No More Learning

[In this, the poet's first letter from Ellisland, he lays down his
whole system of in-door and out-door economy: while his wife took care
of the household, he was to manage the farm, and "pen a stanza" during
his hours of leisure. ]

_Ellisland, 13th June, 1788. _

"Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see,
My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee;
Still to my _friend_ it turns with ceaseless pain,
and drags at each remove a lengthening chain. "

GOLDSMITH.

This is the second day, my honoured friend, that I have been on my
farm. A solitary inmate of an old smoky spense; far from every object
I love, or by whom I am beloved; nor any acquaintance older than
yesterday, except Jenny Geddes, the old mare I ride on; while uncouth
cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful
inexperience. There is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the
hour of care; consequently the dreary objects seem larger than life.
Extreme sensibility, irritated and prejudiced on the gloomy side by a
series of misfortunes and disappointments, at that period of my
existence when the soul is laying in her cargo of ideas for the voyage
of life, is, I believe, the principal cause of this unhappy frame of
mind.

"The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer?
Or what need he regard his _single_ woes? " &c.

Your surmise, Madam, is just; I am indeed a husband.

* * * * *

To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger. My preservative from
the first is the most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of
honour, and her attachment to me: my antidote against the last is my
long and deep-rooted affection for her.

In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she
is eminently mistress; and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is
regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their
dairy and other rural business.
The muses must not be offended when I tell them, the concerns of my
wife and family will, in my mind, always take the _pas_; but I assure
them their ladyships will ever come next in place.

You are right that a bachelor state would have insured me more
friends; but from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in
the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in
approaching my God, would seldom have been of the number.

I found a once much-loved and still much-loved female, literally and
truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements; but I enabled her to
_purchase_ a shelter;--there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's
happiness or misery.

The most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm
heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous
health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a
more than commonly handsome figure; these, I think, in a woman, may
make a good wife, though she should never have read a page but the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, nor have danced in a brighter
assembly than a penny pay-wedding.

R. B.

* * * * *




CXXIII.


TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.

[Had Burns written his fine song, beginning "Contented wi' little and
cantie wi' mair," when he penned this letter, the prose might have
followed as a note to the verse; he calls the Excise a luxury. ]

_Ellisland, June 14th, 1788. _

This is now the third day, my dearest Sir, that I have sojourned in
these regions; and during these three days you have occupied more of
my thoughts than in three weeks preceding: in Ayrshire I have several
variations of friendship's compass, here it points invariably to the
pole. My farm gives me a good many uncouth cares and anxieties, but I
hate the language of complaint. Job, or some one of his friends, says
well--"why should a living man complain? "

I have lately been much mortified with contemplating an unlucky
imperfection in the very framing and construction of my soul; namely,
a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs in hitting the scent
of craft or design in my fellow-creatures. I do not mean any
compliment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect is in
consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of conscious truth or
honour: I take it to be, in some, why or other, an imperfection in the
mental sight; or, metaphor apart, some modification of dulness. In two
or three small instances lately, I have been most shamefully out.