Lavengro; The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest — George Borrow

" ...]of the Indus or Oxus, but in Hyde Park, his foe being Big Ben Brain; and the dame of the oval face, olive complexion, and Grecian forehead, sitting in the dusky parlour in the solitary house at the end of the retired court shaded by lofty poplars? I pity 'the individual' whose task it should be to travel along the enchanted wake either of Lavengro in England or Don Jorge in Spain. Poor would be his part; no better than that of Arthur in 'The Bothie': - And it was told, the Piper narrating and Arthur correcting, Colouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture, He to a matter-of-fact still softening, paring, abating, He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal, He to the merest it-was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing, River to streamlet reducing, and fall to slope subduing: So it was told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur. George Borrow, like many another great man, was born in Norfolk, at East Dereham, in 1803, and at an early age began those rambles he has made famous, being carried about by his father, Captain Borrow, who was chiefly employed as a recruiting officer. The reader of Lavengro may safely be left to make out his own ...]."