Part 32 (1/2)

As regards religion, Burton had in early life, as we have seen, leaned to Sufism; and this faith influenced him to the end For a little while he coquetted with Roman Catholicism; but the journey to Mecca practically turned hie he called hinostic, and, as we have seen, he was always so her ion, and picked out its pear to practise it” The state of his mind in 1880 is revealed by his Kasidah Fronostic His wife pressed him in season and out of season to become a Catholic, and, as we shall see, he did at last so far succun a paper in which, to use Lady Burton's expression, ”he abjured the Protestant heresy,” and put himself in line with the Catholics [522] But, as his opinions do not seeed one iota, this ”profession of faith” could have had little actual value He listened to the prayers that his wife said with hiion in other persons

Thus, he praised the Princess of Wales [523] for hearing her children say their ”little prayers,” [524] every night at her knee, and he is credited with the reion ion is unthinkable” Priests, cere cy at ”scapularies and other sacred things” He delighted to compare Romanism unfavourably with Mohammedanism Thus he would say sarcastically, ”Moslems, like Catholics, pray for the dead; but as they do the praying the a priest to do it, their prayers, of course, are of no avail” He also objected to the Church of Rome because, to use his oords, ”it has added a fourth person to the Trinity” [525] He said he found ”four great Protestant Soainst St Peter's Hebraisainst the perversions of Christianity; (3) Luthur, who protested against the rule of the Pope; (4) Sir Richard Burton, who protested against the whole business” The way in which he used to ridicule the Papal religion in his wife's presence often jarred on his friends, who thought that however ht, for her sake, to have restrained his tongue But he did not spare other religious bodies either He wanted to know, for instance, what the clergy of the Church of England did for the 3,500,000 a year ”wasted on them,” while he summed up the Nonconformists in the scornful phrase: ”Exeter Hall!” He considered anthropomorphism to explain satisfactorily not only the swan hts, but also angel and devil Both Arbuthnot and Payne regarded him as a Mohamnostic, a Theist and an Oriental e Burton, ”The only real religion in the world is that of Mohaland” Once he said ”I should not care to go to hell, for I should meet all my relations there, nor to Heaven, because I should have to avoid so many friends” Lady Burton, who prayed daily ”that the s of her husband's soul ht be opened,” relied particularly on thea village near Ilkestone, Derbyshi+re, which once boasted a nificent Premonstratensian monastery, [527] and she paid for as many as a hundred masses to be said consecutively in the little ”Church of Our Lady and St Thomas,” [528] at Ilkeston, in order to hasten that event ”Some three months before Sir Richard's death,” writes Mr P P Cautley, the Vice-Consul at Trieste, to y ion, Sir Richard declared, 'I aland, and that is officially my church' [529] Perhaps, however, this should be considered to prove, not that he was an atheist, but that he could not resist the pleasure of shocking the clergyman”

146 Burton as a Writer

On Burton as a writer we have already oes to his books with confidence; in the assurance that whatever ever he saw is put down Nothing is hidden and there is no atte literary sin, as we said, was prolixity Any one of his books reduced to one-quarter, or better, one-sixth the size, and served up artistically would have htful work As it is, they are vast storehouses filled with undusted objects of interest and value, led with heaps of mere lumber His books laid one on the top of another would h!

He is at his best when describing so a confession of his oeaknesses, or in depicting scenery Lieutenant Cameron's tribute to his descriptive powers round which he explored,” says Caions of Central Africa in my hand, I was astonished at the acuteness of his perception and the correctness of his descriptions” Stanley spoke of his books in a sireatimpressions to paper the mo a passage of Dr Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands ”An observer deeply impressed by any remarkable spectacle,” says Johnson, ”does not suppose that the traces will soon vanish froreat convenience for writing, defers the description to a time of more leisure and better accommodation He who has not orous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how e and distinctness of iery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many practical features and discriross and general idea” [530] ”Brave words,” comments Burton, ”somewhat poold”

[531] Very many of Burton's books, pamphlets and articles in the journals of the learned societies appeal solely to archaeologists, as, for exana, [532] an account of the Etrurian people, their sharp bottoant ures of raceful for us of the days when Veii fell, and its Goddess, as light and easily rely,” as Livy, with his tongue in his cheek, says, was conveyed to Rome; and of the later days when ”Lars Porsena of Clusiu to the Roman historians, to meet with defeat and discomfiture

Of Burton's carelessness and inaccuracies, we have already spoken Weimpression as to his birthplace, and that his account of his early years and his family bristles with errors Scores of his letters have passed through my hands and nearly all are imperfectly dated Fortunately, however, the envelopes have in alible, has filled the lacuna At every turn in his life we are reraphical details

And yet, too, like most inexact men, he was a rare stickler for certain niceties He would have defended the ”h” in Meccah with his sword; and the man who spelt ”Gypsy” with an ”i” for ever forfeited his respect

Burton's works--just as was his own mind--are vast, encyclopaedic, romantic and yet prosaic, unsyste the line of the old Greek poet:

”Like our own selves our work must ever be” [533]

Chapter xxxII 5th June 1886-15th April 1888, Burton and Social Questions: Anecdotes

147 The Population Question

In social questions Burton took a keen interest Indeed he was invarious evils he betrays the earnestness of a Carlyle, and when propounding plans for the abolition of the Slave Trade in ”that Devil's Walk and Purlieu,” East Africa, Saul becomes one of the prophets That he was no saint we should have known if he himself had not told us; but he had, as he believed, his special work to do in the world and he did it with all his h a ind of a man, he had, as we have seen, the tenderest of hearts, he thought with sorrow of the sufferings of the poor, and he often said to his wife: ”When I getthe sub warmly with the efforts of General Booth and other rapple with social evils, he could see, nevertheless, that they touched only the fringe of the difficulty He was, broadly speaking, what is non as a Neo-Mathusian, that is to say, he held that no er number of children than he could support with coht to be advised to li froht not to be allowed to marry, or at any rate to have children

Himself a man of splendid physique, Burton wanted to see everyHe considered it abominable that infant monstrosities or children born blind should be allowed to live, and held that showmen and others who exhibit monstrosities should be promptly jailed ”Indeed,” he says, ”it is a question if civilisation us, which forbade a child, ht up without the approbation of public officers appointed ad hoc One of the curses of the 19th century is the increased skill of the midwife and the physician, who are now able to preserve worthless lives and to bring up seeneracy” [534] He thought with Edward FitzGerald and ht of folly for a labouring e with only two ss a week to burden himself with a family of froh for anybody At the saht be abused--that is to say, rich persons who could well afford to bring up respectable-sized faht be tempted to restrict the number to one or two [535] Consequently, in the Ter the study of an Arabic work, Kitab al Bah not only to the anthropologist but also to the million He says, ”The conscientious study would be useful to hu the abuse of the Malthusian system, [536] whereby the family is duly limited to the necessities of society” At the present ti birth-rate and when the subject is discussed freely in every upper and land--these ideas cause no wonderment; but in those days they were novel

148 New Projects

We left the Burtons, it will be remembered, at Gibraltar After a short stay there, they crossed over to Morocco in a cattle tug Neither of theiers, still, if the Consulate had been conferred upon Sir Richard, it would have given thereat happiness They were, however, doomed to disappointment Lord Salisbury's short-lived administration of 1886 had been succeeded by a Liberal Governiven to Mr (afterwards Sir) W Kirby Green

[537] The Burtons were back in Trieste at the end of March

The success of The Arabian Nights, which ing entirely to its anthropological and pornographic notes, was for Sir Richard Burton both good and bad It was good because it removed for the remainder of his life all pecuniary anxieties; it was bad because it led him to devote himself exclusively to subjects which certainly should not occupy exclusively the attention of any man Henceforth every translation was to be annotated froret this perversity, for the old Roh without accentuating the sole objectionable line, we do not want our attention drawn particularly to the blemish

Unfortunately, Sir Richard now made this kind of work his speciality, and it would be idle--or rather it would be untrue--to deny that he now chose certain books for translation, not on account of their beautiful poetry and noble thoughts, but because they lent theent annotation Indeed, his passion for this sort of literature had become a monomania [539] He insisted, however, and he certainly believed, that he was advancing the interests of science; nor could any argument turn him We e could say that it was chiefly for their beauties that he now set himself to translate Catullus, Ausonius, [540] and Apuleius He did appreciate their beauties; the poets and the classic prose writers were to him as the milk of paradise; and soes, but the majority of the in The Arabian Nights given the world the fruits of his enquiries in Eastern lands, and said his say, he e have let the subject rest He had certainly nothing new to tell us about the ain, for the translating of so delicate, so racious a poet as Catullus he was absolutely and entirely unqualified However, to Catullus he now turned Sirhoul fled before hoofed satyrs and old Silenus shaking his green stick of lilies As we shall see, however, he did not begin the translation in earnest till January 1890 [541]