SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 237 delicate condition. She had, however, no countenance from the poet's relations, or from any of her ordinary acquaintances— realising indeed, as nearly as could well be, the condition of a maiden who speaks in one of her lover's ballads: 'My father put me frae his door, My friends they hae disowned me a'; The bonnie lad that's far awa.' No allusion is made by Burns in any of his letters to the second accouchement. It is recorded in his family Bible, but under a date which must be a mistake' March 3, 1788, were born to them twins again, two daughters, who died within a few days after their birth.'1 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. [March 6. 1788.] I own myself guilty, Clarinda: I should have written you last week. But when you recollect, my dearest madam, that yours of this night's post is only the third I have from you, and that this is the fifth or sixth I have sent to you, you will not reproach me, with a good grace, for unkindness. I have always some kind of idea not to sit down to write a letter, except I have time, and possession of my faculties, so as to do some justice to my letter; which at present is rarely my situation. For instance, yesterday I dined at a friend's at some distance: the savage hospitality of this country spent me the most part of the night over the nauseous potion in the bowl. This day-sick-headache-low spirits-miserable-fasting, except for a draught of water or small beer. Now eight o'clock at night; only able to crawl ten minutes' walk into Mauchline, to wait the post, in the pleasurable hope of hearing from the mistress of my soul. But truce with all this! When I sit down to write to you, all is happiness and peace. A hundred times a day do I figure you before your taper, your book or work laid aside as I get within the room. How happy have I been! and how little of that scantling portion of time, called the life of man, is sacred to happiness, much less transport. I could moralise to-night like a death's-head. 'O what is life, that thoughtless wish of all! A drop of honey in a draught of gall.' Nothing astonishes me more, when a little sickness clogs the wheels of life, than the thoughtless career we run in the hour of health. 'None saith, where is God, my maker, that giveth songs in the 1 The birth of these infants is not noticed in the parish register of Mauchlineprobably because they did not live to be baptised. night: who teacheth us more knowledge than the beasts of the field, and more understanding than the fowls of the air?' Give me, my Maker, to remember thee! Give me to act up to the dignity of my nature! Give me to feel another's wo;' and continue with me that dear loved friend that feels with mine! The dignifying and dignified consciousness of an honest man, and the well-grounded trust in approving Heaven, are two most substantial foundations of happiness. * * * I could not have written a page to any mortal except yourself. I'll write you by Sunday's post. Adieu! Good-night! SYLVANDER. SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. MOSSGIEL, 7th March 1788. Clarinda, I have been so stung with your reproach for unkindness— a sin so unlike me, a sin I detest more than a breach of the whole Decalogue, fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth articles excepted-that I believe I shall not rest in my grave about it, if I die before I see you. You have often allowed me the head to judge and the heart to feel the influence of female excellence: was it not blasphemy then, against your own charms and against my feelings, to suppose that a short fortnight could abate my passion? anxieties to disturb you; Your future views are Could not you, my ever man, after long absence, You, my love, may have your cares and but they are the usual occurrences of life. fixed, and your mind in a settled routine. dearest madam, make a little allowance for a paying a short visit to a country full of friends, relations, and early intimates? Cannot you guess, my Clarinda, what thoughts, what cares, what anxious forebodings, hopes and fears, must crowd the breast of the man of keen sensibility, when no less is on the tapis than his aim, his employment, his very existence through future life? To be overtopped in anything else, I can bear; but in the tests of generous love, I defy all mankind! not even to the tender, the fond, the loving Clarinda; she whose strength of attachment, whose melting soul, may vie with Eloisa and Sappho; not even she can overpay the affection she owes me! Now that, not my apology, but my defence is made, I feel my soul respire more easily. I know you will go along with me in my justification: would to Heaven you could in my adoption, too! I mean an adoption beneath the stars-an adoption where I might revel in the immediate beams of 'She the bright sun of all her sex.' I would not have you, my dear madam, so much hurt at Miss Nimmo's coldness. "Tis placing yourself below her, an honour she by no means deserves. We ought, when we wish to be economists in happiness-we ought, in the first place, to fix the standard of our own character; and when, on full examination, we know where we LETTER TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 239 stand, and how much ground we occupy, let us contend for it as property; and those who seem to doubt or deny us what is justly ours, let us either pity their prejudices or despise their judgment. I know, my dear, you will say this is self-conceit; but I call it selfknowledge: the one is the overweening opinion of a fool, who fancies himself to be what he wishes himself to be thought; the other is the honest justice that a man of sense, who has thoroughly examined the subject, owes to himself. Without this standard, this column in our own mind, we are perpetually at the mercy of the petulance, the mistakes, the prejudices, nay, the very weakness and wickedness of our fellow-creatures. I urge this, my dear, both to confirm myself in the doctrine which, I assure you, I sometimes need, and because I know that this causes you often much disquiet. To return to Miss Nimmo. She is most certainly a worthy soul; and equalled by very, very few in goodness of heart. But can she boast more goodness of heart than Clarinda? Not even prejudice will dare to say so; for penetration and discernment, Clarinda sees far beyond her. To wit, Miss Nimmo dare make no pretence: to Clarinda's wit, scarce any of her sex dare make pretence. Personal charms, it would be ridiculous to run the parallel: and for conduct in life, Miss Nimmo was never called out, either much to do, or to suffer. Clarinda has been both; and has performed her part, where Miss Nimmo would have sunk at the bare idea. Away, then, with these disquietudes! Let us pray with the honest weaver of Kilbarchan, Lord, send us a gude conceit o' oursel!' or in the words of the auld sang, 'Who does me disdain, I can scorn them again, And I'll never mind any such foes.' There is an error in the commerce of intimacy. * * * Happy is our lot, indeed, when we meet with an honest merchant, who is qualified to deal with us on our own terms; but that is a rarity: with almost everybody we must pocket our pearls, less or more, and learn, in the old Scots phrase, 'To gie sic like as we get.' For this reason we should try to erect a kind of bank or storehouse in our own mind; or, as the Psalmist says, 'We should commune with our own hearts and be still.' * I wrote you yesternight, which will reach you long before this can. I may write Mr Ainslie before I see him, but I am not sure. Farewell! and remember SYLVANDER. TO MR RICHARD BROWN. MAUCHLINE, 7th 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 vici ous 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 husbandjust in sufficient time to add her reproaches to his other grievances. [He goes on to speak of Jean, as having been found by him in a desolate state, and of his having obtained for her a safe harbourage, where she might remain till a certain event should take place. In nautical metaphor, he has taken command of her, not ostensibly, but for a time in secret.'] I am gratified with your kind inquiries after her; 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, R. B. TO MR ROBERT MUIR. MOSSGIEL, 7th 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 Newmills, 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 rolled together, or had tried his beams 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, LETTER TO MRS DUNLOP. 241 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. TO MRS DUNLOP. MOSSGIEL, 7th 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! may I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila.1 say to the fair painter 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 shake your head, but o' my fegs, Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, R. B. 1 A daughter of Mrs Dunlop was now engaged in painting a sketch of Coila. |