What matter if, as Harriet Martineau--most generous and also most malicious of women, with much kinship with Borrow in temperament--said, that his appearance before the public as a devout agent of the Bible Society excited a 'burst of laughter from all who remembered the old Norwich days'; what matter if another 'scribbling woman,' as Carlyle called such strident female writers as were in vogue in mid-Victorian days--Frances Power Cobbe--thought him 'insincere'; these were unable to comprehend the abnormal heart of Borrow, so entirely at one with Goethe in _Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre_: Bleibe nicht am Boden heften, Frisch gewagt und frisch hinaus! Kopf und Arm, mit heitern Kraften, Ueberall sind sie zu Haus; Wo wir uns der Sonne freuen, Sind wir jede Sorge los; Dass wir uns in ihr zerstreuen, Darum ist die Welt so gross.[92] Here was Borrow's opportunity indeed.

Verily I believe that it would have been the same had it been a society for the propagation of the writings of Defoe among the Persians.

With what zest would Borrow have undertaken to translate _Moll Flanders_ and _Captain Singleton_ into the languages of Hafiz and Omar! But the Bible Society was ready to his hand, and Borrow did nothing by halves.

A good hater and a staunch friend, he was loyal to the Bible Society in no half-hearted way, and not the most pronounced quarrel with forces obviously quite out of tune with his nature led to any real slackening of that loyalty.

In the end a portion of his property went to swell the Bible Society's funds.[93] When Borrow became one of its servants, the Bible Society was only in its third decade.