Against two things I am fixed as fate, — staying at home, and owning her conjugally. The first, by Heaven, I will not do! — the last, by Hell, I will never do! A good God bless you, and make you happy up to the warmest weeping wish of parting friendship! ... If you see Jean tell her I will meet her, so help me God in my hour of need! R. B.

 

12 The confidant of his amour with Jean Armour, daughter of James Armour, mason, Mauchline. Notwithstanding the blustering threat — for which Smith was probably more than half responsible — Burns was afterwards content to “own bonny Jean conjugally.”

Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

 


XVII. — TO MR. ROBERT MUIR, WINE MERCHANT, KlLMARNOCK.

 

MOSSGIEL, 20th March, 1786.

DEAR SIR, — I am heartily sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as you returned through Mauchline; but as I was engaged, I could not be in town before the evening.

I here inclose you my “Scotch Drink,” and “may the deil follow with a blessing for your edification.” I hope, sometime before we hear the gowk, to have the pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock, when I intend we shall have a gill between us, in a mutchkin-stoup; which will be a great comfort and consolation to, dear Sir, your humble servant, ROBERT BURNESS.

Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

 


XVIII. — TO MR. JOHN BALLANTINE, BANKER, AYR. (?)

 

[April 1786.]

HONOURED SIR, — My proposals12a came to hand last night, and, knowing that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a service as early as any body, I enclose you half a sheet of them. I must consult you, first opportunity, on the propriety of sending my quondam friend, Mr. Aiken,12b a copy. If he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, I would do it with all my soul; but I would not be beholden to the noblest being ever God created if he imagined me to be a rascal. Apropos, old Mr. Armour prevailed with him to mutilate that unlucky paper12c yesterday. Would you believe it? though I had not a hope, nor even a wish to make her mine after her conduct, yet when he told me the names were cut out of the paper, my heart died within me, and he cut my veins with the news. Perdition seize her falsehood! ROBERT BURNS.

 

12a Proposals for publishing his Scottish Poems by subscription.

 

12bWriter in Ayr.

 

12c The written acknowledgment of his marriage which Burns gave to Jean. She, influenced by her father, consented to destroy it.

Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

 


XIX. — TO MR. M’WHINNIE, WRITER, AYR.

 

[MOSSGIEL, 17th April 1786.]

IT is injuring some hearts, those hearts that elegantly bear the impression of the good Creator, to say to them you give them the trouble of obliging a friend; for this reason, I only tell you that I gratify my own feelings in requesting your friendly offices with respect to the enclosed, because I know it will gratify yours to assist me in it to the utmost of your power.

I have sent you four copies, as I have no less than eight dozen, which is a great deal more than I shall ever need.

Be sure to remember a poor poet militant in your prayers He looks forward with fear13 and trembling to that, to him, important moment which stamps the die with — with — with, perhaps, the eternal disgrace of, my dear Sir, your humble, afflicted, tormented, ROBERT BURNS.

 

13 Cp. “Something cries Hoolie! I rede ye, honest man, tak tent, ye’ll show your folly!”

Detailed Table of Contents for the letters

 


XX. — TO JOHN ARNOT, ESQUIRE, OF DALQUATSWOOD.

 

[April 1786.]

SIR, — I have long wished for some kind of claim to the honour of your acquaintance, and since it is out of my power to make that claim by the least service of mine to you, I shall do it by asking a friendly office of you to me. — I should be much hurt, Sir, if any one should view my poor Parnassian Pegasus in the light of a spur-galled Hack, and think that I wish to make a shilling or two by him. I spurn the thought.

It may do, maun do, Sir, wi’ them who
Maun please the great-folk for a wame-fou;
For me, sae laigh I needna boo
For, Lord be thankit! I can ploo;
And, when I downa yoke a naig,
Then, Lord be thankit! I can beg.

 

You will then, I hope, Sir, forgive my troubling you with the enclosed,14 and spare a poor heart-crushed devil a world of apologies — a business he is very unfit for at any time, but at present, widowed as he is of every woman-giving comfort, he is utterly incapable of. Sad and grievous of late, Sir, has been my tribulation, and many and piercing my sorrows; and, had it not been for the loss the world would have sustained in losing so great a poet, I had ere now done as a much wiser man, the famous Achitophel of long-headed memory, did before me, when he “went home and set his house in order.” I have lost, Sir, that dearest earthly treasure, that greatest blessing here below, that last, best gift which completed Adam’s happiness in the garden of bliss; I have lost, I have lost — my trembling hand refuses its office, the frighted ink recoils up the quill, — I have lost a, a, a wife.
Fairest of God’s creation, last and best,
Now art thou lost!

 

You have doubtless, Sir, heard my story, heard it with all its exaggerations; but as my actions, and my motives for action, are peculiarly like myself and that is peculiarly like nobody else, I shall just beg a leisure moment and a spare tear of you until I tell my own story my own way.

I have been all my life, Sir, one of the rueful-looking, long-visaged sons of disappointment. A damned star has always kept my zenith, and shed its hateful influence in the emphatic curse of the prophet— “And behold whatsoever he doth, it shall not prosper!” I rarely hit where I aim, and if I want anything, I am almost sure never to find it where I seek it. For instance, if my penknife is needed, I pull out twenty things — a plough-wedge, a horse nail, an old letter, or a tattered rhyme, in short, everything but my penknife; and that, at last, after a painful, fruitless search, will be found in the unsuspected corner of an unsuspected pocket, as if on purpose thrust out of the way. Still, Sir, I long had a wishing eye to that inestimable blessing, a wife.

... A young fellow, after a few idle commonplace stories from a gentleman in black ...