"for nothing in this world but old words and strange stories," was an
error into which his friend Mr Petulengro might well fall. The
mightiness of the man's pride could be covered only by a cloak of
assumed indifference. He must be independent of the world, not only
in material things, but in those intangible qualities of the spirit.
It was this that lost him Isopel Berners, whose love he awakened by a
strong right arm and quenched with an Armenian noun. Again, his
independence stood in the way of his happiness. A man is a king, he
seemed to think, and the attribute of kings is their splendid
isolation, their godlike solitude. If his Ego were lonely and crying
out for sympathy, Borrow thought it a moment for solitude, in which
to discipline his insurgent spirit. The "Horrors" were the result of
this self-repression. When they became unbearable, his spirit broke
down, the yearning for sympathy and affection overmastered him, and
he stumbled to his little horse in the desolate dingle, and found
comfort in the faithful creature's whinny of sympathy and its
affectionate licking of his hand. The strong man clung to his dumb
brute friend as a protection against the unknown horror--the
screaming horror that had gripped him.

One quality Borrow possessed in common with many other men of strange
and taciturn personality. He could always make friends when he
chose. Ostlers, scholars, farmers, gypsies; it mattered not one jot
to him what, or who they were. He could earn their respect and
obtain their good-will, if he wished to do so. He demanded of men
that they should have done things, or be capable of doing things.
They must know everything there was to be known about some one thing;
and the ostler, than whom none could groom a horse better, was worthy
of being ranked with the best man in the land. He demanded of every
man that he should justify his existence, and was logical in his