Lavengro - George Borrow (nice books to read TXT) 📗

his deity. No more of his history is given; but does the reader think that God will permit that man to go to sleep on his third book, however extraordinary it may be? Assuredly not. God will not allow that man to rest till he has cured him to a certain extent of his selfishness, which has, however, hitherto been very useful to the world.

Then, again, in the tale of Peter Williams, is not the hand of Providence to be seen? This person commits a sin in his childhood, utters words of blasphemy, the remembrance of which, in after life, preying upon his imagination, unfits him for quiet pursuits, to which he seems to have been naturally inclined; but for the remembrance of that sin, he would have been Peter Williams the quiet, respectable Welsh farmer, somewhat fond of reading the ancient literature of his country in winter evenings, after his work was done. God, however, was aware that there was something in Peter Williams to entitle him to assume a higher calling; he therefore permits this sin, which, though a childish affair, was yet a sin, and committed deliberately, to prey upon his mind till he becomes at last an instrument in the hand of God, a humble Paul, the great preacher, Peter Williams, who, though he considers himself a reprobate and a castaway, instead of having recourse to drinking in mad desperation, as many do who consider themselves reprobates, goes about Wales and England preaching the word of God, dilating on his power and majesty, and visiting the sick and afflicted, until God sees fit to restore to him his peace of mind; which he does not do, however, until that mind is in a proper condition to receive peace, till it has been purified by the pain of the one idea which has so long been permitted to riot in his brain; which pain, however, an angel, in the shape of a gentle, faithful wife, had occasionally alleviated; for God is merciful even in the blows which He bestoweth, and will not permit anyone to be tempted beyond the measure which he can support. And here it will be as well for the reader to ponder upon the means by which the Welsh preacher is relieved from his mental misery: he is not relieved by a text from the Bible, by the words of consolation and wisdom addressed to him by his angel-minded wife, nor by the preaching of one yet more eloquent than himself; but by a quotation made by Lavengro from the life of Mary Flanders, cutpurse and prostitute, which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at the stall of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who had herself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though without any profit whatever. Should the reader be dissatisfied with the manner in which Peter Williams is made to find relief, the author would wish to answer, that the Almighty frequently accomplishes his purposes by means which appear very singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to observe that the manner in which that relief is obtained, is calculated to read a lesson to the proud, fanciful and squeamish, who are ever in a fidget lest they should be thought to mix with low society or to bestow a moment’s attention on publications which are not what is called of a perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the acquaintance of the old apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have had an opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders; and, consequently, of storing in a memory, which never forgets anything, a passage which contained a balm for the agonised mind of poor Peter Williams. The best medicines are not always found in the finest shops. Suppose, for example, if, instead of going to London Bridge to read, he had gone to Albemarle Street, and had received from the proprietors of the literary establishment in that very fashionable street, permission to read the publications on the tables of the saloons there, does the reader think he would have met any balm in those publications for the case of Peter Williams? does the reader suppose that he would have found Mary Flanders there? He would certainly have found that highly unobjectionable publication Rasselas, and the Spectator, or Lives of Royal and Illustrious Personages, but, of a surety, no Mary Flanders;348 so when Lavengro met with Peter Williams, he would have been unprovided with a balm to cure his ulcerated mind, and have parted from him in a way not quite so satisfactory as the manner in which he took his leave of him; for it is certain that he might have read Rasselas, and all the other unexceptionable works to be found in the library of Albemarle Street, over and over again, before he would have found any cure in them for the case of Peter Williams. Therefore the author requests the reader to drop any squeamish nonsense he may wish to utter about Mary Flanders, and the manner in which Peter Williams was cured.

And now with respect to the old man who knew Chinese, but could not tell what was o’clock. This individual was a man whose natural powers would have been utterly buried and lost beneath a mountain of sloth and laziness had not God determined otherwise. He had in his early years chalked out for himself a plan of life in which he had his own ease and self-indulgence solely in view; he had no particular bad passions to gratify, he only wished to lead an easy, quiet life, just as if the business of this mighty world could be carried on by innocent people fond of ease and quiet, or that Providence would permit innocent, quiet drones to occupy any portion of the earth and to cumber it. God had at any rate decreed that this