One very marked feature of Burton’s character was that, like his father, he always endeavoured to do and say what he thought was right, quite regardless of appearances and consequences.  And we may give one anecdote to illustrate our meaning.

On one occasion[FN#379] he and another Englishman who was known by Burton to have degraded himself unspeakably, were the guests at a country house.  “Allow me, Captain Burton,” said the host, “to introduce you to the other principal guest of the evening, Mr. ——­” Looking Mr. ——­ in the face, Burton said:  “When I am in Persia I am a Persian, when in India a Hindu, but when in England I am an English gentleman,” and then he turned his back on Mr. ——­ and left him.  As Mr. ——­’s record was not at the time generally known, those who were present at the scene merely shrugged their shoulders and said:  “Only another of Burton’s eccentricities.”  A few months, later, however, Mr. —–­’s record received publicity, and Burton’s conduct and words were understood.

One of Burton’s lady relations being about to marry a gentleman who was not only needy but also brainless, somebody asked him what he thought of the bridegroom-elect.

“Not much,” replied Burton, drily, “he has no furniture inside or out.”

To “old maids” Burton was almost invariably cruel.  He found something in them that roused all the most devilish rancours in his nature; and he used to tell them tales till the poor ladies did not know where to tuck their heads.  When reproved afterwards by Mrs. Burton, he would say:  “Yaas, yaas, no doubt; but they shouldn’t be old maids; besides, it’s no good telling the truth, for nobody ever believes you.”  He did, however, once refer complimentarily to a maiden lady—­a certain Saint Apollonia who leaped into a fire prepared for her by the heathen Alexandrians.  He called her “This admirable old maid.”  Her chief virtue in his eyes, however, seems to have been not her fidelity to her principles, but the fact that she got rid of herself, and so made one old maid fewer.

“What shall we do with our old maids?” he would ask, and then answer the question himself—­“Oh, enlist them.  With a little training they would make first-rate soldiers.”  He was also prejudiced against saints, and said of one, “I presume she was so called because of the enormity of her crimes.”

Although Mrs. Burton often reproved her husband for his barbed and irritating remarks, her own tongue had, incontestibly, a very beautiful edge on it.  Witness her reply to Mrs. X., who declared that when she met Burton she was inexpressibly shocked by his Chaucerian conversation and Canopic wit.

“I can quite believe,” commented Mrs. Burton, sweetly, “that on occasions when no lady was present Richard’s conversation might have been startling.”

How tasteful is this anecdote, as they say in The Nights, “and how enjoyable and delectable.”

111.  Burton begins his Translation, April 1884.