Few things could have given me so
much pleasure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on
terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be
found, in the fireside circle.
much pleasure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on
terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be
found, in the fireside circle.
Robert Burns
--"Gentlemen, for
your further and better encouragement, I can assure you that our
regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and
consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for
preferment. "
You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and
disagreeable circumstances in my business; but I am tired with and
disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life.
Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with
pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious foolish man
mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar
property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal
fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin
many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead, and is almost,
without exception, a constant source of disappointment and misery.
I long to hear from you how you go on--not so much in business as in
life. Are you pretty well satisfied with your own exertions, and
tolerably at ease in your internal reflections? 'Tis much to be a
great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to be a great
character as a man. That you may be both the one and the other is the
earnest wish, and that you _will_ be both is the firm persuasion of,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXV.
TO MR. RICHARD BROWN.
[With this letter closes the correspondence of Robert Burns and
Richard Brown. ]
_Ellisland, 4th November, 1789. _
I have been so hurried, my ever dear friend, that though I got both
your letters, I have not been able to command an hour to answer them
as I wished; and even now, you are to look on this as merely
confessing debt, and craving days.
Few things could have given me so
much pleasure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on
terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be
found, in the fireside circle. May the benevolent Director of all
things peculiarly bless you in all those endearing connexions
consequent on the tender and venerable names of husband and father! I
have indeed been extremely lucky in getting an additional income of
? 50 a year, while, at the same time, the appointment will not cost me
above ? 10 or ? 12 per annum of expenses more than I must have
inevitably incurred. The worst circumstance is, that the excise
division which I have got is so extensive, no less than ten parishes
to ride over; and it abounds besides with so much business, that I can
scarcely steal a spare moment. However, labour endears rest, and both
together are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human
existence. I cannot meet you anywhere. No less than an order from the
Board of Excise, at Edinburgh, is necessary before I can have so much
time as to meet you in Ayrshire. But do you come, and see me. We must
have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out with half the half the
night before you go again to sea. You are the earliest friend I now
have on earth, my brothers excepted; and is not that an endearing
circumstance? When you and I first met, we were at the green period of
human life. The twig would easily take a bent, but would as easily
return to its former state. You and I not only took a mutual bent, but
by the melancholy, though strong influence of being both of the family
of the unfortunate, we were entwined with one another in our growth
towards advanced age; and blasted be the sacrilegious hand that shall
attempt to undo the union!
your further and better encouragement, I can assure you that our
regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and
consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for
preferment. "
You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and
disagreeable circumstances in my business; but I am tired with and
disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life.
Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with
pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious foolish man
mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar
property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal
fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin
many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead, and is almost,
without exception, a constant source of disappointment and misery.
I long to hear from you how you go on--not so much in business as in
life. Are you pretty well satisfied with your own exertions, and
tolerably at ease in your internal reflections? 'Tis much to be a
great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to be a great
character as a man. That you may be both the one and the other is the
earnest wish, and that you _will_ be both is the firm persuasion of,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXV.
TO MR. RICHARD BROWN.
[With this letter closes the correspondence of Robert Burns and
Richard Brown. ]
_Ellisland, 4th November, 1789. _
I have been so hurried, my ever dear friend, that though I got both
your letters, I have not been able to command an hour to answer them
as I wished; and even now, you are to look on this as merely
confessing debt, and craving days.
Few things could have given me so
much pleasure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on
terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be
found, in the fireside circle. May the benevolent Director of all
things peculiarly bless you in all those endearing connexions
consequent on the tender and venerable names of husband and father! I
have indeed been extremely lucky in getting an additional income of
? 50 a year, while, at the same time, the appointment will not cost me
above ? 10 or ? 12 per annum of expenses more than I must have
inevitably incurred. The worst circumstance is, that the excise
division which I have got is so extensive, no less than ten parishes
to ride over; and it abounds besides with so much business, that I can
scarcely steal a spare moment. However, labour endears rest, and both
together are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human
existence. I cannot meet you anywhere. No less than an order from the
Board of Excise, at Edinburgh, is necessary before I can have so much
time as to meet you in Ayrshire. But do you come, and see me. We must
have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out with half the half the
night before you go again to sea. You are the earliest friend I now
have on earth, my brothers excepted; and is not that an endearing
circumstance? When you and I first met, we were at the green period of
human life. The twig would easily take a bent, but would as easily
return to its former state. You and I not only took a mutual bent, but
by the melancholy, though strong influence of being both of the family
of the unfortunate, we were entwined with one another in our growth
towards advanced age; and blasted be the sacrilegious hand that shall
attempt to undo the union!
