Robert Burns, an Immortal Memory By Captain Henry King, Editor of The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, January 26, 1914 I WISH I could say something new about Burns. But you know it is practically impossible, and to attempt such a task would be to invoke the censure of his last injunction: "Don't let the awkward squad fire above me." His fame has run all over the world, like one of the wild flowers he loved so well. He has been discussed from every angle of his career, from every point of analysis in his works and his character. His name is in the full sense a household word; his songs are a part of nature, so to speak, like those of the birds and rippling brooks and the winds in the trees. It is easy to say that the way of his life was not wise, which is only to say that he was human-so very human that mankind proudly claims him for its own over all other poets, by reason largely of his elemental kinship in the blunders and follies that constitute a large share of all our lives. There is one feature in his wayward record, to be sure, which stands out as a glaring admonition to those who need it; but for obvious reasons I am not going to dwell upon it in this goodly company. The St. Louis Burns Club is a place where temperance abides, within the rule of reason, tempered by charity and good-fellowship. Only one of its members, so far as I know, has ever been on the water-wagon, and he declares that he got up and gave his seat to a lady. He was right, manifestly, for George is always Wright, and could not be otherwise without changing his name. The passion of Burns for strong drink was supplemented, you are well aware, by a besetting fondness for pretty girls. Being a poet, that was perhaps to be expected of him, though such a habit, I am bound to say, is not restricted to poets. Nor should it be. For my part, I distrust the sanity, or at least the good taste, of any man who does not admire a pretty girl-and all girls are pretty, more or less. Certainly Burns seemed to think so, and told them so as fast as he came in contact with them. Thereby hang many tales of romance, of intrigue, of adventure, and often of trouble and bitter sorrow. He flattered and courted the comely girls of the neighborhood as a regular pastime, and it must be admitted that he did not always play a fair game with them. He swore eternal pledges to them which mostly proved to be mere perjuries for Jove to laugh at. His fancy turned from one to another of them as frequently as the changes of the moon beneath which he was wont to sing his enticing songs to them and take his pay in the sweetness of their cheeks and lips. He captured their hearts and played with them, and broke them, and now and then left behind him in their laps wee, bonnie hostages to fortune having the father's eyes but the mothers' names. Possibly there is some ingenuity of deduction by which this phase of the poet's life may be justified as a necessary factor in the development of his genius. That is a question for the casuists. At any rate, we have the poetry as a rich heritage, and the charming girls who inspired so much of it cannot be spared from the story of Burns and his literary distinction. It would be interesting as well as instructive to learn how many people have read and treasured the writings of Burns as compared with those of other distinguished authors. His books are oftener quoted, perhaps, than any other, excepting the Bible and Shakespeare. In the William A. Smith collection in Washington-the best Burns collection in this country-there are 550 separate editions of his works, 135 of them being American. This gives a suggestive idea of the number of his readers and admirers. He is known to be almost, if not quite, as popular in the United States as he is in Scotland. This is easy to understand when we take account of the fact that there is probably a stronger and wider infusion of Scotch than of any other alien blood in our country. There can be little doubt about it if we include with the Scotch strain proper that extraordinary blend known as Scotch-Irish, which has exerted and is still exerting such a pronounced influence in our affairs. You cannot read a chapter of American history-political, industrial, literary or ecclesiastical-without finding in it the leaven of oatmeal and heather. If the Puritans had not come over here and established civil and religious liberty, and evolved the Yankee type of character, the Scotch would have done it sooner or later. Indeed the Scotch and the Yankees have so much in common that it is hard to tell where the one stops and the other begins. They step on one another's heels and replicate one another's ruling traits and tendencies throughout the course of our national growth and progress. Just now, for immediate example, and by no means for the first time, we have a President whose best and strongest qualities came from Scotland. Those not so good, if any there be, have probably been picked up in his dealings with the irrepressible office-seekers. Burns did not know much about America, but he shared its spirit and its dreams or he could never have written "A Man's a Man for a' That." He was only a lad of seventeen when our Declaration of Independence was sent out to the world, but he was old enough to realize its significance and to applaud its sentiments. When somebody proposed the health of the British prime minister, it was young Bobby Burns who rose and exclaimed, "Here's to the health of a better man, George Washington." Thus his reason confirmed his imagination, and both as citizen and as poet he was a steadfast apostle of democracy. It is trite but ever proper to repeat that the crowning merit of his literary work is its close adherence to common facts and familiar symbols. His feet are always on the homely soil, his heart is always keeping time with the impulses and the interests of the plain people, of whom it has been said that God must love them or there would not have been so many of them made. His poems contain no problems. They are as simple as grass and sunshine, as kitchen smoke and spring water. But generally speaking, aside from verses of the antic disposition, they are not trivial. For while they are thronged with the ordinary things and everyday people of the earth, there is always at the core of these humble objects a meaning that makes for truth and right and widespread beneficence. It is a curious fact-a paradox, we might say-that while Burns was thoroughly Scotch in most respects, he utterly lacked one notable characteristic of his countrymen. He was a lifelong failure in money matters. Scotland denied him nothing but her proverbial sense of thrift. He was born in poverty and he remained there. With all his brilliant intellect, he could not make a living. When he was doing some of his best work, you remember, he was keeping the wolf from the door by acting as a whiskey-gauger. His pay was less than $30.00 a month, and on that he had to support himself, a wife and three children. Little wonder that he sought the flowing bowl and drowned his bad luck in ribaldry and carousal. How pleased he must have been when the first edition of his poems-600 copies-brought him a profit of $100.00; and he was thus enabled to appease his insistent creditors and keep himself out of jail. Then came his visit to Edinburgh, and the publication of a second edition of the poems, which yielded him $2,500.00—a princely sum for him, but it was soon squandered. His business operations were a constant irony, due to the defects of his qualities. So, with rare intervals of relief, the claws of penury were ever at his throat. He met adversity with little patience and less wisdom; it must be said. His mind was in a constant state of protest and antipathy against his material conditions. He was an indefatigable insurgent. To hate the rich in particular was a kind of religion with him. If he were living now he might find cause to qualify his animosity in that relation. I am sure he could be persuaded to admire Andrew Carnegie, in spite of his riches, and because of his fine example as a philanthropic spendthrift. And surely he would be glad to shake hands with Mr. Bixby, the amiable and excellent President of this Club, who has bought so many Burns manuscripts, not always at a bargain, and one of whose avocations, the one he likes best, I think, is that of cheerfully paying the annual deficits of various useful organizations to which he belongs. But with Burns throughout his life there was no armistice and no compromise in his warfare upon wealth and power and privilege. The trodden worm in his case was always turning; indeed, the worm was so fond of turning that it often turned when it was not trodden upon at all, but only fancied that it was, or feared that it might be. There are those who contend that poverty, with all its drawbacks, has yet some points of advantage. As fine a writer and critic as Lord Rosebery recently asserted that the production of a poetical masterpiece seems almost to demand the spur of want and distress. We know that the poverty of Burns did not prevent him from achieving his fame. Would it have been equally as well with him had he lived in ease and luxury? Alas, his experiences in Edinburgh do not justify this belief. His success there was remarkable, but short-lived and really detrimental. The glamour and elation of it turned his head, and put him hopelessly in the grasp of his passions and his frailties. A process of steady deterioration ensued and ran its cruel course to the last day of his broken and shortened life. In all literary history there is nothing more pathetic than that scene in the Dumfries cottage where he lay waiting for the pale messenger with the inverted torch. His face was seamed with the ravages of sin and disease, and the light flickered in the sunken eyes-the eyes that had seen and won Nellie Kirkpatrick, and Peggy Thompson, and Highland Mary, and the rest. The place was growing dark to him, his consciousness was fading away. May we not imagine that he heard ghostly pipes and flutes and trumpets in the distance, the wistful echoes of his own tender and incomparable songs? His two children tiptoed to his bedside, illy clad and poorly fed. Then, as the end drew near, they sent for the wife and mother, the Jean Armour of his buoyant youth, and she came promptly, bless her heart, and took his hands in hers, and kissed him, as he passed tranquilly hence, and became to the world an immortal memory. The Songs of Robert Burns Given by Rev. Dr. J. F. Dickie of Berlin Recited at the meeting of the Burns Club of St. Louis, January 26, 1914 When Januar' wind blaws sharp and snell, The heart aye fondly turns To the banks and braes o' Bonnie Doon, The home of Robert Burns. A hundred years are past and gone Since Robin cam'-Aye! sent of God The gaucy gossip yet we see Ye'll follow love's recruiting drum, Belyve, he hears his mither croon The auld Scots sang stoon thro his heart As tides run in the sea; His faither's prayer he'll ne'er forget, Until the day he dee. O'er sune the laddie feels the grip O' poortith cauld and care, And sees his faither sair distrest Wi' griefs he fain would share. Then love to Rab came flichtering down As gloaming comes at e'en, And in love's light each Scottish lass Shines fair as Scotia's queen. Thus love and song twin born spring up From fountains in his heart, He loves because he needs must love, |