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Based on a 1661 book by Joseph Glanville, Matthew Arnold's poem "The Scholar-Gipsy" (now often 'Gypsy') recounts the apparitions of an Oxford scholar who abandoned conventional life to live with the Gypsies.
Glanville wrote:
"There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the gypsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not such imposters as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that he himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned."
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem107.html
Matthew Arnold : The Scholar-Gipsy
A contemporary of Arnold, the remarkable Charles Godfrey Leland, investigated the Gypsies and concluded that their fortunetelling ability is a common human possession:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gsft/gsft13.htm
CHAPTER XI. GYPSY WITCHCRAFT--THE MAGICAL POWER WHICH IS INNATE IN ALL MEN AND WOMEN--HOW IT MAY BE CULTIVATED AND DEVELOPED--THE PRINCIPLES OF FORTUNE-TELLING
If saved to disk, this webpage can be made more readable by changing
to .
Leland believed that intuition and creativity could be taught, and apparently conducted a large scale test to prove his theory: "The proof of this is that the 200 pupils who attended an industrial or art school in Philadelphia took precedence in studies among 110,000 others in the public schools."
Tom
Glanville wrote:
"There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the gypsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not such imposters as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; that he himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned."
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem107.html
Matthew Arnold : The Scholar-Gipsy
A contemporary of Arnold, the remarkable Charles Godfrey Leland, investigated the Gypsies and concluded that their fortunetelling ability is a common human possession:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gsft/gsft13.htm
CHAPTER XI. GYPSY WITCHCRAFT--THE MAGICAL POWER WHICH IS INNATE IN ALL MEN AND WOMEN--HOW IT MAY BE CULTIVATED AND DEVELOPED--THE PRINCIPLES OF FORTUNE-TELLING
If saved to disk, this webpage can be made more readable by changing
to .
Leland believed that intuition and creativity could be taught, and apparently conducted a large scale test to prove his theory: "The proof of this is that the 200 pupils who attended an industrial or art school in Philadelphia took precedence in studies among 110,000 others in the public schools."
Tom