As the young gipsy's little holiday came to an end, I turned with
a sigh upon my way; and here, while still on the subject, may I
remark on the curious fact that probably Borrow has lived and
died without a single gipsy having heard of him, just as the
expertest anglers know nothing of Izaak Walton.

Has the British soldier, one wonders, yet discovered Rudyard
Kipling, or is the Wessex peasant aware of Thomas Hardy? It is
odd to think that the last people to read such authors are the
very people they most concern. For you might spend your life,
say, in studying the London street boy, and write never so
movingly and humourously about him, yet would he never know your
name; and though Whitechapel makes novelists, it does so without
knowing it,--makes them to be read in Mayfair,--just as it never
wears the dainty hats and gowns its weary little milliners and
seamstresses make through the day and night. It is Capital and
Labour over again, for in literature also we reap in gladness
what others have sown in tears.

And now, after these admirable reflections, I am about to make
such "art" as I can of another man's tragedy, as will appear in
the next chapter.



CHAPTER XIII


A STRANGE WEDDING