No More Learning

To tell the truth among friends, I feel a miserable blank in my heart,
with the want of her, and I don't think I shall ever meet with so
delicious an armful again. She has her faults; and so have you and I;
and so has everybody:

Their tricks and craft hae put me daft;
They've ta'en me in and a' that;
But clear your decks, and here's the sex,
I like the jads for a' that.
For a' that and a' that,
And twice as muckle's a' that.

* * * * *

I have met with a very pretty girl, a Lothian farmer's daughter, whom
I have almost persuaded to accompany me to the west country, should I
ever return to settle there. By the bye, a Lothian farmer is about an
Ayrshire squire of the lower kind; and I had a most delicious ride
from Leith to her house yesternight, in a hackney-coach with her
brother and two sisters, and brother's wife. We had dined altogether
at a common friend's house in Leith, and danced, drank, and sang till
late enough. The night was dark, the claret had been good, and I
thirsty. * * * * *

R. B.

* * * * *




XLI.


TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ.

[This letter contains the first intimation that the poet desired to
resume the labours of the farmer. The old saw of "Willie Gaw's
Skate," he picked up from his mother, who had a vast collection of
such sayings. ]

_Edinburgh, Jan. 14, 1787.
_

MY HONOURED FRIEND,

It gives me a secret comfort to observe in myself that I am not yet so
far gone as Willie Gaw's Skate, "past redemption;" for I have still
this favourable symptom of grace, that when my conscience, as in the
case of this letter, tells me I am leaving something undone that I
ought to do, it teases me eternally till I do it.

I am still "dark as was Chaos"[165] in respect to futurity. My generous
friend, Mr. Patrick Miller, has been talking with me about a lease of
some farm or other in an estate called Dalswinton, which he has lately
bought, near Dumfries. Some life-rented embittering recollections
whisper me that I will be happier anywhere than in my old
neighbourhood, but Mr. Miller is no judge of land; and though I dare
say he means to favour me, yet he may give me, in his opinion, an
advantageous bargain that may ruin me. I am to take a tour by Dumfries
as I return, and have promised to meet Mr. Miller on his lands some
time in May.

I went to a mason-lodge yesternight, where the most Worshipful Grand
Master Charters, and all the Grand Lodge of Scotland visited. The
meeting was numerous and elegant; all the different lodges about town
were present, in all their pomp. The Grand Master, who presided with
great solemnity and honour to himself as a gentleman and mason, among
other general toasts, gave "Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, Brother
Burns," which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied honours
and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would happen,
I was downright thunderstruck, and, trembling in every nerve, made the
best return in my power. Just as I had finished, some of the grand
officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comforting
accent, "Very well indeed! " which set me something to rights again.

I have to-day corrected my 152d page. My best good wishes to Mr.