He might have said the books were a long tract to prove that many waters
cannot quench gentlemanliness, or "once a gentleman always a gentleman."
As a rule, when Borrow gets away from life and begins to think about it,
he ceases to be an individual and becomes a tame and entirely convenient
member of society, fit for the Commission of the Peace or a berth at the
British Museum. After he has made 20 pounds by pen-slavery and saved
himself from serious poverty, he exclaims:

"Reader, amidst the difficulties and dangers of this life, should you
ever be tempted to despair, call to mind these latter chapters of the
life of Lavengro. There are few positions, however difficult, from which
dogged resolution and perseverance may not liberate you."

When he comes to discuss his own work he says that "it represents him,
however, as never forgetting that he is the son of a brave but poor
gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise a scholar. It
shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionally
associates with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify the
curiosity of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman of
London Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance
with the man of the table, for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness
of London, and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it
invariably shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one,
is contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his love
of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from
anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly
miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book, within a
week, even as Johnson is said to have written his 'Rasselas,' and
Beckford his 'Vathek,' and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself
to the roads and fields.