life's
doubtful
day.
Robert Burns
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXIX.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[It seems that Mrs. Dunlop regarded the conduct of Burns, for some
months, with displeasure, and withheld or delayed her usual kind and
charming communications. ]
_Dumfries, 31st January, 1796. _
These many months you have been two packets in my debt--what sin of
ignorance I have committed against so highly-valued a friend I am
utterly at a loss to guess. Alas! Madam, ill can I afford, at this
time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. I
have lately drunk deep in the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed me
of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and
so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to
her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when I became
myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the die
spun doubtful; until, after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to have
turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and once
indeed have been before my own door in the street.
"When pleasure fascinates the mental sight,
Affliction purifies the visual ray,
Religion hails the drear, the untried night,
And shuts, for ever shuts!
life's doubtful day. "
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Cromek informed me, on the authority of Mrs. Burns, that the
"handsome, elegant present" mentioned in this letter, was a common
worsted shawl. ]
_February, 1796. _
Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your handsome, elegant present to Mrs.
Burns, and for my remaining volume of P. Pindar. Peter is a delightful
fellow, and a first favourite of mine. I am much pleased with your
idea of publishing a collection of our songs in octavo, with etchings.
I am extremely willing to lend every assistance in my power. The Irish
airs I shall cheerfully undertake the task of finding verses for.
