[The following high-minded letter may be regarded as a sermon on
domestic morality preached by one of the experienced.
domestic morality preached by one of the experienced.
Robert Burns
_
DEAR SIR,
Though I am not without my fears respecting my fate, at that grand,
universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called _The Last Day_,
yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I
understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth, I mean
ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for
which I remain, and from inability, I fear, must still remain, your
debtor; but though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, Sir, I
shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest
pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in
immortal Allan's language, "Hale, and weel, and living;" and that your
charming family are well, and promising to be an amiable and
respectable addition to the company of performers, whom the Great
Manager of the Drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding
age.
With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and
effectively interested yourself, I am here in my old way, holding my
plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy; and
at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the Nith, on the
margin of which I have built my humble domicile, praying for
seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the muses; the only
gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As I am entered into the
holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned completely
Zion-ward; and as it is a rule with all honest fellows to repeat no
grievances, I hope that the little poetic licenses of former days will
of course fall under the oblivious influence of some good-natured
statute of celestial prescription. In my family devotion, which, like
a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to my household folks, I am
extremely fond of that psalm, "Let not the errors of my youth," &c. ,
and that other, "Lo, children are God's heritage," &c. , in which last
Mrs. Burns, who by the bye has a glorious "wood-note wild" at either
old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The following high-minded letter may be regarded as a sermon on
domestic morality preached by one of the experienced. ]
_Ellisland, 8th June, 1789. _
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the date of your last.
It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my
peregrinations; but I have been condemned to drudgery beyond
sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have had a
collection of poems by a lady, put into my hands to prepare them for
the press; which horrid task, with sowing corn with my own hand, a
parcel of masons, wrights, plasterers, &c. , to attend to, roaming on
business through Ayrshire--all this was against me, and the very first
dreadful article was of itself too much for me.
13th. I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th.
Life, my dear Sir, is a serious matter. You know by experience that a man's
individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of
children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will
show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on
trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only support,
hope and stay we are--this, to a generous mind, is another sort of more
important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in
the individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rakehelly dog
among you, make a song of his pretended liberty and freedom from care. If
the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be
anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion,
virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity and justice, be aught but empty
sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the
beloved, honourable female, whose tender faithful embrace endears life, and
for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the
worshippers of his God, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the
vital existence of his COUNTRY in the ensuing age;--compare such a man with
any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among
labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and
sing in taverns--a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single
heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good-fellowship--who
has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself--if there be any
grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegado to common sense,
who would fain believe that the noble creature man, is no better than a
sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon
dissipated in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a
crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but
no one else would have the patience.
Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. _To make you amends_,
I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any
postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture.
R.
DEAR SIR,
Though I am not without my fears respecting my fate, at that grand,
universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called _The Last Day_,
yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I
understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth, I mean
ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for
which I remain, and from inability, I fear, must still remain, your
debtor; but though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, Sir, I
shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest
pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in
immortal Allan's language, "Hale, and weel, and living;" and that your
charming family are well, and promising to be an amiable and
respectable addition to the company of performers, whom the Great
Manager of the Drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding
age.
With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and
effectively interested yourself, I am here in my old way, holding my
plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy; and
at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the Nith, on the
margin of which I have built my humble domicile, praying for
seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the muses; the only
gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As I am entered into the
holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned completely
Zion-ward; and as it is a rule with all honest fellows to repeat no
grievances, I hope that the little poetic licenses of former days will
of course fall under the oblivious influence of some good-natured
statute of celestial prescription. In my family devotion, which, like
a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to my household folks, I am
extremely fond of that psalm, "Let not the errors of my youth," &c. ,
and that other, "Lo, children are God's heritage," &c. , in which last
Mrs. Burns, who by the bye has a glorious "wood-note wild" at either
old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The following high-minded letter may be regarded as a sermon on
domestic morality preached by one of the experienced. ]
_Ellisland, 8th June, 1789. _
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the date of your last.
It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my
peregrinations; but I have been condemned to drudgery beyond
sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have had a
collection of poems by a lady, put into my hands to prepare them for
the press; which horrid task, with sowing corn with my own hand, a
parcel of masons, wrights, plasterers, &c. , to attend to, roaming on
business through Ayrshire--all this was against me, and the very first
dreadful article was of itself too much for me.
13th. I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th.
Life, my dear Sir, is a serious matter. You know by experience that a man's
individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of
children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will
show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on
trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only support,
hope and stay we are--this, to a generous mind, is another sort of more
important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in
the individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rakehelly dog
among you, make a song of his pretended liberty and freedom from care. If
the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be
anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion,
virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity and justice, be aught but empty
sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the
beloved, honourable female, whose tender faithful embrace endears life, and
for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the
worshippers of his God, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the
vital existence of his COUNTRY in the ensuing age;--compare such a man with
any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among
labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and
sing in taverns--a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single
heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good-fellowship--who
has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself--if there be any
grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegado to common sense,
who would fain believe that the noble creature man, is no better than a
sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon
dissipated in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a
crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but
no one else would have the patience.
Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. _To make you amends_,
I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any
postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture.
R.
