No More Learning

[The offended lady was soothed by this submissive letter, and the bard
was re-established in her good graces. ]

MADAM,

I return your common-place book. I have perused it with much pleasure,
and would have continued my criticisms, but as it seems the critic has
forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lose their value.

If it is true that "offences come only from the heart," before you I
am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you as the most
accomplished of women, and the first of friends--if these are crimes,
I am the most offending thing alive.

In a face where I used to meet the kind complacency of friendly
confidence, _now_ to find cold neglect, and contemptuous scorn--is a
wrench that my heart can ill bear. It is, however, some kind of
miserable good luck, and while _de haut-en-bas_ rigour may depress an
unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to rouse a
stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot heal the
wounds of his soul, is at least an opiate to blunt their poignancy.

With the profoundest respect for your abilities; the most sincere
esteem and ardent regard for your gentle heart and amiable manners;
and the most fervent wish and prayer for your welfare, peace, and
bliss, I have the honour to be,

Madam,

Your most devoted humble servant,

R. B.

* * * * *




CCXC.


TO JOHN SYME, ESQ.

[John Syme, of the stamp-office, was the companion as well as comrade
in arms, of Burns: he was a well-informed gentleman, loved witty
company, and sinned in rhyme now and then: his epigrams were often
happy. ]

You know that among other high dignities, you have the honour to be my
supreme court of critical judicature, from which there is no appeal. I
enclose you a song which I composed since I saw you, and I am going to
give you the history of it. Do you know that among much that I admire
in the characters and manners of those great folks whom I have now the
honour to call my acquaintances, the Oswald family, there is nothing
charms me more than Mr.
Oswald's unconcealable attachment to that
incomparable woman. Did you ever, my dear Syme, meet with a man who
owed more to the Divine Giver of all good things than Mr. O. ? A fine
fortune; a pleasing exterior; self-evident amiable dispositions, and
an ingenuous upright mind, and that informed, too, much beyond the
usual run of young fellows of his rank and fortune: and to all this,
such a woman! --but of her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of
saying anything adequate: in my song I have endeavoured to do justice
to what would be his feelings, on seeing, in the scene I have drawn,
the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my
performance, I, in my first fervour, thought of sending it to Mrs.
Oswald, but on second thoughts, perhaps what I offer as the honest
incense of genuine respect, might, from the well-known character of
poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of
that servility which my soul abhors.

R. B.

* * * * *




CCXCI.


TO MISS ----.

[Burns, on other occasions than this, recalled both his letters and
verses: it is to be regretted that he did not recall more of both. ]

_Dumfries, 1794. _

MADAM,

Nothing short of a kind of absolute necessity could have made me
trouble you with this letter. Except my ardent and just esteem for
your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment arising in my breast, as
I put pen to paper to you, is painful.