no great convenience for writing, defers the description to a time of more leisure and better accommodation.  He who has not made the experiment or is not accustomed to require vigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many practical features and discriminations will be found compressed and conglobated into one gross and general idea."[FN#530] “Brave words,” comments Burton, “somewhat pompous and diffused, yet worthy to be written in letters of gold."[FN#531] Very many of Burton’s books, pamphlets and articles in the journals of the learned societies appeal solely to archaeologists, as, for example Etruscan Bologna,[FN#532] an account of the Etrurian people, their sharp bottomed wells, the pebble tombs of the poor and the elegant mausoleums of the wealthy with their figures of musicians and dancing girls “in garments of the most graceful form, finest texture and brilliant hues;” reminding us of the days when Veii fell, and its goddess, who “was light and easily removed, as though she followed willingly,” as Livy, with his tongue in his cheek, says, was conveyed to Rome; and of the later days when “Lars Porsena of Clusium” poured southward his serried host, only, according to the Roman historians, to meet with defeat and discomfiture.

Of Burton’s carelessness and inaccuracies, we have already spoken.  We mentioned that to his dying day he was under a wrong impression as to his birthplace, and that his account of his early years and his family bristles with errors.  Scores of his letters have passed through my hands and nearly all are imperfectly dated.  Fortunately, however, the envelopes have in almost every case been preserved; so the postmark, when legible, has filled the lacuna.  At every turn in his life we are reminded of his inexactitude—­especially in autobiographical details.  And yet, too, like most inexact men, he was a rare stickler for certain niceties.  He would have defended the “h” in Meccah with his sword; and the man who spelt “Gypsy” with an “i” for ever forfeited his respect.

Burton’s works—­just as was his own mind—­are vast, encyclopaedic, romantic and yet prosaic, unsystematic; but that is only repeating the line of the old Greek poet: 

   “Like our own selves our work must ever be."[FN#533]

   Chapter xxxii
   5th June 1886-15th April 1888
   Burton and Social Questions:  Anecdotes

147.  The Population Question.