truth and told the story of his exile with
the Gypsies.

{picture: The Grammar School Norwich. Photo: Jarrold & Sons, Norwich:
page12.jpg}

Probably every man has more or less clearly and more or less constantly
before his mind's eye an ideal self which the real seldom more than
approaches. This ideal self may be morally or in other ways inferior,
but it remains the standard by which the man judges his acts. Some men
prove the existence of this ideal self by announcing now and then that
they are misunderstood. Or they do things which they afterwards condemn
as irrelevant or uncharacteristic and out of harmony. Borrow had an
ideal self very clearly before him when he was writing, and it is
probable that in writing he often described not what he was but what in a
better, larger, freer, more Borrovian world he would have actually
become. He admired the work of his Creator, but he would not affect to
be satisfied with it in every detail, and stepping forward he snatched
the brush and made a bolder line and braver colour. Also he ardently
desired to do more than he ever did. When in Spain he wrote to his
friend Hasfeldt at St. Petersburg, telling him that he wished to visit
China by way of Russia or Constantinople and Armenia. When indignant
with the Bible Society in 1838 he suggested retiring to "the Wilds of
Tartary or the Zigani camps of Siberia." He continued to suggest China
even after his engagement to Mrs. Clarke.