'And he, the walking lord of Gypsy lore! How often 'mid the deer that grazed the Park, Or in the fields and heath and windy moor, Made musical with many a soaring lark, Have we not held brisk commune with him there, While Lavengro, then towering by your side, With rose complexion and bright silvery hair, Would stop amid his swift and lounging stride To tell the legends of the fading race--. As at the summons of his piercing glance, Its story peopling his brown eyes and face, While you called up that pendant of romance To Petulengro with his boxing glory Your Amazonian Sinfi's noble story?'
Now that so many of the griengroes (horse-dealers), who form the aristocracy of the Romany race, have left England for America, it is natural enough that to some readers of _Aylwin_ and _The Coming of Love_ my pictures of Romany life seem a little idealised. The _Times_, in a kindly notice of _The Coming of Love_, said that the kind of Gypsies there depicted are a very interesting people, 'unless the author has flattered them unduly.' Those who best knew the Gypsy women of that period will be the first to aver that I have not flattered them unduly. But I have fully discussed this matter, and given a somewhat elaborate account of Sinfi Lovell and Rhona Boswell, in the introduction to the fifth edition of _The Coming of Love: Rhona Boswell's Story._
1. THE CYMRIC CHILD 2. THE MOONLIGHT CROSS OF THE GNOSTICS 3. WINIFRED'S DUKKERIPEN 4. THE LEADER OF THE AYLWINIANS 5. HAROUN-AL-RASCHID THE PAINTER 6. THE SONG OF Y WYDDFA 7. SINFI'S DUKKERIPEN 8. ISIS AS HUMOURIST 9. THE PALACE OF NIN-KI-GAL 10. BEHIND THE VEIL 11. THE IRONY OF HEAVEN 12. THE REVOLVING CAGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 13. THE MAGIC OF SNOWDON 14. SINFI'S COUP DE THÉÂTRE 15. THE DAUGHTER OF SNOWDON'S STORY 16. D'ARCY'S LETTER 17. THE TWO DUKKERIPENS 18. THE WALK TO LLANBERIS APPENDICES
'Those who in childhood have had solitary communings with the sea know the sea's prophecy. They know that there is a deeper sympathy between the sea and the soul of man than other people dream of. They know that the water seems nearer akin than the land to the spiritual world, inasmuch as it is one and indivisible, and has motion, and answers to the mysterious call of the winds, and is the writing tablet of the moon and stars. When a child who, born beside the sea, and beloved by the sea, feels suddenly, as he gazes upon it, a dim sense of pity and warning; when there comes, or seems to come, a shadow across the waves, with never a cloud in the sky to cast it; when there comes a shuddering as of wings that move in dread or ire, then such a child feels as if the bloodhounds of calamity are let loose upon him or upon those he loves; he feels that the sea has told him all it dares tell or can. And, in other moods of fate, when beneath a cloudy sky the myriad dimples of the sea begin to sparkle as though the sun were shining bright upon them, such a child feels, as he gazes at it, that the sea is telling him of some great joy near at hand, or, at least, not far off.'