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Edinburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson
page 55 of 81 (67%)
tomb over the grave in Canongate churchyard. This was
worthy of an artist, but it was done in vain; and
although I think I have read nearly all the biographies
of Burns, I cannot remember one in which the modesty of
nature was not violated, or where Fergusson was not
sacrificed to the credit of his follower's originality.
There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll
Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to
gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author
without disparaging all others. They are indeed mistaken
if they think to please the great originals; and whoever
puts Fergusson right with fame, cannot do better than
dedicate his labours to the memory of Burns, who will be
the best delighted of the dead.

Of all places for a view, this Calton Hill is
perhaps the best; since you can see the Castle, which you
lose from the Castle, and Arthur's Seat, which you cannot
see from Arthur's Seat. It is the place to stroll on one
of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so
common in our more than temperate summer. The breeze
comes off the sea, with a little of the freshness, and
that touch of chill, peculiar to the quarter, which is
delightful to certain very ruddy organizations and
greatly the reverse to the majority of mankind. It
brings with it a faint, floating haze, a cunning
decolourizer, although not thick enough to obscure
outlines near at hand. But the haze lies more thickly to
windward at the far end of Musselburgh Bay; and over the
Links of Aberlady and Berwick Law and the hump of the
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