The Letters of Robert Burns
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Robert Burns >> The Letters of Robert Burns
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The present moment is our ain,
The neist we never saw!
How like you my philosophy? Give my best compliments to Mrs. B., and
believe me to be, my dear Sir, yours most truly, ROBERT BURNS.
* * * *
LXXVII.--To MR. WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK.[59]
MAUCHLINE, _March_ 3_rd_, 1788.
My dear Sir,--Apologies for not writing are frequently like apologies
for not singing--the apology better than the song. I have fought my way
severely through the savage hospitality of this country, the object of
all hosts being to send every guest drunk to bed if they can.
I executed your commission in Glasgow, and I hope the cocoa came safe.
'Twas the same price and the very same kind as your former parcel, for
the gentleman recollected your buying there perfectly well.
I Should return my thanks for your hospitality (I leave a blank for the
epithet, as I know none can do it justice) to a poor, wayfaring bard,
who was spent and almost overpowered fighting with prosaic wickedness in
high places; but I am afraid lest you should burn the letter whenever
you come to the passage, so I pass over it in silence. I am just
returned from visiting Mr. Miller's farm. The friend whom I told you I
would take with me was highly pleased with the farm; and as he is,
without exception, the most intelligent farmer in the country, he has
staggered me a good deal. I have the two plans of life before me; I
shall balance them to the best of my judgment; and fix on the most
eligible. I have written Mr. Miller, and shall wait on him when I come
to town, which shall be the beginning or middle of next week: I would be
in sooner, but my unlucky knee is rather worse, and I fear for some time
will scarcely stand the fatigue of my Excise instructions. I only
mention these ideas to you, and, indeed, except Mr. Ainslie, whom I
intend writing to tomorrow, I will not write at all to Edinburgh till I
return to it. I would send my compliments to Mr. Nicol, but he would be
hurt if he knew I wrote to anybody and not to him; so I shall only beg
my best, kindest, kindest compliments to my worthy hostess, and the
sweet little rose-bud.
So soon as I am settled in the routine of life, either as an
Excise-officer, or as a farmer, I propose myself great pleasure from a
regular correspondence with the only man almost I ever saw, who joined
the most attentive prudence with the warmest generosity.
I am much interested for that best of men, Mr. Wood; I hope he is in
better health and spirits than when I saw him last.--I am ever, my
dearest friend, your obliged, humble servant, R. B.
[Footnote 59: One of the masters of the High School of Edinburgh.]
* * * *
LXXVIII.--To MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
MAUCHLINE, 3_rd March_ 1788.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am just returned from Mr. Miller's farm. My old
friend whom I took with me was highly pleased with the bargain, and
advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelligent sensible farmer
in the county, and his advice has staggered me a good deal. I have the
two plans before me; I shall endeavour to balance them to the best of my
judgment, and fix on the most eligible. On the whole, if I find Mr.
Miller in the same favourable disposition as when I saw him last, I
shall, in all probability, turn farmer.
I have been through sore tribulation and under much buffetting of the
wicked one, since I came to this country. Jean I found banished,
forlorn, destitute, and friendless; I have reconciled her to her fate,
and I have reconciled her to her mother.... I swore her privately and
solemnly never to attempt any claim on me as a husband, even though
anybody should persuade her she had such a claim....
I shall be in Edinburgh middle of next week. My farming ideas I shall
keep private till I see. I got a letter from Clarinda yesterday, and she
tells me she has got no letter of mine but one. Tell her that I wrote to
her from Glasgow, from Kilmarnock, from Mauchline, and yesterday from
Cumnock as I returned from Dumfries. Indeed she is the only person in
Edinburgh I have written to till this day. How are your soul and body
putting up?--a little like man and wife I suppose.--Your
faithful friend,
ROBERT BURNS.
* * * *
LXXIX.--To MR. RICHARD BROWN.
MAUCHLINE, 7_th March_ 1788.
I have been out of the country, my dear friend, and have not had an
opportunity of writing till now, when, I am afraid, you will be gone out
of the country too. I have been looking at farms, and, after all,
perhaps I may settle in the character of a farmer. I have got so vicious
a bent to idleness, and have ever been so little a man of business, that
it will take no ordinary effort to bring my mind properly into the
routine: but you will say a "great effort is worthy of you." I say so
myself; and butter up my vanity with all the stimulating compliments I
can think of. Men of grave, geometrical minds, the sons of "which was to
be demonstrated," may cry up reason as much as they please; but I have
always found an honest passion, or native instinct, the truest auxiliary
in the warfare of this world. Reason almost always comes to me like an
unlucky wife to a poor devil of a husband, just in sufficient time to
add her reproaches to his other grievances.
I am gratified with your kind inquiries after Jean; as, after all, I may
say with Othello--
Excellent wretch!
Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee!
I go for Edinburgh on Monday.--Yours,
ROBERT BURNS.
* * * * *
LXXX.--TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.
MOSSGIEL, 7_th March_ 1788.
DEAR SIR,--I have partly changed my ideas, my dear friend, since I saw
you. I took old Glenconner with me to Mr. Miller's farm, and he was so
pleased with it, that I have wrote an offer to Mr. Miller, which, if he
accepts, I shall sit down a plain farmer, the happiest of lives when a
man can live by it. In this case I shall not stay in Edinburgh above a
week. I set out on Monday, and would have come by Kilmarnock; but there
are several small sums owing me for my first edition about Galston and
Newmilns, and I shall set off so early as to despatch my business and
reach Glasgow by night. When I return, I shall devote a forenoon or two
to make some kind of acknowledgment for all the kindness I owe your
friendship. Now that I hope to settle with some credit and comfort at
home, there was not any friendship or friendly correspondence that
promised me more pleasure than yours; I hope I will not be disappointed.
I trust the spring will renew your shattered frame, and make your
friends happy. You and I have often agreed that life is no great
blessing on the whole. The close of life, indeed, to a reasoning age, is
Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun
Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams
Athwart the gloom profound.
But an honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the
whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the
valley, be it so; at least there is an end of pain, care, woes, and
wants. If that part of us called mind does survive the apparent
destruction of the man--away with old-wife prejudices and tales. Every
age and every nation has had a different set of stories; and as the many
are always weak, of consequence they have often, perhaps always, been
deceived. A man conscious of having acted an honest part among his
fellow-creatures--even granting that he may have been the sport at times
of passions and instincts--he goes to a great unknown Being, who could
have no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy, who
gave him those passions and instincts, and well knows their force.
These, my worthy friend, are my ideas; and I know they are not far
different from yours. It becomes a man of sense to think for himself,
particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where,
indeed, all men are equally in the dark.
Adieu, my dear Sir; God send us a cheerful meeting!
R. B.
* * * *
LXXXI--To MRS. DUNLOP.
MOSSGIEL, 7_th March_ 1788.
MADAM,--The last paragraph in yours of the 30th February affected me
most; so I shall begin my answer where you ended your letter. That I am
often a sinner with any little wit I have, I do confess; but I have
taxed my recollection to no purpose to find out when it was employed
against you. I hate an ungenerous sarcasm a great deal worse than I do
the devil--at least as Milton describes him; and though I may be
rascally enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot endure it
in others. You, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light but
you are sure of being respectable--you can afford to pass by an occasion
to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on your sense; or,
if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely on the gratitude of
many, and the esteem of all; but, God help us, who are wits or witlings
by profession, if we stand not for fame there, we sink unsupported!
I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila. I may say to the
fair painter[60] who does me so much honour, as Dr. Beattie says to
Ross, the poet of his muse Scota, from which, by the by, I took the idea
of Coila: ('tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scottish dialect, which,
perhaps, you have never seen):--
Ye shak your head, but o' my fegs,
Ye've set auld Scota on her legs;
Lang had she lien wi' beffs and flegs,
Bumbaz'd and dizzie,
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs,
Wae's me, poor hizzie.
R.B.
[Footnote 60: One of Mrs. Dunlop's daughters was painting a sketch
from the "Coila of the Vision".]
* * * * *
LXXXII--TO MR. WM. NICOL (PERHAPS).
MAUCHLINE, 7_th March_ 1788.
MY DEAR SIR,--My life, since I saw you last, has been one continued
hurry; that savage hospitality which knocks a man down with strong
liquors, is the devil. I have a sore warfare in this world; the devil,
the world, and the flesh, are three formidable foes. The first I
generally try to fly from; the second, alas! generally flies from me;
but the third is my plague, worse than the ten plagues of Egypt.
I have been looking over several farms in this country; one in
particular, in Nithsdale, pleased me so well, that if my offer to the
proprietor is accepted, I shall commence farmer at Whit-Sunday. If
farming do not appear eligible, I shall have recourse to any other
shift; but this to a friend.
I set out for Edinburgh on Monday morning; how long I stay there is
uncertain, but you will know so soon as I can inform you myself. However
I determine, poesy must be laid aside for some time; my mind has been
vitiated with idleness, and it will take a good deal of effort to
habituate it to the routine of business.--I am, my dear Sir, yours
sincerely, R. B.
* * * *
LXXXIII.--To Miss Chalmers.
EDINBURGH, _March_ 14_th_, 1788.
I know, my ever dear friend, that you will be pleased with the news when
I tell you I have at last taken a lease of a farm. Yesternight I
completed a bargain with Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, for the farm of
Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five and six miles above
Dumfries. I begin at Whit-Sunday to build a house, drive lime, etc., and
Heaven be my help! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind
into the routine of business. I have discharged all the army of my
former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures--a motley host! and have
literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which I
have incorporated into a life-guard. I trust in Dr. Johnson's
observation, "Where much is attempted, something is done." Firmness,
both in sufferance and exertion, is a character I would wish to be
thought to possess: and have always despised the whining yelp of
complaint, and the cowardly, feeble resolve.
Poor Miss K.[61] is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me to
remember her to you the first time I wrote to you. Surely woman, amiable
woman, is often made in vain. Too delicately formed for the rougher
pursuits of ambition; too noble for the dirt of avarice, and even too
gentle for the rage of pleasure; formed, indeed, for, and highly
susceptible of enjoyment and rapture; but that enjoyment, alas! almost
wholly at the mercy of the caprice, malevolence, stupidity, or
wickedness of an animal at all times comparatively unfeeling, and often
brutal. R.B.
[Footnote 61: Miss Kennedy, sister of Gavin Hamilton. She lived
nearly half a century after this.]
* * * *
THE CLARINDA LETTERS.
NOTE PREFATORY TO THE LETTERS TO CLARINDA.
We have now arrived, in the history of Burns, as his general
correspondence reveals it, at the middle of March 1788. Before the end
of the month he had broken off from Clarinda, and shortly afterwards he
married Jean Armour. The correspondence with Clarinda began in the last
month of 1787, and ran its course in three months. It is now necessary
to go back to the commencement of this correspondence, and to follow it
down to its first conclusion at the point to which his general
correspondence has brought us. It has been thought preferable to take it
by itself.
Clarinda's maiden name was Agnes Craig. She was the daughter of Mr.
Andrew Craig, who had been a surgeon in Glasgow. Lord Craig of the Court
of Session was her cousin. She was born in the same year as Burns, but
three months later. At the age of seventeen she was married to Mr. James
M'Lehose, a law agent in Glasgow. Incompatibility of temper resulted in
a separation of the unhappy pair five years after their marriage. The
lady went home to her father, and on his death in 1782 removed to
Edinburgh, where she lived independently on a small annuity. Her two
sons lived with her. Her husband meanwhile went out to the West Indies
to push his fortune.
LETTERS TO CLARINDA.
I.
_Thursday Evening_ [_Dec_. 6_th_, 1787].
MADAM,--I had set no small store by my tea-drinking tonight, and have
not often been so disappointed. Saturday evening I shall embrace the
opportunity with the greatest pleasure. I leave this town this day
se'ennight, and, probably, for a couple of twelvemonths; but must ever
regret that I so lately got an acquaintance I shall ever highly esteem,
and in whose welfare I shall ever be warmly interested.
Our worthy common friend, in her usual pleasant way, rallied me a good
deal on my new acquaintance, and in the humour of her ideas I wrote some
lines, which I inclose you, as I think they have a good deal of poetic
merit: and Miss Nimmo tells me you are not only a critic, but a poetess.
Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and I hope you will
pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a tolerably off-hand
_jeu-d'esprit_. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly
leave with Miss Nimmo, or you, if they were worth house room; as there
are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be
forgotten, though at the distance of ninescore miles.--I am, Madam, with
the highest respect, your very humble servant,
ROBERT BURNS.
* * * *
II.
_Saturday Evening, Dec_. 8_th_, 1787.
I can say with truth, Madam, that I never met with a person in my life
whom I more anxiously wished to meet again than yourself. To-night I was
to have had that very great pleasure; I was intoxicated with the idea,
but an unlucky fall from a coach has so bruised one of my knees, that I
can't stir my leg; so if I don't see you again, I shall not rest in my
grave for chagrin. I was vexed to the soul I had not seen you sooner; I
determined to cultivate your friendship with the enthusiasm of religion;
but thus has Fortune ever served me. I cannot bear the idea of leaving
Edinburgh without seeing you. I know not how to account for it--I am
strangely taken with some people, nor am I often mistaken. You are a
stranger to me; but I am an odd being: some yet unnamed feelings,
things, not principles, but better than whims, carry me farther than
boasted reason ever did a philosopher. Farewell! every happiness be
yours! ROBERT BURNS.
* * * *
III.
_Dec_. 12, 1787.
I stretch a point indeed, my dearest Madam, when I answer your card on
the rack of my present agony. Your friendship, Madam! By heavens, I was
never proud before. Your lines, I maintain it, are poetry, and good
poetry; mine were indeed partly fiction and partly a friendship, which,
had I been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led
me--god of love only knows where. Time is too short for ceremonies. I
swear solemnly, in all the tenor of my former oath, to remember you in
all the pride and warmth of friendship until I cease to be! To-morrow,
and every day till I see you, you shall hear from me. Farewell! May you
enjoy a better night's repose than I am likely to have. R. B.
* * * *
IV.
_Thursday, Dec_. 20, 1787.
Your last, my dear Madam, had the effect on me that Job's situation had
on his friends when they sat down seven days and seven nights astonished
and spake not a word. "Pay my addresses to a married woman!" I started
as if I had seen the ghost of him I had injured. I recollected my
expressions; some of them were indeed in the law phrase "habit and
repute," which is being half guilty. I cannot possibly say, Madam,
whether my heart might not have gone astray a little; but I can declare
upon the honour of a poet that the vagrant has wandered unknown to me. I
have a pretty handsome troop of follies of my own, and, like some other
people's, they are but undisciplined blackguards; but the luckless
rascals have something like honour in them--they would not do a
dishonest thing.
To meet with an unfortunate woman, amiable and young, deserted and
widowed by those who were bound by every tie of duty, nature, and
gratitude to protect, comfort and cherish her; add to all, when she is
perhaps one of the first of lovely forms and noble minds--the mind, too,
that hits one's taste as the joys of Heaven do a saint--should a faint
idea, the natural child of imagination, thoughtfully peep over the
fence--were you, my friend, to sit in judgment, and the poor, airy
straggler brought before you, trembling, self-condemned, with artless
eyes, brimful of contrition, looking wistfully on its judge--you could
not, my dear Madam, condemn the hapless wretch to death without benefit
of clergy? I won't tell you what reply my heart made to your raillery of
seven years, but I will give you what a brother of my trade says on the
same allusion:--
The patriarch to gain a wife,
Chaste, beautiful, and young,
Served fourteen years a painful life,
And never thought it long.
O were you to reward such cares,
And life so long would stay,
Not fourteen but four hundred years
Would seem but as a day.[62]
I have written you this scrawl because I have nothing else to do, and
you may sit down and find fault with it, if you have no better way of
consuming your time. But finding fault with the vagaries of a poet's
fancy is much such another business as Xerxes chastising the waves of
Hellespont.
My limb now allows me to sit in some peace: to walk I have yet no
prospect of, as I can't mark it to the ground.
I have just now looked over what I have written, and it is such a chaos
of nonsense that I daresay you will throw it into the fire and call me
an idle, stupid fellow; but, whatever you may think of my brains,
believe me to be, with the most sacred respect and heart-felt esteem, my
dear Madam, your humble Servant, ROBT. BURNS.
[Footnote 62: Tom D'Urfey's Songs.]
* * * *
V.
_Friday Evening_, 28_th December_ 1787.
I beg your pardon, my dear "Clarinda," for the fragment scrawl I sent
you yesterday. I really do not know what I wrote. A gentleman, for whose
character, abilities, and critical knowledge I have the highest
veneration, called in just as I had begun the second sentence, and I
would not make the porter wait. I read to my much-respected friend
several of my own bagatelles, and, among others, your lines, which I had
copied out. He began some criticisms on them as on the other pieces,
when I informed him they were the work of a young lady in this town,
which, I assure you, made him stare. My learned friend seriously
protested that he did not believe any young woman in Edinburgh was
capable of such lines; and if you know anything of Professor Gregory,
you will neither doubt of his abilities nor his sincerity. I do love
you, if possible, still better for having so fine a taste and turn for
poesy. I have again gone wrong in my usual unguarded way, but you may
erase the word, and put esteem, respect, or any other tame Dutch
expression you please in its place. I believe there is no holding
converse, or carrying on correspondence, with an amiable woman, much
less a _gloriously amiable fine woman_, without some mixture of that
delicious passion, whose most devoted slave I have more than once had
the honour of being. But why be hurt or offended on that account? Can no
honest man have a prepossession for a fine woman, but he must run his
head against an intrigue? Take a little of the tender witchcraft of
love, and add to it the generous, the honourable sentiments of manly
friendship, and I know but _one_ more delightful morsel, which few, few
in any rank ever taste. Such a composition is like adding cream to
strawberries; it not only gives the fruit a more elegant richness, but
has a deliciousness of its own.
I inclose you a few lines I composed on a late melancholy occasion. I
will not give above five or six copies of it in all, and I should be
hurt if any friend should give any copies without my consent.
You cannot imagine, Clarinda (I like the idea of Arcadian names in a
commerce of this kind), how much store I have set by the hopes of your
future friendship. I do not know if you have a just idea of my
character, but I wish you to see me as _I am_. I am, as most people of
my trade are, a strange Will-o'-Wisp being: the victim, too frequently,
of much imprudence and many follies. My great constituent elements are
_pride_ and _passion_. The first I have endeavoured to humanise into
integrity and honour; the last makes me a devotee to the warmest degree
of enthusiasm, in love, religion, or friendship--either of them, or all
together, as I happen to be inspired. 'Tis true, I never saw you but
once; but how much acquaintance did I form with you in that once? Do not
think I flatter you, or have a design upon you, Clarinda; I have too
much pride for the one, and too little cold contrivance for the other;
but of all God's creatures I ever could approach in the beaten way of my
acquaintance, you struck me with the deepest, the strongest, the most
permanent impression. I say the most permanent, because I know myself
well, and how far I can promise either on my prepossessions or powers.
Why are you unhappy? And why are so many of our fellow-creatures,
unworthy to belong to the same species with you, blest with all they can
wish? You have a hand all benevolent to give-why were you denied the
pleasure? You have a heart formed--gloriously formed--for all the most
refined luxuries of love:-why was that heart ever wrung? O Clarinda!
shall we not meet in a state, some yet unknown state of being, where the
lavish hand of plenty shall minister to the highest wish of benevolence;
and where the chill north-wind of prudence shall never blow over the
flowery fields of enjoyment? If we do not, man was made in vain! I
deserved most of the unhappy hours that have lingered over my head; they
were the wages of my labour: but what unprovoked demon, malignant as
hell, stole upon the confidence of unmistrusting busy Fate, and dashed
your cup of life with undeserved sorrow?
Let me know how long your stay will be out of town; I shall count the
hours till you inform me of your return. Cursed _etiquette_ forbids your
seeing me just now; and so soon as I can walk I must bid Edinburgh
adieu. Lord! why was I born to see misery which I cannot relieve, and to
meet with friends whom I cannot enjoy? I look back with the pang of
unavailing avarice on my loss in not knowing you sooner: all last
winter, these three months past, what luxury of intercourse have I not
lost! Perhaps, though,'twas better for my peace. You see I am either
above, or incapable of dissimulation. I believe it is want of that
particular genius. I despise design, because I want either coolness or
wisdom to be capable of it. I am interrupted. Adieu! my dear Clarinda!
SYLVANDER.
* * * *
VI.
_Thursday, Jan_. 3, 1788.
You are right, my dear Clarinda: a friendly correspondence goes for
nothing, except one writes his or her undisguised sentiments. Yours
please me for their instrinsic merit, as well as because they are
_yours_, which I assure you, is to me a high recommendation. Your
religious sentiments, Madam, I revere. If you have, on some suspicious
evidence, from some lying oracle, learned that I despise or ridicule so
sacredly important a matter as real religion, you have, my Clarinda,
much misconstrued your friend. "I am not mad, most noble Festus!" Have
you ever met a perfect character? Do we not sometimes rather exchange
faults, than get rid of them? For instance, I am perhaps tired with, and
shocked at a life too much the prey of giddy inconsistencies and
thoughtless follies; by degrees I grow sober, prudent, and statedly
pious--I say statedly, because the most unaffected devotion is not at
all inconsistent with my first character--I join the world in
congratulating myself on the happy change. But let me pry more narrowly
into this affair. Have I, at bottom, any thing of a sacred pride in
these endowments and emendations? Have I nothing of a presbyterian
sourness, an hypocritical severity, when I survey my less regular
neighbours? In a word, have I missed all those nameless and numberless
modifications of indistinct selfishness, which are so near our own eyes,
that we can scarcely bring them within the sphere of our vision, and
which the known spotless cambric of our character hides from the
ordinary observer?
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