I had meant that the book should have lain by me, in the
fond hope that some time or other, even after I was no more, my
thoughts would fall into the hands of somebody capable of appreciating
their value.
fond hope that some time or other, even after I was no more, my
thoughts would fall into the hands of somebody capable of appreciating
their value.
Robert Forst
I will not attempt to describe what I felt
on receiving your letter. I read it over and over, again and again,
and though it was in the politest language of refusal, still it was
peremptory; "you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you
wish me," what without you I never can obtain, "you wish me all kind
of happiness. " It would be weak and unmanly to say that, without you I
never can be happy; but sure I am, that sharing life with you would
have given it a relish, that, wanting you, I can never taste.
Your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good sense, do
not so much strike me; these, possibly, in a few instances may be met
with in others; but that amiable goodness, that tender feminine
softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the
charming offspring of a warm feeling heart--these I never again expect
to meet with, in such a degree, in this world. All these charming
qualities, heightened by an education much beyond anything I have ever
met in any woman I ever dared to approach, have made an impression on
my heart that I do not think the world can ever efface. My imagination
had fondly flattered myself with a wish, I dare not say it ever
reached a hope, that possibly I might one day call you mine. I had
formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over
them; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had no right
to expect. I must now think no more of you as a mistress; still I
presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to be
allowed to wait on you, and as I expect to remove in a few days a
little further off, and you, I suppose, will perhaps soon leave this
place, I wish to see or hear from you soon; and if an expression
should perhaps escape me, rather too warm for friendship, I hope you
will pardon it in, my dear Miss--(pardon me the dear expression for
once) * * * *
R. B
* * * * *
VIII.
TO ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ.
OF GLENRIDDEL
[These memoranda throw much light on the early days of Burns, and on
the history of his mind and compositions. Robert Riddel, of the
Friars-Carse, to whom these fragments were sent, was a good man as
well as a distinguished antiquary. ]
MY DEAR SIR,
On rummaging over some old papers I lighted on a MS. of my early
years, in which I had determined to write myself out; as I was placed
by fortune among a class of men to whom my ideas would have been
nonsense.
I had meant that the book should have lain by me, in the
fond hope that some time or other, even after I was no more, my
thoughts would fall into the hands of somebody capable of appreciating
their value. It sets off thus:--
"OBSERVATIONS, HINTS, SONGS, SCRAPS OF POETRY, &c. , by
ROBERT BURNESS: a man who had little art in making money, and
still less in keeping it; but was, however, a man of some sense, a
great deal of honesty, and unbounded good-will to every creature,
rational and irrational. --As he was but little indebted to scholastic
education, and bred at a plough-tail, his performances must be
strongly tinctured with his unpolished, rustic way of life; but as I
believe they are really his own, it may be some entertainment to a
curious observer of human nature to see how a ploughman thinks, and
feels, under the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with the
like cares and passions, which, however diversified by the modes and
manners of life, operate pretty much alike, I believe, on all the
species. "
"There are numbers in the world who do not want sense to
make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities
to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing
them the same importance which they do to those which appear
in print. "--SHENSTONE.
"Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace
The forms our pencil, or our pen designed!
Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face,
Such the soft image of our youthful mind. "--_Ibid. _
* * * * *
_April_, 1783.
Notwithstanding all that has been said against love, respecting the
folly and weakness it lends a young inexperienced mind into; still I
think it in a great measure deserves the highest encomiums that have
been passed upon it. If anything on earth deserves the name of rapture
or transport, it is the feelings of green eighteen in the company of
the mistress of his heart, when she repays him with an equal return of
affection.
* * * * *
_August. _
There is certainly some connexion between love and music, and poetry;
and therefore, I have always thought it a fine touch of nature, that
passage in a modern love-composition:
"As towards her cot she jogged along,
Her name was frequent in his song. "
For my own part I never had the least thought or inclination of
turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song
were in a manner the spontaneous language of my heart. The following
composition was the first of my performances, and done at an early
period of life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity;
unacquainted and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world.
on receiving your letter. I read it over and over, again and again,
and though it was in the politest language of refusal, still it was
peremptory; "you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you
wish me," what without you I never can obtain, "you wish me all kind
of happiness. " It would be weak and unmanly to say that, without you I
never can be happy; but sure I am, that sharing life with you would
have given it a relish, that, wanting you, I can never taste.
Your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good sense, do
not so much strike me; these, possibly, in a few instances may be met
with in others; but that amiable goodness, that tender feminine
softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the
charming offspring of a warm feeling heart--these I never again expect
to meet with, in such a degree, in this world. All these charming
qualities, heightened by an education much beyond anything I have ever
met in any woman I ever dared to approach, have made an impression on
my heart that I do not think the world can ever efface. My imagination
had fondly flattered myself with a wish, I dare not say it ever
reached a hope, that possibly I might one day call you mine. I had
formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over
them; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had no right
to expect. I must now think no more of you as a mistress; still I
presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to be
allowed to wait on you, and as I expect to remove in a few days a
little further off, and you, I suppose, will perhaps soon leave this
place, I wish to see or hear from you soon; and if an expression
should perhaps escape me, rather too warm for friendship, I hope you
will pardon it in, my dear Miss--(pardon me the dear expression for
once) * * * *
R. B
* * * * *
VIII.
TO ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ.
OF GLENRIDDEL
[These memoranda throw much light on the early days of Burns, and on
the history of his mind and compositions. Robert Riddel, of the
Friars-Carse, to whom these fragments were sent, was a good man as
well as a distinguished antiquary. ]
MY DEAR SIR,
On rummaging over some old papers I lighted on a MS. of my early
years, in which I had determined to write myself out; as I was placed
by fortune among a class of men to whom my ideas would have been
nonsense.
I had meant that the book should have lain by me, in the
fond hope that some time or other, even after I was no more, my
thoughts would fall into the hands of somebody capable of appreciating
their value. It sets off thus:--
"OBSERVATIONS, HINTS, SONGS, SCRAPS OF POETRY, &c. , by
ROBERT BURNESS: a man who had little art in making money, and
still less in keeping it; but was, however, a man of some sense, a
great deal of honesty, and unbounded good-will to every creature,
rational and irrational. --As he was but little indebted to scholastic
education, and bred at a plough-tail, his performances must be
strongly tinctured with his unpolished, rustic way of life; but as I
believe they are really his own, it may be some entertainment to a
curious observer of human nature to see how a ploughman thinks, and
feels, under the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with the
like cares and passions, which, however diversified by the modes and
manners of life, operate pretty much alike, I believe, on all the
species. "
"There are numbers in the world who do not want sense to
make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities
to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing
them the same importance which they do to those which appear
in print. "--SHENSTONE.
"Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace
The forms our pencil, or our pen designed!
Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face,
Such the soft image of our youthful mind. "--_Ibid. _
* * * * *
_April_, 1783.
Notwithstanding all that has been said against love, respecting the
folly and weakness it lends a young inexperienced mind into; still I
think it in a great measure deserves the highest encomiums that have
been passed upon it. If anything on earth deserves the name of rapture
or transport, it is the feelings of green eighteen in the company of
the mistress of his heart, when she repays him with an equal return of
affection.
* * * * *
_August. _
There is certainly some connexion between love and music, and poetry;
and therefore, I have always thought it a fine touch of nature, that
passage in a modern love-composition:
"As towards her cot she jogged along,
Her name was frequent in his song. "
For my own part I never had the least thought or inclination of
turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song
were in a manner the spontaneous language of my heart. The following
composition was the first of my performances, and done at an early
period of life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity;
unacquainted and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world.
