[To this fine letter all the
biographer
of Burns are largely
indebted.
indebted.
Robert Burns
"
I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my "darling Jean,"
and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my
becob-webbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her
hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel.
I will send you the "Fortunate Shepherdess" as soon as I return to
Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall
send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be
mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or
other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of
my own feelings whenever I think of you.
If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should
be extremely happy; that is to say if you neither keep nor look for a
regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a
letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a
quarter.
I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you
mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his
works: 'twas a glorious idea.
Could you conveniently do me one thing? --whenever you finish any head
I should like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long
story about your fine genius; but as what everybody knows cannot have
escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXIV.
TO MISS CHALMERS,
EDINBURGH.
[To this fine letter all the biographer of Burns are largely
indebted. ]
_Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16th, 1788. _
Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her
health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not
think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part--
"When thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand! "
"My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea. " I do
not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its
fellows--rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark of
impression, except where they hit in hostile collision.
I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you
and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much
_a l'egard de moi_, I sit down to beg the continuation of your
goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I
never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my
soul--I will not say more, but so much as Lady Mackenzie and Miss
Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest of
human kind--unfortunate even in the shades of life--when I think I
have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight
days than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight
years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world
again--I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me
with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I
am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is
less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the
noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken
me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however
overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase,
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLANY.
I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my "darling Jean,"
and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my
becob-webbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her
hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel.
I will send you the "Fortunate Shepherdess" as soon as I return to
Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall
send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be
mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or
other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of
my own feelings whenever I think of you.
If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should
be extremely happy; that is to say if you neither keep nor look for a
regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a
letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a
quarter.
I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you
mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his
works: 'twas a glorious idea.
Could you conveniently do me one thing? --whenever you finish any head
I should like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long
story about your fine genius; but as what everybody knows cannot have
escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXIV.
TO MISS CHALMERS,
EDINBURGH.
[To this fine letter all the biographer of Burns are largely
indebted. ]
_Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16th, 1788. _
Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her
health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not
think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part--
"When thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand! "
"My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea. " I do
not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its
fellows--rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark of
impression, except where they hit in hostile collision.
I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you
and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much
_a l'egard de moi_, I sit down to beg the continuation of your
goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I
never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my
soul--I will not say more, but so much as Lady Mackenzie and Miss
Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest of
human kind--unfortunate even in the shades of life--when I think I
have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight
days than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight
years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world
again--I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me
with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I
am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is
less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the
noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken
me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however
overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase,
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLANY.
