_Marriage with Jean_
Ellisland, near Dumfries, 16 _Sept_. 1788.
Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady M'Kenzie recovering her
health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not
think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part--
When thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand!
'My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea.' I
do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its
fellows--rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or
impression, except where they hit in hostile collision.
I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you
and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves
much _à l'égard de moi_, I sit down to beg the continuation of your
goodness.--I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart,
I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my
soul--I will not say, more, but so much as Lady M'Kenzie and Miss
Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest, of
human kind--unfortunate, even in the shades of life--when I think I
have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in
eight days, than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight
years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world
again--I could sit down and cry like a child!--If ever you honoured me
with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert.--I
am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas!
is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the
noblest souls; and a late, important step in my life has kindly taken
me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however
overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase,
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLAINY.
Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married 'my Jean'. This
was not in consequence of the attachment of romance perhaps; but I
had a long and much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery in my
determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor
have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish
manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with
the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the
handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and
the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her
creed, that I am _le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnête homme_ in
the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in
metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse.
I must except also from this last, a certain late publication of Scots
poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in
the country, as she has (O the partial lover! you will cry) the finest
'wood-note wild' I ever heard.--I am the more particular in this
lady's character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a
share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building
my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here,
is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls;
and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being
suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was
taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain.
You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle _éclat_, and
bind every day after my reapers.
To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in
a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my excise
instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency
of fortune. If I could set _all_ before your view, whatever disrespect
you in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would
approve of my idea.
I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this egotistic detail: I know
you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it.
What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery
of greatness! When fellow partakers of the same nature fear the same
God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul,
the same detestation at every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at
every thing unworthy--if they are not in the dependance of absolute
beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And if the
bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may
they not be FRIENDS?...