you may sit down and find fault with it, if you have no better way of
consuming your time. But finding fault with the vagaries of a poet's
fancy is much such another business as Xerxes chastising the waves of
Hellespont.
My limb now allows me to sit in some peace: to walk I have yet no
prospect of, as I can't mark it to the ground.
I have just now looked over what I have written, and it is such a chaos
of nonsense that I daresay you will throw it into the fire and call me
an idle, stupid fellow; but, whatever you may think of my brains,
believe me to be, with the most sacred respect and heart-felt esteem, my
dear Madam, your humble Servant, ROBT. BURNS.
[Footnote 62: Tom D'Urfey's Songs.]
* * * *
V.
_Friday Evening_, 28_th December_ 1787.
I beg your pardon, my dear "Clarinda," for the fragment scrawl I sent
you yesterday. I really do not know what I wrote. A gentleman, for whose
character, abilities, and critical knowledge I have the highest
veneration, called in just as I had begun the second sentence, and I
would not make the porter wait. I read to my much-respected friend
several of my own bagatelles, and, among others, your lines, which I had
copied out. He began some criticisms on them as on the other pieces,
when I informed him they were the work of a young lady in this town,
which, I assure you, made him stare. My learned friend seriously
protested that he did not believe any young woman in Edinburgh was
capable of such lines; and if you know anything of Professor Gregory,
you will neither doubt of his abilities nor his sincerity. I do love
you, if possible, still better for having so fine a taste and turn for
poesy. I have again gone wrong in my usual unguarded way, but you may
erase the word, and put esteem, respect, or any other tame Dutch
expression you please in its place. I believe there is no holding
converse, or carrying on correspondence, with an amiable woman, much
less a _gloriously amiable fine woman_, without some mixture of that
delicious passion, whose most devoted slave I have more than once had
the honour of being. But why be hurt or offended on that account? Can no
honest man have a prepossession for a fine woman, but he must run his
head against an intrigue? Take a little of the tender witchcraft of
love, and add to it the generous, the honourable sentiments of manly
friendship, and I know but _one_ more delightful morsel, which few, few
in any rank ever taste. Such a composition is like adding cream to
strawberries; it not only gives the fruit a more elegant richness, but
has a deliciousness of its own.
I inclose you a few lines I composed on a late melancholy occasion. I
will not give above five or six copies of it in all, and I should be
hurt if any friend should give any copies without my consent.
You cannot imagine, Clarinda (I like the idea of Arcadian names in a
commerce of this kind), how much store I have set by the hopes of your
future friendship. I do not know if you have a just idea of my
character, but I wish you to see me as _I am_. I am, as most people of
my trade are, a strange Will-o'-Wisp being: the victim, too frequently,
of much imprudence and many follies. My great constituent elements are
_pride_ and _passion_. The first I have endeavoured to humanise into
integrity and honour; the last makes me a devotee to the warmest degree
of enthusiasm, in love, religion, or friendship--either of them, or all
together, as I happen to be inspired. 'Tis true, I never saw you but
once; but how much acquaintance did I form with you in that once? Do not
think I flatter you, or have a design upon you, Clarinda; I have too
much pride for the one, and too little cold contrivance for the other;
but of all God's creatures I ever could approach in the beaten way of my
acquaintance, you struck me with the deepest, the strongest, the most
permanent impression. I say the most permanent, because I know myself
well, and how far I can promise either on my prepossessions or powers.
Why are you unhappy? And why are so many of our fellow-creatures,
unworthy to belong to the same species with you, blest with all they can
wish? You have a hand all benevolent to give-why were you denied the
pleasure? You have a heart formed--gloriously formed--for all the most
refined luxuries of love:-why was that heart ever wrung? O Clarinda!
shall we not meet in a state, some yet unknown state of being, where the
lavish hand of plenty shall minister to the highest wish of benevolence;
and where the chill north-wind of prudence shall never blow over the
flowery fields of enjoyment? If we do not, man was made in vain! I
deserved most of the unhappy hours that have lingered over my head; they
were the wages of my labour: but what unprovoked demon, malignant as
hell, stole upon the confidence of unmistrusting busy Fate, and dashed
your cup of life with undeserved sorrow?
Let me know how long your stay will be out of town; I shall count the
hours till you inform me of your return. Cursed _etiquette_ forbids your
seeing me just now; and so soon as I can walk I must bid Edinburgh
adieu. Lord! why was I born to see misery which I cannot relieve, and to
meet with friends whom I cannot enjoy? I look back with the pang of
unavailing avarice on my loss in not knowing you sooner: all last
winter, these three months past, what luxury of intercourse have I not
lost! Perhaps, though,'twas better for my peace. You see I am either
above, or incapable of dissimulation. I believe it is want of that
particular genius. I despise design, because I want either coolness or
wisdom to be capable of it. I am interrupted. Adieu! my dear Clarinda!
SYLVANDER.
* * * *
VI.
_Thursday, Jan_. 3, 1788.
You are right, my dear Clarinda: a friendly correspondence goes for
nothing, except one writes his or her undisguised sentiments. Yours
please me for their instrinsic merit, as well as because they are
_yours_, which I assure you, is to me a high recommendation. Your
religious sentiments, Madam, I revere. If you have, on some suspicious
evidence, from some lying oracle, learned that I despise or ridicule so
sacredly important a matter as real religion, you have, my Clarinda,
much misconstrued your friend. "I am not mad, most noble Festus!" Have
you ever met a perfect character? Do we not sometimes rather exchange
faults, than get rid of them? For instance, I am perhaps tired with, and
shocked at a life too much the prey of giddy inconsistencies and
thoughtless follies; by degrees I grow sober, prudent, and statedly
pious--I say statedly, because the most unaffected devotion is not at
all inconsistent with my first character--I join the world in
congratulating myself on the happy change. But let me pry more narrowly
into this affair. Have I, at bottom, any thing of a sacred pride in
these endowments and emendations? Have I nothing of a presbyterian
sourness, an hypocritical severity, when I survey my less regular
neighbours? In a word, have I missed all those nameless and numberless
modifications of indistinct selfishness, which are so near our own eyes,
that we can scarcely bring them within the sphere of our vision, and
which the known spotless cambric of our character hides from the
ordinary observer?
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.