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Borrow, George Henry, 1803-1881

"The Romany Rye"

If they are
low-spirited, let them not make themselves foolish by putting on
sackcloth, drinking water, or chewing ashes, but let them take
wholesome exercise, and eat the most generous food they can get,
taking up and reading occasionally, not the lives of Ignatius
Loyola and Francis Spira, but something more agreeable; for
example, the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, the deaf
and dumb gentleman; the travels of Captain Falconer in America, and
the journal of John Randall, who went to Virginia and married an
Indian wife; not forgetting, amidst their eating and drinking,
their walks over heaths, and by the sea-side, and their agreeable
literature, to be charitable to the poor, to read the Psalms and to
go to church twice on a Sunday. In their dealings with people, to
be courteous to everybody, as Lavengro was, but always independent
like him; and if people meddle with them, to give them as good as
they bring, even as he and Isopel Berners were in the habit of
doing; and it will be as well for him to observe that he by no
means advises women to be too womanly, but bearing the conduct of
Isopel Berners in mind, to take their own parts, and if anybody
strikes them, to strike again.
Beating of women by the lords of the creation has become very
prevalent in England since pugilism has been discountenanced.


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