temperament of the poet.

But, in general, with Burns as with other poets, it was not the
catching of a first-hand emotion at white heat that resulted in the
best poetry, but the stimulating of his imagination by the vision of a
person or a situation that may have had but the hint of a prototype in
the actual. We have already noted that the best of the Clarinda poems
were written in absence, and that they drop the Arcadian names which
typified the make-believe element in that complex affair. So a number
of his most charming songs are addressed to girls of whom he had had
but a glimpse. But that glimpse sufficed to kindle him, and for the
poetry it was all advantage that it was no more.

His relations with women were extremely varied in nature. At one
extreme there were friendships like that with Mrs. Dunlop, the letters
to whom show that their common interests were mainly moral and
intellectual, and were mingled with no emotion more fiery than
gratitude. At the other extreme stand relations like that with Anne
Park, the heroine of _Yestreen I had a Pint o' Wine_, which were
purely passionate and transitory. Between these come a long procession
affording excellent material for the ingenuity of those skilled in the
casuistry of the sexes: the boyish flame for Handsome Nell; the
slightly more mature feeling for Ellison Begbie; the various phases of
his passion for Jean Armour; the perhaps partly factitious reverence
for Highland Mary; the respectful adoration for Margaret Chalmers to
whom he is supposed to have proposed marriage in Edinburgh; the
deliberate posing in his compliments to Chloris (Jean Lorimer); the
grateful gallantry to Jessie Lewars, who ministered to him on his
deathbed.