I am convinced that your want of success in life is more owing to your being unlike other people than to any other cause.
John, as we have seen, died in Mexico of fever. George was at St. Petersburg working for the Bible Society when his mother writes from Norwich to tell him the news. John had died on 22nd November 1833. 'You are now my only hope,' she writes, '... do not grieve, my dear George. I trust we shall all meet in heaven. Put a crape on your hat for some time.' Had George Borrow's brother lived it might have meant very much in his life. There might have been nephews and nieces to soften the asperity of his later years. Who can say? Meanwhile, _Lavengro_ contains no happier pages than those concerned with this dearly loved brother.
[Illustration: GEORGE BORROW'S BIRTHPLACE AT DUMPLING GREEN
[15] I am not able to trace more than three of John Borrow's pictures: firstly, a portrait of George Borrow, reproduced in this book, which was long in the possession of Mr. William Jarrold, the well-known publisher of Norwich, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London, having been purchased by the Director in 1912; secondly, the portrait of Borrow's father in the possession of a lady at Leamington; and thirdly, _The Judgment of Solomon_, which for a long time hung as an overmantel in the Borrow Home in Willow Lane, Norwich. Dr. Knapp also saw in Norwich 'A Portrait of a Gentleman,' by John Borrow. A second portrait of George Borrow by his brother was taken by the latter to Mexico, and has not since been heard of.
[17] _Life of B. R. Haydon_, by Tom Taylor, 1853, vol. ii. p. 21.
[18] Or perhaps the experience contained in a letter to Miss Mitford in 1824 (_Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table Talk_, 2 vols., 1876):
'I have had a horrid week with a mother and eight daughters! Mamma _remembering_ herself a beauty; Sally and Betsey, etc., see her a matron. They say, "Oh! this is more suitable to mamma's age," and "that fits mamma's time of life!" But mamma does not agree. Betsey, and Sally, and Eliza, and Patty want "mamma"! Mamma wants herself as she looked when she was Betsey's age, and papa fell in love with her. So I am distracted to death. I have a great mind to paint her with a long beard like Salvator, and say, "That's _my_ idea of a fit accompaniment."'