The English Gipsies and Their Language | Page 6

in their
hearts, than do those who know their thoughts only through the
medium of English. I know from my own observation that this is quite
the case with the Indians of North America, and it is unquestionably so
with the Gipsy. When you know a true specimen to the depths of his
soul, you will find a character so entirely strange, so utterly at variance
with your ordinary conceptions of humanity, that it is no exaggeration
whatever to declare that it would be a very difficult task for the best
writer to convey to the most intelligent reader an idea of his subject's
nature. You have in him, to begin with, a being whose every condition
of life is in direct contradiction to what you suppose every man's life in

England must be. "I was born in the open air," said a Gipsy to me a few
days since; "and put me down anywhere, in the fields or woods, I can
always support myself." Understand me, he did not mean by pilfering,
since it was of America that we were speaking, and of living in the
lonely forests. We pity with tears many of the poor among us, whose
life is one of luxury compared to that which the Gipsy, who despises
them, enjoys with a zest worth more than riches.
"What a country America must be," quoth Pirengro, the Walker, to me,
on the occasion just referred to. "Why, my pal, who's just welled apopli
from dovo tem--(my brother, who has just returned from that country),
tells me that when a cow or anything dies there, they just chuck it away,
and nobody ask a word for any of it." "What would you do," he
continued, "if you were in the fields and had nothing to eat?"
I replied, "that if any could be found, I should hunt for fern-roots."
"I could do better than that," he said. "I should hunt for a
hotchewitchi,--a hedge-hog,--and I should be sure to find one; there's
no better eating."
Whereupon assuming his left hand to be an imaginary hedge-hog, he
proceeded to score and turn and dress it for ideal cooking with a case-
knife.
"And what had you for dinner to-day?" I inquired.
"Some cocks' heads. They're very fine--very fine indeed!"
Now it is curious but true that there is no person in the world more
particular as to what he eats than the half-starved English or Irish
peasant, whose sufferings have so often been set forth for our
condolence. We may be equally foolish, you and I--in fact chemistry
proves it--when we are disgusted at the idea of feeding on many things
which mere association and superstition render revolting. But the old
fashioned gipsy has none of these qualms--he is haunted by no ghost of
society--save the policeman, he knows none of its terrors. Whatever is
edible he eats, except horse-meat; wherever there is an empty spot he

sleeps; and the man who can do this devoid of shame, without caring a
pin for what the world says--nay, without even knowing that he does
not care, or that he is peculiar--is independent to a degree which of
itself confers a character which is not easy to understand.
I grew up as a young man with great contempt for Helvetius,
D'Holbach, and all the French philosophers of the last century, whose
ideal man was a perfect savage; but I must confess that since I have
studied gipsy nature, my contempt has changed into wonder where they
ever learned in their salons and libraries enough of humanity to
theorise so boldly, and with such likeness to truth, as they did. It is not
merely in the absolute out-of-doors independence of the old-fashioned
Gipsy, freer than any wild beast from care for food, that his
resemblance to a "philosopher" consists, or rather to the ideal man, free
from imaginary cares. For more than this, be it for good or for evil, the
real Gipsy has, unlike all other men, unlike the lowest savage,
positively no religion, no tie to a spiritual world, no fear of a future,
nothing but a few trifling superstitions and legends, which in
themselves indicate no faith whatever in anything deeply seated. It
would be difficult, I think, for any highly civilised man, who had not
studied Thought deeply, and in a liberal spirit, to approach in the least
to a rational comprehension of a real Gipsy mind. During my life it has
been my fortune to become intimate with men who were "absolutely"
or "positively" free-thinkers--men who had, by long study and mere
logic, completely freed themselves from any mental tie whatever. Such
men are rare; it requires an enormous amount of intellectual culture, an
unlimited expenditure of pains in the metaphysical hot-bed, and
tremendous self- confidence to produce