The Real Robert Burns Part 3

I mind it weel, in early date, When I was beardless, young, and blate, bashful

When first amang the yellow corn A man I reckoned was,

E'en then a wish (I mind its power), A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast; That I for poor auld Scotland's sake Some usefu' plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least.

The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide Amang the bearded bear, barley I turned the weeder-clips aside And spared the symbol dear: No nation, no station, My envy e'er could raise; A Scot still, but blot still, without I knew nae higher praise.

The boy who had such a reverent feeling in his heart for the thistle, the symbol of his native land, that he did not like to cut it, continued throughout his life to have a reverence for the land itself, and tried to honour it in every possible way.

He did make the book and sing the songs that brought more lasting glory to Scotland than any other work done by any other man or combination of men in his time.

He wrote more than two hundred and fifty love-songs, and he refused to accept a shilling for them, though he needed money very badly. Many of his love-songs were the direct out-pouring of his heart, the overflow of his love for Nellie Kirkpatrick and Peggy Thomson, the girl lovers of his boyhood; and for Alison Begbie, Jean Armour, Mary Campbell, and Mrs M'Lehose; but most of his love-songs were 'fict.i.tious,' as he said they were in the inscription on the copy of his works presented to Jean Lorimer, the Chloris of his Ellisland and Dumfries period. They were written mainly to provide pure language and thought for fine melodies of Scotland composed long before his time; but the words of the songs that were sung to them were indelicate. He wrote his unequalled songs for Scotland's sake, and by doing so he gave to Scotland the gift of the sweetest love-songs ever written. But for these sacred songs his patriotic spirit resented the idea of acceptance of material reward. No higher revelation of genuine patriotism was ever shown than this.

Burns was a sensitive and very shy man. He is commonly supposed to have been just the opposite. He was brought up in a home at Mount Oliphant where he rarely a.s.sociated with other people. Months sometimes pa.s.sed without an evening spent in any other way than in reading and discussions of the matter read by his father, Gilbert, and himself; so in boyhood and early youth he was reserved. When he began to go out among other young men his comparatively developed mind, his very unusual stores of knowledge--not merely stored, but cla.s.sified and related--and his extraordinary power of eloquence made him at once a leader and a favourite, so he soon overcame his reserve and shyness with young men. It was not so with young women. He had been trained to wait for introductions to them. He was walking past Jean Armour, when she was at the town pump at Mauchline getting water to sprinkle the clothes on the bleaching-green, without speaking to her, and she spoke to him, recalling a remark she heard him make at the annual dance on the evening of the fair. He was twenty-five, and she was eighteen. He would have pa.s.sed close to her in respectful silence if she had not spoken.

Sir Walter Scott wrote: 'I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential.'

Scott did not mean to suggest a doubt about what he was told, but just to intimate that he had not had opportunity to observe the fact. Scott met Burns only once in company, and Scott was a boy at the time.

He dearly and reverently loved Alison Begbie when he was twenty-one. She was the first woman whom he asked to become his wife. She was a servant in a farm-house on the banks of Cessnock Water, in the neighbourhood of Lochlea farm. He was twenty-two when he asked her to marry him, and he was so shy, even at that age, that he could not propose when he was with her.

She did not accept his offer. Few women of his acquaintance would have refused to accept his written proposal. Probably none of them--not even Alison Begbie--would have refused him if he had been able to overcome his shyness, and had proposed in person instead of by letter.

He wrote five letters to Alison Begbie, and definitely asked her to marry him in the fourth letter. In the first he said: 'I am a stranger in these matters, as I a.s.sure you that you are the first woman to whom I ever made such a declaration, so I declare I am at a loss how to proceed. I have more than once come into your company with a resolution to say what I have just now told you; but my resolution always failed me, and even now my heart trembles for the consequence of what I have said.'

The following copies of the letter containing his proposal (the fourth), and of his reply to her refusal, if read carefully, should reveal several admirable characteristics of Burns.

'LOCHLEA, 1781.

'MY DEAR E.,[2]--I have often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circ.u.mstance in love that, though in every other situation in life, telling the truth is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of proceeding, a Lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or more puzzled for expression, than when his pa.s.sion is sincere, and his intentions are honourable. I do not think that it is very difficult for a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practise such detestable conduct; but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of sentiment, and purity of manners--to such a one in such circ.u.mstances I can a.s.sure you, my Dear, from my own feelings at this present moment, _Courtship_ is a task indeed.

There is such a number of foreboding fears, and distrustful anxieties crowd into my mind when I am in your company, or when I sit down to write to you, that what to speak or what to write I am altogether at a loss.

'There is one rule which I have hitherto practised, and which I shall invariably keep with you, and that is, honestly to tell you the plain truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, that I am surprised they can be used by any one in so n.o.ble, so generous a pa.s.sion as Virtuous Love. No, my dear E., I shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable practices. If you will be so good and so generous as to admit me for your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater transport; but I shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man, and, I will add, of a Christian. There is one thing, my Dear, which I earnestly request of you, and it is this: that you would soon either put an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, or cure me of my fears by a generous consent.

'It would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when convenient. I shall only add further, that if a behaviour regulated (though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of Honour and Virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest endeavour to promote your happiness; if these are qualities you would wish in a friend, in a husband, I hope you shall ever find them in your real friend and sincere lover.'

After her refusal he wrote:

'LOCHLEA, 1781.

'I ought in good manners to have acknowledged the receipt of your letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked with the contents of it, that I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to write to you on the subject. I will not attempt to describe what I felt on receiving your letter. I read it over and over, again and again, and though it was in the politest language of refusal, still it was peremptory; you "were very sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me--what without you I can never obtain--you wish me all kinds of happiness." It would be weak and unmanly to say that without you I never can be happy; but sure I am, that sharing life with you would have given it a relish that, wanting you, I can never taste.

'Your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good sense, do not so much strike me; these possibly in a few instances may be met with in others; but that amiable goodness, that tender, feminine softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the charming offspring of a warm, feeling heart--these I never again expect to meet with in such a degree in this world. All these charming qualities, heightened by an education much beyond anything I have ever met with in any woman I ever dared to approach, have made an impression on my heart that I do not think the world can ever efface. My imagination had fondly flattered itself with a wish--I dare not say it ever reached a hope--that possibly I might one day call you mine. I had formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over them; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had no right to expect. I must now think no more of you as a mistress, still I presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to be allowed to wait on you, and as I expect to remove in a few days a little farther off, and you, I suppose, will perhaps soon leave this place, I wish to see you or hear from you soon; and if an expression should perhaps escape me rather too warm for friendship, I hope you will pardon it in, my dear Miss ---- (pardon me the dear expression for once),

'R. B.'

Those who say that these letters 'have an air of taskwork and constraint about them' should remember that Burns formed the style of his letter-writing when but a boy from a book containing the letters of leaders of Queen Anne's time, which was given to him by his uncle. His own letters on all subjects are written in a dignified style. It is worth noting that Motherwell, who criticised the style of the letters, says of them: 'They are, in fact, the only sensible love-letters we have ever seen.'

Though naturally a very shy man, he grew to be happier as his powers developed. In his teens and young manhood he had fits bordering on despondency. But he pa.s.sed through them and became more buoyant in spirit, and, though poor, was contented.

In 'My Nannie O' he wrote:

Come weel, come woe, I care na by, I'll tak what Heaven will sen' me.

In 'It is na, Jean, thy Bonnie Face,' he said:

Content am I if Heaven shall give But happiness to thee.

This shows that consideration for others was one of his sources of happiness.

In his 'Epistle to James Smith' he wrote:

Truce with peevish, poor complaining!

Is Fortune's fickle Luna waning?

E'en let her gang!

Beneath what light she has remaining Let's sing our sang.

Dr John M'Kenzie of Mauchline, in 1810, thirteen years after the death of Burns, described a visit made to see his father when he was ill. In it he says: 'Gilbert, in the first interview I had with him at Lochlea, was frank, modest, well-informed, and communicative. The poet seemed distant, suspicious, and without any wish to interest or please. He kept himself very silent in a dark corner of the room; and before he took any part in the conversation, I frequently detected him scrutinising me during my conversation with his father and brother.

'But afterwards, when the conversation, which was on a medical subject, had taken the turn he wished, he began to engage in it, displaying a dexterity of reasoning, an ingenuity of reflection, and a familiarity with topics apparently beyond his reach, by which his visitor was no less gratified than astonished.'

Burns lived next door to Dr M'Kenzie after he was married the second time to Jean Armour. They were great friends. Burns wrote a masonic poem to him, and called him 'Common-sense' in 'The Holy Fair.'

In the letter from which the above quotation is made, Dr M'Kenzie says Robert took his characteristics mainly from his mother, and that Gilbert resembled his father.

Burns looked like his mother, and inherited his temperamental characteristics mainly from her.

Burns had a definitely religious tendency as one of his strong characteristics when he was a child. In the sketch of his life that he wrote to Dr Moore, of London, when he was twenty-eight years old, he says that as a boy he possessed 'an enthusiastic idiot-piety. I say idiot-piety because I was then a child.'

He wrote several religious poems while living on Lochlea farm and on Mossgiel farm. 'The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night' was written at Mossgiel.

Throughout his life his religious tendency was one of his characteristics.

This will be considered more fully in the chapter on 'Burns's Great Work for Religion.'

Burns was the warm, personal friend of the best people in every district in or near which he lived. He must have been a good man who could count among his friends such men and women as the following: Lord Glencairn, Mrs Dunlop, the Earl of Eglintoun, Dr Moore, Dr M'Kenzie, Gavin Hamilton, Hon.

Henry Erskine, the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon, Right Rev. Bishop Geddes, Robert Graham of Fintry, Robert Riddell, Robert Aiken, the Earl of Buchan, Prof.

Dugald Stewart, Dr Candlish, Sir John Whitefoord, John Murdoch, Dr Blacklock, Dr Hugh Blair, Alex. Cunningham, Rev. Archibald Alison, Sir John Sinclair, Rev. John M'Math, and the best ministers of the 'New Licht,' or progressive cla.s.s; the leading professors in Edinburgh University, and the leading schoolmasters in his neighbourhood. In fact, he was loved and respected by leaders of all cla.s.ses except the 'Auld Licht' preachers. He lives on and becomes more popular as he becomes better known.

His one characteristic that would most fully represent him and his work for G.o.d and humanity is his propelling tendency to be a reformer of conditions. He accepted no existing conditions as good enough. He saw quickly and clearly the defects of conditions as they existed, and he never hesitated to attack any evil that he could help to overthrow. He saw that individual freedom and pure religion were vital and essential elements of human progress and happiness. He saw with unerring vision the lack of freedom and of vital religion in the lives of the people; so to make all men free, to give all children equal opportunity to develop the best in their souls, and to purify religion from superst.i.tion, hypocrisy, bigotry, and kindred evils that were blighting it, became his highest purposes.

What was the character of Burns in the estimation of the leading people of his own time? On replying to a request that he would use his influence in favour of Burns for an appointment Sir John Whitefoord wrote: 'Your character as a man, as well as a poet, ent.i.tles you, I think, to the a.s.sistance of every inhabitant of Ayrshire.'

Sir John owned the Ballochmyle estate near Mauchline, and was one of the leading country gentlemen of Ayrshire in his time.

Mr Archibald Prentice, editor of the _Manchester Times_, was the son of a prominent man who lived about half-way between Mauchline and Edinburgh, at Covington, in Lanarkshire. Mr Prentice, senior, was a great admirer of Burns, as were leaders everywhere. Mr Archibald Prentice, writing about his father's affectionate respect for Burns, said; 'My father, though a strictly moral and religious man himself, always maintained that the virtues of the poet greatly predominated over his faults. I once heard him exclaim with hot wrath, when somebody was quoting from an apologist, "What! do _they_ apologise for _him_! One half of his good, and all his bad divided among a score of them, would make them a' better men!"