“Deeds that deserve, like gods, a deathless name."[FN#645]

He had lived almost his three score and ten, but, says one of his friends, “in the vigour, the vehemence indeed with which he vented his indignation over any meanness or wrong, or littleness, he was to the last as youthful as when he visited Mecca and Harar.  If, however, the work he did, the hardships he endured, and the amazing amount of learning which he acquired and gave forth to the world are to be taken as any measure of his life, he lived double the term of most ordinary men.”  Like Ovid, for the parallelism preserved itself to the end, he died in the land of his exile.

“It has been said of him that he was the greatest Oriental scholar England ever had and neglected.”  He was a mighty writer of books—­ some fifty works, to say nothing of multitudinous articles in the journals of the learned societies, having proceeded from his pen.  If it be conceded that he was wanting in the literary faculty and that no one of his books is entirely satisfactory, it should be borne in mind that he added enormously to the sum of human knowledge.  We go to him, not for style, but for facts.  Again, if his books are not works of art, they contain, nevertheless, many passages that cling to the memory.  Take him as linguist, traveller and anthropologist, he was certainly one of the greatest men that modern England has produced.

   Chapter xxxviii
   20th October 1890-December 1890
   The Fate of “The Scented Garden”

173.  The Fate of The Scented Garden.

Burton wad dead.  All that was mortal of him lay cold and motionless in the chapelle ardente.  But his spirit?  The spirits of the departed, can they revive us?  The Roman poet Propertius answers: 

   “Yes; there are ghosts:  death ends not all, I ween.”

and Lady Burton was just as thoroughly imbued with that belief.  Hereby hangs a curious story, now to be told as regards its essentials for the first time; and we may add that Lady Burton particularly wished these essentials to be made public after her decease.[FN#646]

For sixteen days after her husband’s death Lady Burton shut herself up in the house in order to examine and classify his manuscripts, pack up books, &c., ready for the journey to England, and “carry out his instructions.”  To the goodness—­the sweetness—­of her character we have several times paid tributes.  We have spoken of the devotion to her husband which surrounds her with a lambent glory; but we have also shown that she was indiscreet, illiterate,[FN#647] superstitious and impulsive; and that she was possessed of a self-assurance that can only be described as colossal.  We have also shown that her mind was unhinged by her sad trouble.  Such, then, was the woman and such the condition of the woman upon whom devolved the duty of considering the manuscripts of one of the most original men of the 19th century.  Which of them were valuable and which mere lumber she was quite incapable of judging.  Her right course would have been to call in some competent person; but she thought she was competent.