The Life of George Borrow by Herbert George Jenkins
page 55 of 597 (09%)
page 55 of 597 (09%)
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work, when considered as a whole, is strictly moral."
It must be confessed that Faustus does not err on the side of restraint. Many of its scenes might appear "lewd . . . and coarse" to anyone who for a moment allowed his mind to wander from the morality of "its general teaching." The attacks upon the lax morals of the priesthood must have proved particularly congenial to the translator. The more Borrow read his translations of Ab Gwilym, the more convinced he became of their merit and the profit they would bring to him who published them. The booksellers, however, with singular unanimity, declined the risk of introducing to the English public either Welsh or Danish ballads; and their translator became so shabby in consequence, that he refrained from calling upon his friend Arden, for whom he had always cherished a very real friendship. He began to lose heart. His energy left him and with it went hope. He was forced to review his situation. Authorship had obviously failed, and he found himself with no reasonable prospect of employment. There is no episode in Borrow's life that has so exercised the minds of commentators and critics as his account of the book he terms in Lavengro, The Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller. Some dismiss the whole story as apocryphal; others see in it a grain of truth distorted into something of vital importance; whilst there are a number of earnest Borrovians that accept the whole story as it is written. Dr Knapp has said that Joseph Sell "was not a book at all, and the author of it never said that it was." This was obviously an error, for the bookseller is credited with saying, |
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