The Letters of Robert Burns

R >> Robert Burns >> The Letters of Robert Burns

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

My definition of worth is short; truth and humanity respecting our
fellow-creatures; reverence and humility in the presence of that Being,
my Creator and Preserver, and who, I have every reason to believe, will
one day be my Judge. The first part of my definition is the creature of
unbiassed instinct; the last is the child of after reflection. Where I
found these two essentials I would gently note and slightly mention any
attendant flaws--flaws, the marks, the consequences of human nature.

I can easily enter into the sublime pleasures that your strong
imagination and keen sensibility must derive from religion, particularly
if a little in the shade of misfortune; but I own I cannot, without a
marked grudge, see Heaven totally engross so amiable, so charming a
woman, as my friend Clarinda; and should be very well pleased at _a
circumstance_ that would put it in the power of somebody (happy
somebody!) to divide her attention, with all the delicacy and tenderness
of an earthly attachment.

You will not easily persuade me that you have not a grammatical
knowledge of the English language. So far from being inaccurate, you are
elegant beyond any woman of my acquaintance, except one,--whom I
wish you knew.

Your last verses to me have so delighted me, that I have got an
excellent old Scots air that suits the measure, and you shall see them
in print in the Scots _Musical Museum_, a work publishing by a friend of
mine in this town. I want four stanzas, you gave me but three, and one
of them alluded to an expression in my former letter; so I have taken
your two first verses, with a slight alteration in the second, and have
added a third, but you must help me to a fourth. Here they are; the
latter half of the first stanza would have been worthy of Sappho; I am
in raptures with it.

Talk not of Love, it gives me pain,
For Love has been my foe:
He bound me with an iron chain,
And sunk me deep in woe.

But Friendship's pure and lasting joys
My heart was formed to prove:
There welcome, win and wear the prize,
But never talk of Love.

Your friendship much can make me blest,
O why that bliss destroy!
[only]
Why urge the odious one request,
[will]
You know I must deny.

The alteration in the second stanza is no improvement, but there was a
slight inaccuracy in your rhyme. The third I only offer to your choice,
and have left two words for your determination. The air is "The banks of
Spey," and is most beautiful.

To-morrow evening I intend taking a chair, and paying a visit at Park
Place to a much-valued old friend.[63] If I could be sure of finding you
at home (and I will send one of the chairmen to call), I would spend
from five to six o'clock with you, as I go past. I cannot do more at
this time, as I have something on my hand that hurries me much. I
propose giving you the first call, my old friend the second, and Miss
Nimmo as I return home. Do not break any engagement for me, as I will
spend another evening with you at any rate before I leave town.

Do not tell me that you are pleased, when your friends inform you of
your faults. I am ignorant what they are; but I am sure they must be
such evanescent trifles, compared with your personal and mental
accomplishments, that I would despise the ungenerous narrow soul, who
would notice any shadow of imperfections you may seem to have, any other
way than in the most delicate agreeable raillery. Coarse minds are not
aware how much they injure the keenly feeling tie of bosom friendship,
when, in their foolish officiousness, they mention what nobody cares for
recollecting. People of nice sensibility, and generous minds, have a
certain intrinsic dignity, that fires at being trifled with, or lowered,
or even too nearly approached.

You need make no apology for long letters; I am even with you. Many
happy new years to you, charming Clarinda! I can't dissemble, were it to
shun perdition. He who sees you as I have done, and does not love you,
deserves to be damn'd for his stupidity! He who loves you, and would
injure you, deserves to be doubly damn'd for his villany! Adieu.

SYLVANDER.

P.S. What would you think of this for a fourth stanza?

Your thought, if love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought,
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.

[Footnote 63: Probably Mr. Nicol, who lived in Buccleuch Pend, a
short distance from Clarinda's residence.]

* * * * *

VII.

_Saturday Noon_ [_5th January_].

Some days, some nights, nay, some _hours_, like the "ten righteous
persons in Sodom," save the rest of the vapid, tiresome, miserable
months and years of life. One of these hours my dear Clarinda blest me
with yesternight.

One well-spent hour,
In such a tender circumstance for friends,
Is better than an age of common time!

THOMSON.

My favourite feature in Milton's Satan is his manly fortitude in
supporting what cannot be remedied--in short, the wild broken fragments
of a noble exalted mind in ruins. I meant no more by saying he was a
favourite hero of mine.

I mentioned to you my letter to Dr. Moore, giving an account of my life:
it is truth, every word of it; and will give you a just idea of the man
whom you have honoured with your friendship. I am afraid you will hardly
be able to make sense of so torn a piece. Your verses I shall muse on,
deliciously, as I gaze on your image in my mind's eye, in my heart's
core: they will be in time enough for a week to come. I am truly happy
your headache is better. O, how can pain or evil be so daringly
unfeeling, cruelly savage, as to wound so noble a mind, so lovely
a form!

My little fellow is all my namesake. Write me soon. My every, strongest
good wishes attend you, Clarinda!

SYLVANDER.

I know not what I have written--I am pestered with people around me.

* * * *

VIII.

_Jan. 8, 1788, Tuesday Night._

I am delighted, charming Clarinda, with your honest enthusiasm for
religion. Those of either sex, but particularly the female, who are
lukewarm in that most important of all things, "O my soul, come not thou
into their secrets!" I feel myself deeply interested in your good
opinion, and will lay before you the outlines of my belief. He who is
our Author and Preserver, and will one day be our Judge, must be (not
for his sake in the way of duty, but from the native impulse of our
hearts), the object of our reverential awe and grateful adoration: He is
Almighty and all-bounteous, we are weak and dependent; hence prayer and
every other sort of devotion. "He is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to everlasting life;" consequently it must be
in every one's power to embrace his offer of "everlasting life;"
otherwise he could not, in justice, condemn those who did not. A mind
pervaded, actuated, and governed by purity, truth, and charity, though
it does not merit heaven, yet is an absolute necessary prerequisite,
without which heaven can neither be obtained nor enjoyed; and, by divine
promise, such a mind shall never fail of attaining "everlasting life;"
hence the impure, the deceiving, and the uncharitable extrude themselves
from eternal bliss, by their unfitness for enjoying it. The Supreme
Being has put the immediate administration of all this, for wise and
good ends known to himself, into the hands of Jesus Christ, a great
personage, whose relation to him we cannot comprehend, but whose
relation to us is a guide and Saviour; and who, except for our own
obstinacy and misconduct, will bring us all, through various ways, and
by various means, to bliss at last.

These are my tenets, my lovely friend; and which I think cannot well be
disputed. My creed is pretty nearly expressed in the last clause of
Jamie Dean's grace, an honest weaver in Ayrshire,--"Lord, grant that we
may lead a gude life; for a gude life maks a gude end, at least it
helps weel!"

I am flattered by the entertainment you tell me you have found in my
packet. You see me as I have been, you know me as I am, and may guess at
what I am likely to be. I too may say, "Talk not of love," etc., for
indeed he has "plunged me deep in woe!" Not that I ever saw a woman who
pleased unexceptionably, as my Clarinda elegantly says, "in the
companion, the friend, and the mistress." _One_ indeed I could
except--_One_, before passion threw its mists over my discernment, I
knew--_the_ first of women! Her name is indelibly written in my heart's
core--but I dare not look in on it--a degree of agony would be the
consequence. Oh! thou perfidious, cruel, mischief-making demon, who
presidest over that frantic passion--thou mayest, thou dost poison my
peace, but thou shalt not taint my honour. I would not, for a single
moment, give an asylum to the most distant imagination, that would
shadow the faintest outline of a selfish gratification, at the expense
of her whose happiness is twisted with the threads of my existence.--May
she be as happy as she deserves! and if my tenderest, faithfullest
friendship, can add to her bliss, I shall at least have one solid mine
of enjoyment in my bosom! _Don't guess at these ravings_!

I watched at our front window to-day, but was disappointed. It has been
a day of disappointments. I am just risen from a two hours' bout after
supper, with silly or sordid souls, who could relish nothing in common
with me but the Port.--_One!_--Tis now "witching time of night;" and
whatever is out of joint in the foregoing scrawl, impute it to
enchantments and spells; for I can't look over it, but will seal it up
directly, as I don't care for to-morrow's criticisms on it.

You are by this time fast asleep, Clarinda; may good angels attend and
guard you as constantly and faithfully as my good wishes do.

Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces.

John Milton, I wish thy soul better rest than I expect on my own pillow
to-night! O for a little of the cart-horse part of human nature! Good
night, my dearest Clarinda!

SYLVANDER.

* * * *

IX

_Thursday Noon_, 10_th January_ 1788.

I am certain I saw you, Clarinda; but you don't look to the proper
storey for a poet's lodging--

Where speculation roosted near the sky.

I could almost have thrown myself over for vexation. Why didn't you look
higher? It has spoiled my peace for this day. To be so near my charming
Clarinda; to miss her look while it was searching for me--I am sure the
soul is capable of disease, for mine has convulsed itself into an
inflammatory fever.

You have converted me, Clarinda. (I shall love that name while I live:
there is heavenly music in it.) Booth and Amelia I know well.[64] Your
sentiments on that subject, as they are on every subject, are just and
noble. "To be feelingly alive to kindness, and to unkindness," is a
charming female character.

What I said in my last letter, the powers of fuddling sociality only
know for me. By yours, I understand my good star has been partly in my
horizon, when I got wild in my reveries. Had that evil planet, which has
almost all my life shed its baleful rays on my devoted head, been, as
usual, in my zenith, I had certainly blabbed something that would have
pointed out to you the dear object of my tenderest friendship, and, in
spite of me, something more. Had that fatal information escaped me, and
it was merely chance, or kind stars, that it did not, I had been undone!

You would never have written me, except perhaps _once_ more! O, I could
curse circumstances, and the coarse tie of human laws, which keeps fast
what common sense would loose, and which bars that happiness itself
cannot give--happiness which otherwise Love and Honour would warrant!
But hold--I shall make no more "hair-breadth 'scapes."

My friendship, Clarinda, is a life-rent business. My likings are both
strong and eternal. I told you I had but one male friend: I have but two
female. I should have a third, but she is surrounded by the
blandishments of flattery and courtship. The name I register in my
heart's core is _Peggy Chalmers_. Miss Nimmo can tell you how divine she
is. She is worthy of a place in the same bosom with my Clarinda. That is
the highest compliment I can pay her.

Farewell, Clarinda! Remember

SYLVANDER.

[Footnote 64: See Fielding's _Amelia_.]

* * * *

X.

_Saturday Morning_, 12_th January_.

Your thoughts on religion, Clarinda, shall be welcome. You may perhaps
distrust me, when I say 'tis also my favourite topic; but mine is the
religion of the bosom. I hate the very idea of a controversial divinity;
as I firmly believe, that every honest upright man, of whatever sect,
will be accepted of the Deity. If your verses, as you seem to hint,
contain censure, except you want an occasion to break with me, don't
send them. I have a little infirmity in my disposition, that where I
fondly love, or highly esteem, I cannot bear reproach.

"Reverence thyself" is a sacred maxim, and I wish to cherish it. I think
I told you Lord Bolingbroke's saying to Swift--"Adieu, dear Swift, with
all thy faults I love thee entirely; make an effort to love me with all
mine." A glorious sentiment, and without which there can be no
friendship! I do highly, very highly, esteem you indeed, Clarinda--you
merit it all! Perhaps, too, I scorn dissimulation! I could fondly love
you: judge then what a maddening sting your reproach would be. "O! I
have sins to _Heaven_ but none to _you!_" With what pleasure would I
meet you to-day, but I cannot walk to meet the fly. I hope to be able to
see you on _foot_ about the middle of next week.

I am interrupted--perhaps you are not sorry for it, you will tell
me--but I won't anticipate blame. O Clarinda! did you know how dear to
me is your look of kindness, your smile of approbation! you would not,
either in prose or verse, risk a censorious remark.

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe!

SYLVANDER.

* * * *

XI.

_Saturday_, _Jan_. 12, 1788.

You talk of weeping, Clarinda! Some involuntary drops wet your lines as
I read them. _Offend me_, my dearest angel! You cannot offend me, you
never offended me! If you had ever given me the least shadow of offence
so pardon me, God, as I forgive Clarinda! I have read yours again; it
has blotted my paper. Though I find your letter has agitated me into a
violent headache, I shall take a chair and be with you about eight. A
friend is to be with us to tea on my account, which hinders me from
coming sooner. Forgive, my dearest Clarinda, my unguarded expressions.
For Heaven's sake, forgive me, or I shall never be able to bear my own
mind. Your unhappy Sylvander.

* * * *

XII.

_Monday Evening_, 11 _o'clock_, 14_th January_.

Why have I not heard from you, Clarinda? To-day I expected it; and
before supper when a letter to me was announced, my heart danced with
rapture: but behold, 'twas some fool, who had taken it into his head to
turn poet, and made me an offering of the first-fruits of his nonsense.
"It is not poetry, but prose run mad." Did I ever repeat to you an
epigram I made on a Mr. Elphinstone,[65] who has given a translation of
Martial, a famous Latin poet? The poetry of Elphinstone can only equal
his prose notes. I was sitting in a merchant's shop of my acquaintance,
waiting somebody; he put Elphinstone into my hand, and asked my opinion
of it; I begged leave to write it on a blank leaf, which I did,--

TO MR. ELPHINSTONE.

O thou, whom poesy abhors!
Whom prose has turned out of doors!
Heardst thou yon groan? proceed no further!
'Twas laurel'd Martial calling murther!

I am determined to see you, if at all possible, on Saturday evening.
Next week I must sing--

The night is my departing night,
The morn's the day I maun awa;
There's neither friend nor foe o' mine
But wishes that I were awa!
What I hae done for lack o' wit,
I never, never can reca';
I hope ye're a' my friends as yet,
Gude night, and joy be wi' you a'!

If I could see you sooner, I would be so much the happier; but I would
not purchase the _dearest gratification_ on earth, if it must be at your
expense in worldly censure, far less inward peace!

I shall certainly be ashamed of thus scrawling whole sheets of
incoherence. The only _unity_ (a sad word with poets and critics!) in my
ideas, is CLARINDA. There my heart "reigns and revels."

What art thou, Love? whence are those charms,
That thus thou bear'st an universal rule?
For thee the soldier quits his arms,
The king turns slave, the wise man fool.
In vain we chase thee from the field,
And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke:
Next tide of blood, alas! we yield;
And all those high resolves are broke!

I like to have quotations for every occasion They give one's ideas so
pat, and save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one's
feelings. I think it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic
genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, loves, etc., an embodied
form in verse, which, to me, is ever immediate ease. Goldsmith says
finely of his Muse--

Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe;
Thou foundst me poor at first, and keep'st me so.

My limb has been so well to-day, that I have gone up and down stairs
often without my staff. To-morrow I hope to walk once again on my own
legs to dinner. It is only next street.--Adieu. Sylvander.

[Footnote 65: A native of Edinburgh, and a schoolmaster in London. He
was a friend of Samuel Johnson]

* * * *

XIII.

_Tuesday Evening_, _Jan_. 15.

That you have faults, my Clarinda, I never doubted; but I knew not where
they existed, and Saturday night made me more in the dark than ever. O
Clarinda! why will you wound my soul, by hinting that last night must
have lessened my opinion of you? True, I was "behind the scenes with
you;" but what did I see? A bosom glowing with honour and benevolence; a
mind ennobled by genius, informed and refined by education and
reflection, and exalted by native religion, genuine as in the climes of
heaven: a heart formed for all the glorious meltings of friendship,
love, and pity. These I saw--I saw the noblest immortal soul creation
ever showed me.

I looked long, my dear Clarinda, for your letter; and am vexed that you
are complaining. I have not caught you so far wrong as in your idea,
that the commerce you have with _one_ friend hurts you, if you cannot
tell every tittle of it to _another_. Why have so injurious a suspicion
of a good God, Clarinda, as to think that Friendship and Love, on the
sacred inviolate principles of Truth, Honour, and Religion! can be
anything else than an object of His divine approbation.

I have mentioned in some of my former scrawls, Saturday evening next. Do
allow me to wait on you that evening. Oh, my angel! how soon must we
part! and when can we meet again! I look forward on the horrid interval
with tearful eyes! What have I lost by not knowing you sooner. I fear, I
fear my acquaintance with you is too short, to make that _lasting_
impression on your heart I could wish.

SYLVANDER.

* * * *

XIV.

_Saturday Morning_, 19_th Jan_

There is no time, my Clarinda, when the conscious thrilling chords of
Love and Friendship give such delight, as in the pensive hours of what
our favourite Thomson calls, "philosophic melancholy." The sportive
insects, who bask in the sunshine of prosperity; or the worms that
luxuriantly crawl amid their ample wealth of earth, they need no
Clarinda: they would despise Sylvander--if they durst. The family of
Misfortune, a numerous group of brothers and sisters! they need a
resting place to their souls: unnoticed, often condemned by the
world--in some degree, perhaps, condemned by themselves, they feel the
full enjoyment of ardent love, delicate tender endearments, mutual
esteem and mutual reliance.

In this light I have often admired religion. In proportion as we are
wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a
compassionate Deity, an Almighty Protector, are doubly dear.

'_Tis this_, my friend, that streaks our morning bright;
'_Tis this_ that gilds the horrors of our night.'

I have been this morning taking a peep through, as Young finely says,
"the dark postern of time long elaps'd;" and, you will easily
guess,'twas a rueful prospect. What a tissue of thoughtlessness,
weakness, and folly! My life reminded me of a ruined temple; what
strength, what proportion in some parts! what unsightly gaps, what
prostrate ruin in others! I kneeled down before the Father of mercies,
and said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and
am no more worthy to be called thy son!" I rose, eased and strengthened.
I despise the superstition of a fanatic, but I love the religion of a
man. "The future," said I to myself, "is still before me;" there let me

on reason build resolve,
That column of true majesty in man!

"I have difficulties many to encounter," said I; "but they are not
absolutely insuperable; and where is firmness of mind shown but in
exertion? mere declamation is bombast rant." Besides, wherever I am, or
in whatever situation I may be--

'Tis nought to me:
Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes, there must be joy!

_Saturday night--half after Ten_.

What luxury of bliss I was enjoying this time yesternight! My ever
dearest Clarinda, you have stolen away my soul; but you have refined,
you have exalted it; you have given it a stronger sense for virtue, and
a stronger relish for piety. Clarinda, first of your sex, if ever I am
the veriest wretch on earth to forget you, if ever your lovely image is
effaced from my soul,

May I be lost, no eye to weep my end;
And find no earth that's base enough to bury me!

What trifling silliness is the childish fondness of the every-day
children of the world! 'tis the unmeaning toying of the younglings of
the fields and forests; but where Sentiment and Fancy unite their
sweets, where Taste and Delicacy refine, where Wit adds the flavour, and
Good Sense gives strength and spirit to all, what a delicious draught is
the hour of tender endearment! Beauty and Grace, in the arms of Truth
and Honour, in all the luxury of mutual love.

Clarinda, have you ever seen the picture realised? Not in all its very
richest colouring.

Last night, Clarinda, but for one slight shade, was the glorious
picture.

Innocence
Look'd gaily smiling on; while rosy Pleasure
Hid young Desire amid her flowery wreath,
And pour'd her cup luxuriant; mantling high,
The sparkling heavenly vintage, Love and Bliss!

Clarinda, when a poet and poetess of Nature's making, two of Nature's
noblest productions! when they drink together of the same cup of Love
and Bliss--attempt not, ye coarser stuff of human nature, profanely to
measure enjoyment ye never can know! Good night, my dear Clarinda!

SYLVANDER.

* * * *

XV

_Sunday Night_, 20_th January_.

The impertinence of fools has joined with a return of an old
indisposition, to make me good for nothing to-day. The paper has lain
before me all this evening, to write to my dear Clarinda, but--

Fools rush'd on fools, as waves succeed to waves.

I cursed them in my soul; they sacrilegiously disturbed my meditations
on her who holds my heart. What a creature is man! A little alarm last
night and to-day, that I am mortal, has made such a revolution on my
spirits! There is no philosophy, no divinity, comes half so home to the
mind. I have no idea of courage that braves heaven. 'Tis the wild
ravings of an imaginary hero in bedlam. I can no more, Clarinda; I can
scarcely hold up my head; but I am happy you do not know it, you would
be so uneasy.

SYLVANDER.

_Monday Morning_.

I am, my lovely friend, much better this morning on the whole; but I
have a horrid languor on my spirits.

Sick of the world, and all its joys,
My soul in pining sadness mourns;
Dark scenes of woe my mind employs,
The past and present in their turns.

Have you ever met with a saying of the great, and like wise good Mr.
Locke, author of the famous _Essay on the Human Understanding_? He wrote
a letter to a friend, directing it, "not to be delivered till after my
decease;" it ended thus--"I know you loved me when living, and will
preserve my memory now I am dead. All the use to be made of it is, that
this life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of
having done well, and the hopes of another life. Adieu! I leave my best
wishes with you. J. LOCKE."

Clarinda, may I reckon on your friendship for life? I think I may. Thou
Almighty Preserver of men! thy friendship, which hitherto I have too
much neglected, to secure it shall, all the future days and nights of my
life, be my steady care! The idea of my Clarinda follows--

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27