Robert Burns - How To Know Him by William Allan Neilson
page 95 of 334 (28%)
page 95 of 334 (28%)
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In the later days in Dumfries, when his vitality was running low and
he was laboring to supply Thomson with verses even when the spontaneous impulse to compose was rare, we find him theorizing on the necessity of enthroning a goddess for the nonce. Speaking of _Craigieburn-wood_ and Jean Lorimer, he writes to his prosaic editor: "The lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in Scotland; and in fact (_entre nous_) is in a manner to me what Sterne's Eliza was to him--a Mistress, or Friend, or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love. (Now, don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaver about it among our acquaintances.) I assure you that to my lovely Friend you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine. Do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of existence could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy--could fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos equal to the genius of your Book? No, no!!! Whenever I want to be more than ordinary _in song_; to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs, do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation? _Tout au contraire!_ I have a glorious recipe; the very one that for his own use was invented by the Divinity of Healing and Poesy when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. The lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and the witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon!" Burns is here, of course, on his rhetorical high horse, and the songs to Chloris hardly bear him out; but there is much in the passage to enlighten us as to his composing processes. In his younger days his |
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