No More Learning

You will have heard that I am going to commence poet in print; and to
morrow my works go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of about
two hundred pages--it is just the last foolish action I intend to do;
and then turn a wise man as fast as possible.

Believe me to be, dear Brice,

Your friend and well-wisher,

R. B.

* * * * *




XXI.


TO MR. ROBERT AIKEN.

[This letter was written under great distress of mind. That separation
which Burns records in "The Lament," had, unhappily, taken place
between him and Jean Armour, and it would appear, that for a time at
least a coldness ensued between the poet and the patron, occasioned,
it is conjectured, by that fruitful subject of sorrow and disquiet.
The letter, I regret to say, is not wholly here. ]

[_Ayrshire_, 1786. ]

SIR,

I was with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, and settled all our
by-gone matters between us. After I had paid him all demands, I made
him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard of being paid out
of the first and readiest, which he declines. By his account, the
paper of a thousand copies would cost me about twenty-seven pounds,
and the printing about fifteen or sixteen: he offers to agree to this
for the printing, if I will advance for the paper, but this, you know,
is out of my power; so farewell hopes of a second edition till I grow
rich! an epoch which I think will arrive at the payment of the
British national debt.
There is scarcely anything hurts me so much in being disappointed of
my second edition, as not having it in my power to show my gratitude
to Mr. Ballantyne, by publishing my poem of "The Brigs of Ayr. " I
would detest myself as a wretch, if I thought I were capable in a very
long life of forgetting the honest, warm, and tender delicacy with
which he enters into my interests. I am sometimes pleased with myself
in my greateful sensations; but I believe, on the whole, I have very
little merit in it, as my gratitude is not a virtue, the consequence
of reflection; but sheerly the instinctive emotion of my heart, too
inattentive to allow worldly maxims and views to settle into selfish
habits. I have been feeling all the various rotations and movements
within, respecting the excise. There are many things plead strongly
against it; the uncertainty of getting soon into business; the
consequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable
for me to stay at home; and besides I have for some time been pining
under secret wretchedness, from causes which you pretty well know--the
pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs
of remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures,
when attention is not called away by the calls of society, or the
vagaries of the muse. Even in the hour of social mirth, my gayety is
the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the
executioner. All these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these
reasons I have only one answer--the feelings of a father. This, in the
present mood I am in, overbalances everything that can be laid in the
scale against it. * * * *

You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment
which strikes home to my very soul: though sceptical in some points of
our current belief, yet, I think, I have every evidence for the
reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence;
if so, then, how should I, in the presence of that tremendous Being,
the Author of existence, how should I meet the reproaches of those who
stand to me in the dear relation of children, whom I deserted in the
smiling innocency of helpless infancy? O, thou great unknown
Power! --thou almighty God! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and
blessed me with immortality! --I have frequently wandered from that
order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet
thou hast never left me nor forsaken me! * * * *

Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, I have seen something of the storm
of mischief thickening over my folly-devoted head. Should you, my
friends, my benefactors, be successful in your applications for me,
perhaps it may not be in my power, in that way, to reap the fruit of
your friendly efforts.