No More Learning

I have sent you "Werter," truly happy to have any the smallest
opportunity of obliging you.

'Tis true, Madam, I saw you once since I was at Woodlea; and that once
froze the very life-blood of my heart. Your reception of me was such,
that a wretch meeting the eye of his judge, about to pronounce
sentence of death on him could only have envied my feelings and
situation. But I hate the theme, and never more shall write or speak
on it.

One thing I shall proudly say, that I can pay Mrs. R. a higher tribute
of esteem, and appreciate her amiable worth more truly, than any man
whom I have seen approach her.

R. B.

* * * * *




CCLXXXVIII.


TO MRS. RIDDEL.

[Burns often complained in company, and sometimes in his letters, of
the caprice of Mrs. Riddel. ]

I have often told you, my dear friend, that you had a spice of caprice
in your composition, and you have as often disavowed it; even perhaps
while your opinions were, at the moment, irrefragably proving it.
Could _anything_ estrange me from a friend such as you? --No! To-morrow
I shall have the honour of waiting on you.

Farewell, thou first of friends, and most accomplished of women; even
with all thy little caprices!

R. B.

* * * * *




CCLXXXIX.


TO MRS. RIDDEL.

[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.