The Life of Sir Richard Burton | Page 6

the benefit of it," and I have done so.
In dealing with the fight[FN#9] over The Arabian Nights I have endeavoured to write in such a way as to give offence to nobody, and for that reason have made a liberal use of asterisks. I am the more desirous of saying this because no one is better aware than myself of the services that some of Burton's most bitter opponents-- those ten or twelve men whom he contemptuously termed Laneites-- have rendered to literature and knowledge. In short, I regard the battle as fought and won. I am merely writing history. No man at the present day would dream of mentioning Lane in the same breath with Payne and Burton. In restoring to Mr. Payne his own, I have had no desire to detract from Burton. Indeed, it is impossible to take from a man that which he never possessed. Burton was a very great man, Mr. Payne is a very great man, but they differ as two stars differ in glory. Burton is the magnificent man of action and the anthropologist, Mr. Payne the brilliant poet and prose writer. Mr. Payne did not go to Mecca or Tanganyika, Burton did not translate The Arabian Nights,[FN#10] or write The Rime of Redemption and Vigil and Vision. He did, however, produce the annotations of The Arabian Nights, and a remarkable enough and distinct work they form.
I recall with great pleasure an evening spent with Mr. Watts-Dunton at The Pines, Putney. The conversation ran chiefly on the Gipsies, [FN#11] upon whom Mr. Watts-Dunton is one of our best authorities, and the various translations of The Arabian Nights. Both he and Mr. A. C. Swinburne have testified to Burton's personal charm and his marvellous powers. "He was a much valued and loved friend," wrote Mr. Swinburne to me[FN#12], "and I have of him none but the most delightful recollections." Mr. Swinburne has kindly allowed me to give in full his magnificent poem on "The Death of Richard Burton." Dr. Grenfell Baker, whom I interviewed in London, had much to tell me respecting Sir Richard's last three years; and he has since very kindly helped me by letter.
The great object of this book is to tell the story of Burton's life, to delineate as vividly as possible his remarkable character-- his magnetic personality, and to defend him alike from enemy and friend. In writing it my difficulties have been two. First, Burton himself was woefully inaccurate as an autobiographer, and we must also add regretfully that we have occasionally found him colouring history in order to suit his own ends.[FN#13] He would have put his life to the touch rather than misrepresent if he thought any man would suffer thereby; but he seems to have assumed that it did not matter about keeping strictly to the truth if nobody was likely to be injured. Secondly, Lady Burton, with haughty indifference to the opinions of everyone else, always exhibited occurrences in the light in which she herself desired to see them. This fact and the extreme haste with which her book was written are sufficient to account for most of its shortcomings. She relied entirely upon her own imperfect recollections. Church registers and all such documents were ignored. She begins with the misstatement that Burton was born at Elstree, she makes scarcely any reference to his most intimate friends and even spells their names wrongly.[FN#14] Her remarks on the Kasidah are stultified by the most cursory glance at that poem; while the whole of her account of the translating of The Arabian Nights is at variance with Burton's own letters and conversations. I am assured by several who knew Burton intimately that the untrustworthiness of the latter part of Lady Burton's "Life" of her husband is owing mainly to her over-anxiety to shield him from his enemies. But I think she mistook the situation. I do not believe Burton had any enemies to speak of at the time of his death.
If Lady Burton's treatment of her husband's unfinished works cannot be defended, on the other hand I shall show that the loss as regards The Scented Garden was chiefly a pecuniary one, and therefore almost entirely her own. The publication of The Scented Garden would not-- it could not--have added to Burton's fame. However, the matter will be fully discussed in its proper place.
It has generally been supposed that two other difficulties must confront any conscientious biographer of Burton--the first being Burton's choice of subjects, and the second the friction between Lady Burton and the Stisteds. But as regards the first, surely we are justified in assuming that Burton's studies were pursued purely for historical and scientific purposes. He himself insisted in season and out of season that his outlook was solely that of the student,