It is far from my intention to tell over again a story that has been so often told; but there are certainly some points in the character of Burns that will bear to be brought out, and some chapters in his life that demand a brief rehearsal19. The unity20 of the man’s nature, for all its richness, has fallen somewhat out of sight in the pressure of new information and the apologetical ceremony of biographers. Mr. Carlyle made an inimitable bust21 of the poet’s head of gold; may I not be forgiven if my business should have more to do with the feet, which were of clay?
Youth.
Any view of Burns would be misleading which passed over in silence the influences of his home and his father. That father, William Burnes, after having been for many years a gardener, took a farm, married, and, like an emigrant23 in a new country, built himself a house with his own hands. Poverty of the most distressing24 sort, with sometimes the near prospect25 of a gaol26, embittered27 the remainder of his life. Chill, backward, and austere28 with strangers, grave and imperious in his family, he was yet a man of very unusual parts and of an affectionate nature. On his way through life he had remarked much upon other men, with more result in theory than practice; and he had reflected upon many subjects as he delved29 the garden. His great delight was in solid conversation; he would leave his work to talk with the schoolmaster Murdoch; and Robert, when he came home late at night, not only turned aside rebuke30 but kept his father two hours beside the fire by the charm of his merry and vigorous talk. Nothing is more characteristic of the class in general, and William Burnes in particular, than the pains he took to get proper schooling31 for his boys, and, when that was no longer possible, the sense and resolution with which he set himself to supply the deficiency by his own influence. For many years he was their chief companion; he spoke32 with them seriously on all subjects as if they had been grown men; at night, when work was over, he taught them arithmetic; he borrowed books for them on history, science, and theology; and he felt it his duty to supplement this last — the trait is laughably Scottish — by a dialogue of his own composition, where his own private shade of orthodoxy was exactly represented. He would go to his daughter as she stayed afield herding34 cattle, to teach her the names of grasses and wild flowers, or to sit by her side when it thundered. Distance to strangers, deep family tenderness, love of knowledge, a narrow, precise, and formal reading of theology - everything we learn of him hangs well together, and builds up a popular Scotch35 type. If I mention the name of Andrew Fairservice, it is only as I might couple for an instant Dugald Dalgetty with old Marshal Loudon, to help out the reader’s comprehension by a popular but unworthy instance of a class. Such was the influence of this good and wise man that his household became a school to itself, and neighbours who came into the farm at meal-time would find the whole family, father, brothers, and sisters, helping37 themselves with one hand, and holding a book in the other. We are surprised at the prose style of Robert; that of Gilbert need surprise us no less; even William writes a remarkable39 letter for a young man of such slender opportunities. One anecdote40 marks the taste of the family. Murdoch brought TITUS ANDRONICUS, and, with such dominie elocution as we may suppose, began to read it aloud before this rustic41 audience; but when he had reached the passage where Tamora insults Lavinia, with one voice and “in an agony of distress” they refused to hear it to an end. In such a father and with such a home, Robert had already the making of an excellent education; and what Murdoch added, although it may not have been much in amount, was in character the very essence of a literary training. Schools and colleges, for one great man whom they complete, perhaps unmake a dozen; the strong spirit can do well upon more scanty42 fare.
Robert steps before us, almost from the first, in his complete character — a proud, headstrong, impetuous lad, greedy of pleasure, greedy of notice; in his own phrase “panting after distinction,” and in his brother’s “cherishing a particular jealousy43 of people who were richer or of more consequence than himself:” with all this, he was emphatically of the artist nature. Already he made a conspicuous45 figure in Tarbolton church, with the only tied hair in the parish, “and his plaid, which was of a particular colour, wrapped in a particular manner round his shoulders.” Ten years later, when a married man, the father of a family, a farmer, and an officer of Excise46, we shall find him out fishing in masquerade, with fox-skin cap, belted great-coat, and great Highland47 broadsword. He liked dressing48 up, in fact, for its own sake. This is the spirit which leads to the extravagant49 array of Latin Quarter students, and the proverbial velveteen of the English landscape-painter; and, though the pleasure derived50 is in itself merely personal, it shows a man who is, to say the least of it, not pained by general attention and remark. His father wrote the family name BURNES; Robert early adopted the orthography52 BURNESS from his cousin in the Mearns; and in his twenty-eighth year changed it once more to BURNS. It is plain that the last transformation53 was not made without some qualm; for in addressing his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to spelling number two. And this, again, shows a man preoccupied54 about the manner of his appearance even down to the name, and little willing to follow custom. Again, he was proud, and justly proud, of his powers in conversation. To no other man’s have we the same conclusive55 testimony56 from different sources and from every rank of life. It is almost a commonplace that the best of his works was what he said in talk. Robertson the historian “scarcely ever met any man whose conversation displayed greater vigour;” the Duchess of Gordon declared that he “carried her off her feet;” and, when he came late to an inn, the servants would get out of bed to hear him talk. But, in these early days at least, he was determined57 to shine by any means. He made himself feared in the village for his tongue. He would crush weaker men to their faces, or even perhaps — for the statement of Sillar is not absolute — say cutting things of his acquaintances behind their back. At the church door, between sermons, he would parade his religious views amid hisses59. These details stamp the man. He had no genteel timidities in the conduct of his life. He loved to force his personality upon the world. He would please himself, and shine. Had he lived in the Paris of 1830, and joined his lot with the Romantics, we can conceive him writing JEHAN for JEAN, swaggering in Gautier’s red waistcoat, and horrifying60 Bourgeois61 in a public cafe with paradox62 and gasconnade.
A leading trait throughout his whole career was his desire to be in love. NE FAIT PAS CE TOUR QUI VEUT. His affections were often enough touched, but perhaps never engaged. He was all his life on a voyage of discovery, but it does not appear conclusively63 that he ever touched the happy isle22. A man brings to love a deal of ready-made sentiment, and even from childhood obscurely prognosticates the symptoms of this vital malady64. Burns was formed for love; he had passion, tenderness, and a singular bent65 in the direction; he could foresee, with the intuition of an artist, what love ought to be; and he could not conceive a worthy36 life without it. But he had ill-fortune, and was besides so greedy after every shadow of the true divinity, and so much the slave of a strong temperament66, that perhaps his nerve was relaxed and his heart had lost the power of self-devotion before an opportunity occurred. The circumstances of his youth doubtless counted for something in the result. For the lads of Ayrshire, as soon as the day’s work was over and the beasts were stabled, would take the road, it might be in a winter tempest, and travel perhaps miles by moss67 and moorland to spend an hour or two in courtship. Rule 10 of the Bachelors’ Club at Tarbolton provides that “every man proper for a member of this Society must be a professed68 lover of ONE OR MORE of the female sex.” The rich, as Burns himself points out, may have a choice of pleasurable occupations, but these lads had nothing but their “cannie hour at e’en.” It was upon love and flirtation69 that this rustic society was built; gallantry was the essence of life among the Ayrshire hills as well as in the Court of Versailles; and the days were distinguished70 from each other by love-letters, meetings, tiffs71, reconciliations72, and expansions to the chosen confidant, as in a comedy of Marivaux. Here was a field for a man of Burns’s indiscriminate personal ambition, where he might pursue his voyage of discovery in quest of true love, and enjoy temporary triumphs by the way. He was “constantly the victim of some fair enslaver “ — at least, when it was not the other way about; and there were often underplots and secondary fair enslavers in the background. Many — or may we not say most? — of these affairs were entirely73 artificial. One, he tells us, he began out of “a vanity of showing his parts in courtship,” for he piqued74 himself on his ability at a love-letter. But, however they began, these flames of his were fanned into a passion ere the end; and he stands unsurpassed in his power of self-deception, and positively75 without a competitor in the art, to use his own words, of “battering76 himself into a warm affection,” — a debilitating77 and futile78 exercise. Once he had worked himself into the vein79, “the agitations80 of his mind and body” were an astonishment81 to all who knew him. Such a course as this, however pleasant to a thirsty vanity, was lowering to his nature. He sank more and more towards the professional Don Juan. With a leer of what the French call fatuity82, he bids the belles83 of Mauchline beware of his seductions; and the same cheap self-satisfaction finds a yet uglier vent84 when he plumes85 himself on the scandal at the birth of his first bastard86. We can well believe what we hear of his facility in striking up an acquaintance with women: he would have conquering manners; he would bear down upon his rustic game with the grace that comes of absolute assurance — the Richelieu of Lochlea or Mossgiel. In yet another manner did these quaint58 ways of courtship help him into fame. If he were great as principal, he was unrivalled as confidant. He could enter into a passion; he could counsel wary87 moves, being, in his own phrase, so old a hawk88; nay89, he could turn a letter for some unlucky swain, or even string a few lines of verse that should clinch90 the business and fetch the hesitating fair one to the ground. Nor, perhaps, was it only his “curiosity, zeal91, and intrepid92 dexterity” that recommended him for a second in such affairs; it must have been a distinction to have the assistance and advice of RAB THE RANTER; and one who was in no way formidable by himself might grow dangerous and attractive through the fame of his associate.
I think we can conceive him, in these early years, in that rough moorland country, poor among the poor with his seven pounds a year, looked upon with doubt by respectable elders, but for all that the best talker, the best letter-writer, the most famous lover and confidant, the laureate poet, and the only man who wore his hair tied in the parish. He says he had then as high a notion of himself as ever after; and I can well believe it. Among the youth he walked FACILE PRINCEPS, an apparent god; and even if, from time to time, the Reverend Mr. Auld93 should swoop94 upon him with the thunders of the Church, and, in company with seven others, Rab the Ranter must figure some fine Sunday on the stool of repentance95, would there not be a sort of glory, an infernal apotheosis96, in so conspicuous a shame? Was not Richelieu in disgrace more idolised than ever by the dames97 of Paris? and when was the highwayman most acclaimed98 but on his way to Tyburn? Or, to take a simile99 from nearer home, and still more exactly to the point, what could even corporal punishment avail, administered by a cold, abstract, unearthly school-master, against the influence and fame of the school’s hero?
And now we come to the culminating point of Burns’s early period. He began to be received into the unknown upper world. His fame soon spread from among his fellow-rebels on the benches, and began to reach the ushers100 and monitors of this great Ayrshire academy. This arose in part from his lax views about religion; for at this time that old war of the creeds101 and confessors, which is always grumbling102 from end to end of our poor Scotland, brisked up in these parts into a hot and virulent103 skirmish; and Burns found himself identified with the opposition104 party, — a clique105 of roaring lawyers and half-heretical divines, with wit enough to appreciate the value of the poet’s help, and not sufficient taste to moderate his grossness and personality. We may judge of their surprise when HOLY WILLIE was put into their hand; like the amorous106 lads of Tarbolton, they recognised in him the best of seconds. His satires107 began to go the round in manuscript; Mr. Aiken, one of the lawyers, “read him into fame;” he himself was soon welcome in many houses of a better sort, where his admirable talk, and his manners, which he had direct from his Maker108, except for a brush he gave them at a country dancing school, completed what his poems had begun. We have a sight of him at his first visit to Adamhill, in his ploughman’s shoes, coasting around the carpet as though that were sacred ground. But he soon grew used to carpets and their owners; and he was still the superior of all whom he encountered, and ruled the roost in conversation. Such was the impression made, that a young clergyman, himself a man of ability, trembled and became confused when he saw Robert enter the church in which he was to preach. It is not surprising that the poet determined to publish: he had now stood the test of some publicity109, and under this hopeful impulse he composed in six winter months the bulk of his more important poems. Here was a young man who, from a very humble110 place, was mounting rapidly; from the cynosure111 of a parish, he had become the talk of a county; once the bard112 of rural courtships, he was now about to appear as a bound and printed poet in the world’s bookshops.
A few more intimate strokes are necessary to complete the sketch113. This strong young plough-man, who feared no competitor with the flail114, suffered like a fine lady from sleeplessness115 and vapours; he would fall into the blackest melancholies, and be filled with remorse116 for the past and terror for the future. He was still not perhaps devoted117 to religion, but haunted by it; and at a touch of sickness prostrated118 himself before God in what I can only call unmanly penitence120. As he had aspirations121 beyond his place in the world, so he had tastes, thoughts, and weaknesses to match. He loved to walk under a wood to the sound of a winter tempest; he had a singular tenderness for animals; he carried a book with him in his pocket when he went abroad, and wore out in this service two copies of the MAN OF FEELING. With young people in the field at work he was very long-suffering; and when his brother Gilbert spoke sharply to them — “O man, ye are no for young folk,” he would say, and give the defaulter a helping hand and a smile. In the hearts of the men whom he met, he read as in a book; and, what is yet more rare, his knowledge of himself equalled his knowledge of others. There are no truer things said of Burns than what is to be found in his own letters. Country Don Juan as he was, he had none of that blind vanity which values itself on what it is not; he knew his own strength and weakness to a hair: he took himself boldly for what he was, and, except in moments of hypochondria, declared himself content.
The Love Stories.
On the night of Mauchline races, 1785, the young men and women of the place joined in a penny ball, according to their custom. In the same set danced Jean Armour122, the master-mason’s daughter, and our dark-eyed Don Juan. His dog (not the immortal123 Luath, but a successor unknown to fame, CARET124 QUIA VATE SACRO), apparently125 sensible of some neglect, followed his master to and fro, to the confusion of the dancers. Some mirthful comments followed; and Jean heard the poet say to his partner — or, as I should imagine, laughingly launch the remark to the company at large — that “he wished he could get any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog.” Some time after, as the girl was bleaching126 clothes on Mauchline green, Robert chanced to go by, still accompanied by his dog; and the dog, “scouring in long excursion,” scampered127 with four black paws across the linen128. This brought the two into conversation; when Jean, with a somewhat hoydenish129 advance, inquired if “he had yet got any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog?”
It is one of the misfortunes of the professional Don Juan that his honour forbids him to refuse battle; he is in life like the Roman soldier upon duty, or like the sworn physician who must attend on all diseases. Burns accepted the provocation130; hungry hope reawakened in his heart; here was a girl — pretty, simple at least, if not honestly stupid, and plainly not averse131 to his attentions: it seemed to him once more as if love might here be waiting him. Had he but known the truth! for this facile and empty-headed girl had nothing more in view than a flirtation; and her heart, from the first and on to the end of her story, was engaged by another man. Burns once more commenced the celebrated132 process of “battering himself into a warm affection;” and the proofs of his success are to be found in many verses of the period. Nor did he succeed with himself only; Jean, with her heart still elsewhere, succumbed133 to his fascination134, and early in the next year the natural consequence became manifest. It was a heavy stroke for this unfortunate couple. They had trifled with life, and were now rudely reminded of life’s serious issues. Jean awoke to the ruin of her hopes; the best she had now to expect was marriage with a man who was a stranger to her dearest thoughts; she might now be glad if she could get what she would never have chosen. As for Burns, at the stroke of the calamity135 he recognised that his voyage of discovery had led him into a wrong hemisphere — that he was not, and never had been, really in love with Jean. Hear him in the pressure of the hour. “Against two things,” he writes, “I am as fixed136 as fate — staying at home, and owning her conjugally137. The first, by heaven, I will not do! — the last, by hell, I will never do!” And then he adds, perhaps already in a more relenting temper: “If you see Jean, tell her I will meet her, so God help me in my hour of need.” They met accordingly; and Burns, touched with her misery138, came down from these heights of independence, and gave her a written acknowledgment of marriage. It is the punishment of Don Juanism to create continually false positions — relations in life which are wrong in themselves, and which it is equally wrong to break or to perpetuate139. This was such a case. Worldly Wiseman would have laughed and gone his way; let us be glad that Burns was better counselled by his heart. When we discover that we can be no longer true, the next best is to be kind. I daresay he came away from that interview not very content, but with a glorious conscience; and as he went homeward, he would sing his favourite, “How are Thy servants blest, O Lord!” Jean, on the other hand, armed with her “lines,” confided140 her position to the master-mason, her father, and his wife. Burns and his brother were then in a fair way to ruin themselves in their farm; the poet was an execrable match for any well-to-do country lass; and perhaps old Armour had an inkling of a previous attachment141 on his daughter’s part. At least, he was not so much incensed142 by her slip from virtue as by the marriage which had been designed to cover it. Of this he would not hear a word. Jean, who had besought143 the acknowledgment only to appease144 her parents, and not at all from any violent inclination145 to the poet, readily gave up the paper for destruction; and all parties imagined, although wrongly, that the marriage was thus dissolved. To a proud man like Burns here was a crushing blow. The concession146 which had been wrung147 from his pity was now publicly thrown back in his teeth. The Armour family preferred disgrace to his connection. Since the promise, besides, he had doubtless been busy “battering himself” back again into his affection for the girl; and the blow would not only take him in his vanity, but wound him at the heart.
He relieved himself in verse; but for such a smarting affront148 manuscript poetry was insufficient149 to console him. He must find a more powerful remedy in good flesh and blood, and after this discomfiture150, set forth151 again at once upon his voyage of discovery in quest of love. It is perhaps one of the most touching152 things in human nature, as it is a commonplace of psychology153, that when a man has just lost hope or confidence in one love, he is then most eager to find and lean upon another. The universe could not be yet exhausted154; there must be hope and love waiting for him somewhere; and so, with his head down, this poor, insulted poet ran once more upon his fate. There was an innocent and gentle Highland nursery-maid at service in a neighbouring family; and he had soon battered155 himself and her into a warm affection and a secret engagement. Jean’s marriage lines had not been destroyed till March 13, 1786; yet all was settled between Burns and Mary Campbell by Sunday, May 14, when they met for the last time, and said farewell with rustic solemnities upon the banks of Ayr. They each wet their hands in a stream, and, standing156 one on either bank, held a Bible between them as they vowed157 eternal faith. Then they exchanged Bibles, on one of which Burns, for greater security, had inscribed158 texts as to the binding159 nature of an oath; and surely, if ceremony can do aught to fix the wandering affections, here were two people united for life. Mary came of a superstitious160 family, so that she perhaps insisted on these rites38; but they must have been eminently161 to the taste of Burns at this period; for nothing would seem superfluous162, and no oath great enough, to stay his tottering163 constancy.
Events of consequence now happened thickly in the poet’s life. His book was announced; the Armours sought to summon him at law for the aliment of the child; he lay here and there in hiding to correct the sheets; he was under an engagement for Jamaica, where Mary was to join him as his wife; now, he had “orders within three weeks at latest to repair aboard the NANCY, Captain Smith;” now his chest was already on the road to Greenock; and now, in the wild autumn weather on the moorland, he measures verses of farewell:—
“The bursting tears my heart declare;
Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr!”
But the great master dramatist had secretly another intention for the piece; by the most violent and complicated solution, in which death and birth and sudden fame all play a part as interposing deities164, the act-drop fell upon a scene of transformation. Jean was brought to bed of twins, and, by an amicable165 arrangement, the Burnses took the boy to bring up by hand, while the girl remained with her mother. The success of the book was immediate166 and emphatic44; it put 20 pounds at once into the author’s purse; and he was encouraged upon all hands to go to Edinburgh and push his success in a second and larger edition. Third and last in these series of interpositions, a letter came one day to Mossgiel Farm for Robert. He went to the window to read it; a sudden change came over his face, and he left the room without a word. Years afterwards, when the story began to leak out, his family understood that he had then learned the death of Highland Mary. Except in a few poems and a few dry indications purposely misleading as to date, Burns himself made no reference to this passage of his life; it was an adventure of which, for I think sufficient reasons, he desired to bury the details. Of one thing we may be glad: in after years he visited the poor girl’s mother, and left her with the impression that he was “a real warm-hearted chield.”
Perhaps a month after he received this intelligence, he set out for Edinburgh on a pony167 he had borrowed from a friend. The town that winter was “agog with the ploughman poet.” Robertson, Dugald Stewart, Blair, “Duchess Gordon and all the gay world,” were of his acquaintance. Such a revolution is not to be found in literary history. He was now, it must be remembered, twenty-seven years of age; he had fought since his early boyhood an obstinate168 battle against poor soil, bad seed, and inclement169 seasons, wading170 deep in Ayrshire mosses171, guiding the plough in the furrow172 wielding173 “the thresher’s weary flingin’-tree;” and his education, his diet, and his pleasures, had been those of a Scotch countryman. Now he stepped forth suddenly among the polite and learned. We can see him as he then was, in his boots and buckskins, his blue coat and waistcoat striped with buff and blue, like a farmer in his Sunday best; the heavy ploughman’s figure firmly planted on its burly legs; his face full of sense and shrewdness, and with a somewhat melancholy174 air of thought, and his large dark eye “literally175 glowing” as he spoke. “I never saw such another eye in a human head,” says Walter Scott, “though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.” With men, whether they were lords or omnipotent176 critics, his manner was plain, dignified177, and free from bashfulness or affectation. If he made a slip, he had the social courage to pass on and refrain from explanation. He was not embarrassed in this society, because he read and judged the men; he could spy snobbery178 in a titled lord; and, as for the critics, he dismissed their system in an epigram. “These gentlemen,” said he, “remind me of some spinsters in my country who spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof.” Ladies, on the other hand, surprised him; he was scarce commander of himself in their society; he was disqualified by his acquired nature as a Don Juan; and he, who had been so much at his ease with country lasses, treated the town dames to an extreme of deference179. One lady, who met him at a ball, gave Chambers180 a speaking sketch of his demeanour. “His manner was not prepossessing — scarcely, she thinks, manly119 or natural. It seemed as if he affected181 a rusticity182 or LANDERTNESS, so that when he said the music was ‘bonnie, bonnie,’ it was like the expression of a child.” These would be company manners; and doubtless on a slight degree of intimacy183 the affectation would grow less. And his talk to women had always “a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged the attention particularly.”
The Edinburgh magnates (to conclude this episode at once) behaved well to Burns from first to last. Were heaven-born genius to revisit us in similar guise184, I am not venturing too far when I say that he need expect neither so warm a welcome nor such solid help. Although Burns was only a peasant, and one of no very elegant reputation as to morals, he was made welcome to their homes. They gave him a great deal of good advice, helped him to some five hundred pounds of ready money, and got him, as soon as he asked it, a place in the Excise. Burns, on his part, bore the elevation185 with perfect dignity; and with perfect dignity returned, when the time had come, into a country privacy of life. His powerful sense never deserted186 him, and from the first he recognised that his Edinburgh popularity was but an ovation187 and the affair of a day. He wrote a few letters in a high-flown, bombastic188 vein of gratitude189; but in practice he suffered no man to intrude190 upon his self-respect. On the other hand, he never turned his back, even for a moment, on his old associates; and he was always ready to sacrifice an acquaintance to a friend, although the acquaintance were a duke. He would be a bold man who should promise similar conduct in equally exacting191 circumstances. It was, in short, an admirable appearance on the stage of life — socially successful, intimately self-respecting, and like a gentleman from first to last.
In the present study, this must only be taken by the way, while we return to Burns’s love affairs. Even on the road to Edinburgh he had seized upon the opportunity of a flirtation, and had carried the “battering” so far that when next he moved from town, it was to steal two days with this anonymous192 fair one. The exact importance to Burns of this affair may be gathered from the song in which he commemorated193 its occurrence. “I love the dear lassie,” he sings, “because she loves me;” or, in the tongue of prose: “Finding an opportunity, I did not hesitate to profit by it, and even now, if it returned, I should not hesitate to profit by it again.” A love thus founded has no interest for mortal man. Meantime, early in the winter, and only once, we find him regretting Jean in his correspondence. “Because” — such is his reason — “because he does not think he will ever meet so delicious an armful again;” and then, after a brief excursion into verse, he goes straight on to describe a new episode in the voyage of discovery with the daughter of a Lothian farmer for a heroine. I must ask the reader to follow all these references to his future wife; they are essential to the comprehension of Burns’s character and fate. In June, we find him back at Mauchline, a famous man. There, the Armour family greeted him with a “mean, servile compliance,” which increased his former disgust. Jean was not less compliant195; a second time the poor girl submitted to the fascination of the man whom she did not love, and whom she had so cruelly insulted little more than a year ago; and, though Burns took advantage of her weakness, it was in the ugliest and most cynical196 spirit, and with a heart absolutely indifferent judge of this by a letter written some twenty days after his return - a letter to my mind among the most degrading in the whole collection — a letter which seems to have been inspired by a boastful, libertine197 bagman. “I am afraid,” it goes, “I have almost ruined one source, the principal one, indeed, of my former happiness — the eternal propensity198 I always had to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish199 rapture200; I have no paradisiacal evening interviews.” Even the process of “battering” has failed him, you perceive. Still he had some one in his eye — a lady, if you please, with a fine figure and elegant manners, and who had “seen the politest quarters in Europe.” “I frequently visited her,” he writes, “and after passing regularly the intermediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return to —, I wrote her in the same terms. Miss, construing201 my remarks further than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark202 in an April morning; and wrote me an answer which measured out very completely what an immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her favours. But I am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, prudent203 reply, as brought my bird from her aerial towerings, pop, down to my foot, like Corporal Trim’s hat.” I avow204 a carnal longing205, after this transcription, to buffet206 the Old Hawk about the ears. There is little question that to this lady he must have repeated his addresses, and that he was by her (Miss Chalmers) eventually, though not at all unkindly, rejected. One more detail to characterise the period. Six months after the date of this letter, Burns, back in Edinburgh, is served with a writ1 IN MEDITATIONE FUGAE, on behalf of some Edinburgh fair one, probably of humble rank, who declared an intention of adding to his family.
About the beginning of December [1787], a new period opens in the story of the poet’s random208 affections. He met at a tea party one Mrs. Agnes M’Lehose, a married woman of about his own age, who, with her two children, had been deserted by an unworthy husband. She had wit, could use her pen, and had read WERTHER with attention. Sociable209, and even somewhat frisky210, there was a good, sound, human kernel211 in the woman; a warmth of love, strong dogmatic religious feeling, and a considerable, but not authoritative212, sense of the proprieties213. Of what biographers refer to daintily as “her somewhat voluptuous214 style of beauty,” judging from the silhouette215 in Mr. Scott Douglas’s invaluable216 edition, the reader will be fastidious if he does not approve. Take her for all in all, I believe she was the best woman Burns encountered. The pair took a fancy for each other on the spot; Mrs. M’Lehose, in her turn, invited him to tea; but the poet, in his character of the Old Hawk, preferred a TETE-A-TETE, excused himself at the last moment, and offered a visit instead. An accident confined him to his room for nearly a month, and this led to the famous Clarinda and Sylvander correspondence. It was begun in simple sport; they are already at their fifth or sixth exchange, when Clarinda writes: “It is really curious so much FUN passing between two persons who saw each other only ONCE;” but it is hardly safe for a man and woman in the flower of their years to write almost daily, and sometimes in terms too ambiguous, sometimes in terms too plain, and generally in terms too warm, for mere51 acquaintance. The exercise partakes a little of the nature of battering, and danger may be apprehended217 when next they meet. It is difficult to give any account of this remarkable correspondence; it is too far away from us, and perhaps, not yet far enough, in point of time and manner; the imagination is baffled by these stilted218 literary utterances219, warming, in bravura221 passages, into downright truculent222 nonsense. Clarinda has one famous sentence in which she bids Sylvander connect the thought of his mistress with the changing phases of the year; it was enthusiastically admired by the swain, but on the modern mind produces mild amazement223 and alarm. “Oh, Clarinda,” writes Burns, “shall we not meet in a state — some yet unknown state — of being, where the lavish224 hand of Plenty shall minister to the highest wish of Benevolence225, and where the chill north wind of Prudence226 shall never blow over the flowery field of Enjoyment227?” The design may be that of an Old Hawk, but the style is more suggestive of a Bird of Paradise. It is sometimes hard to fancy they are not gravely making fun of each other as they write. Religion, poetry, love, and charming sensibility, are the current topics. “I am delighted, charming Clarinda, with your honest enthusiasm for religion,” writes Burns; and the pair entertained a fiction that this was their “favourite subject.” “This is Sunday,” writes the lady, “and not a word on our favourite subject. O fy ‘divine Clarinda!’ “ I suspect, although quite unconsciously on the part of the lady, who was bent on his redemption, they but used the favourite subject as a stalking-horse. In the meantime, the sportive acquaintance was ripening228 steadily229 into a genuine passion. Visits took place, and then became frequent. Clarinda’s friends were hurt and suspicious; her clergyman interfered230; she herself had smart attacks of conscience, but her heart had gone from her control; it was altogether his, and she “counted all things but loss — heaven excepted — that she might win and keep him.” Burns himself was transported while in her neighbourhood, but his transports somewhat rapidly declined during an absence. I am tempted231 to imagine that, womanlike, he took on the colour of his mistress’s feeling; that he could not but heat himself at the fire of her unaffected passion; but that, like one who should leave the hearth232 upon a winter’s night, his temperature soon fell when he was out of sight, and in a word, though he could share the symptoms, that he had never shared the disease. At the same time, amid the fustian233 of the letters there are forcible and true expressions, and the love verses that he wrote upon Clarinda are among the most moving in the language.
We are approaching the solution. In mid-winter, Jean, once more in the family way, was turned out of doors by her family; and Burns had her received and cared for in the house of a friend. For he remained to the last imperfect in his character of Don Juan, and lacked the sinister234 courage to desert his victim. About the middle of February [1788], he had to tear himself from his Clarinda and make a journey into the south-west on business. Clarinda gave him two shirts for his little son. They were daily to meet in prayer at an appointed hour. Burns, too late for the post at Glasgow, sent her a letter by parcel that she might not have to wait. Clarinda on her part writes, this time with a beautiful simplicity235: “I think the streets look deserted-like since Monday; and there’s a certain insipidity236 in good kind folks I once enjoyed not a little. Miss Wardrobe supped here on Monday. She once named you, which kept me from falling asleep. I drank your health in a glass of ale — as the lasses do at Hallowe’en — ‘in to mysel’.’ “ Arrived at Mauchline, Burns installed Jean Armour in a lodging237, and prevailed on Mrs. Armour to promise her help and countenance238 in the approaching confinement239. This was kind at least; but hear his expressions: “I have taken her a room; I have taken her to my arms; I have given her a mahogany bed; I have given her a guinea. . . . I swore her privately240 and solemnly never to attempt any claim on me as a husband, even though anybody should persuade her she had such a claim — which she has not, neither during my life nor after my death. She did all this like a good girl.” And then he took advantage of the situation. To Clarinda he wrote: “I this morning called for a certain woman. I am disgusted with her; I cannot endure her;” and he accused her of “tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul, and mercenary fawning241.” This was already in March; by the thirteenth of that month he was back in Edinburgh. On the 17th, he wrote to Clarinda: “Your hopes, your fears, your cares, my love, are mine; so don’t mind them. I will take you in my hand through the dreary242 wilds of this world, and scare away the ravening243 bird or beast that would annoy you.” Again, on the 21st: “Will you open, with satisfaction and delight, a letter from a man who loves you, who has loved you, and who will love you, to death, through death, and for ever. . . . How rich am I to have such a treasure as you! . . . ‘The Lord God knoweth,’ and, perhaps, ‘Israel he shall know,’ my love and your merit. Adieu, Clarinda! I am going to remember you in my prayers.” By the 7th of April, seventeen days later he had already decided244 to make Jean Armour publicly his wife.
A more astonishing stage-trick is not to be found. And yet his conduct is seen, upon a nearer examination, to be grounded both in reason and in kindness. He was now about to embark245 on a solid worldly career; he had taken a farm; the affair with Clarinda, however gratifying to his heart, was too contingent246 to offer any great consolation247 to a man like Burns, to whom marriage must have seemed the very dawn of hope and self-respect. This is to regard the question from its lowest aspect; but there is no doubt that he entered on this new period of his life with a sincere determination to do right. He had just helped his brother with a loan of a hundred and eighty pounds; should he do nothing for the poor girl whom he had ruined? It was true he could not do as he did without brutally248 wounding Clarinda; that was the punishment of his bygone fault; he was, as he truly says, “damned with a choice only of different species of error and misconduct.” To be professional Don Juan, to accept the provocation of any lively lass upon the village green, may thus lead a man through a series of detestable words and actions, and land him at last in an undesired and most unsuitable union for life. If he had been strong enough to refrain or bad enough to persevere249 in evil; if he had only not been Don Juan at all, or been Don Juan altogether, there had been some possible road for him throughout this troublesome world; but a man, alas250! who is equally at the call of his worse and better instincts, stands among changing events without foundation or resource. 3
3 For the love affairs see, in particular, Mr. Scott Douglas’s edition under the different dates.
Downward Course.
It may be questionable whether any marriage could have tamed Burns; but it is at least certain that there was no hope for him in the marriage he contracted. He did right, but then he had done wrong before; it was, as I said, one of those relations in life which it seems equally wrong to break or to perpetuate. He neither loved nor respected his wife. “God knows,” he writes, “my choice was as random as blind man’s buff.” He consoles himself by the thought that he has acted kindly207 to her; that she “has the most sacred enthusiasm of attachment to him;” that she has a good figure; that she has a “wood-note wild,” “her voice rising with ease to B natural,” no less. The effect on the reader is one of unmingled pity for both parties concerned. This was not the wife who (in his own words) could “enter into his favourite studies or relish251 his favourite authors;” this was not even a wife, after the affair of the marriage lines, in whom a husband could joy to place his trust. Let her manage a farm with sense, let her voice rise to B natural all day long, she would still be a peasant to her lettered lord, and an object of pity rather than of equal affection. She could now be faithful, she could now be forgiving, she could now be generous even to a pathetic and touching degree; but coming from one who was unloved, and who had scarce shown herself worthy of the sentiment, these were all virtues thrown away, which could neither change her husband’s heart nor affect the inherent destiny of their relation. From the outset, it was a marriage that had no root in nature; and we find him, ere long, lyrically regretting Highland Mary, renewing correspondence with Clarinda in the warmest language, on doubtful terms with Mrs. Riddel, and on terms unfortunately beyond any question with Anne Park.
Alas! this was not the only ill circumstance in his future. He had been idle for some eighteen months, superintending his new edition, hanging on to settle with the publisher, travelling in the Highlands with Willie Nichol, or philandering252 with Mrs. M’Lehose; and in this period the radical253 part of the man had suffered irremediable hurt. He had lost his habits of industry, and formed the habit of pleasure. Apologetical biographers assure us of the contrary; but from the first, he saw and recognised the danger for himself; his mind, he writes, is “enervated to an alarming degree” by idleness and dissipation; and again, “my mind has been vitiated with idleness.” It never fairly recovered. To business he could bring the required diligence and attention without difficulty; but he was thenceforward incapable254, except in rare instances, of that superior effort of concentration which is required for serious literary work. He may be said, indeed, to have worked no more, and only amused himself with letters. The man who had written a volume of masterpieces in six months, during the remainder of his life rarely found courage for any more sustained effort than a song. And the nature of the songs is itself characteristic of these idle later years; for they are often as polished and elaborate as his earlier works were frank, and headlong, and colloquial256; and this sort of verbal elaboration in short flights is, for a man of literary turn, simply the most agreeable of pastimes. The change in manner coincides exactly with the Edinburgh visit. In 1786 he had written the ADDRESS TO A LOUSE, which may be taken as an extreme instance of the first manner; and already, in 1787, we come upon the rosebud257 pieces to Miss Cruikshank, which are extreme examples of the second. The change was, therefore, the direct and very natural consequence of his great change in life; but it is not the less typical of his loss of moral courage that he should have given up all larger ventures, nor the less melancholy that a man who first attacked literature with a hand that seemed capable of moving mountains, should have spent his later years in whittling258 cherry-stones.
Meanwhile, the farm did not prosper259; he had to join to it the salary of an exciseman; at last he had to give it up, and rely altogether on the latter resource. He was an active officer; and, though he sometimes tempered severity with mercy, we have local testimony oddly representing the public feeling of the period, that, while “in everything else he was a perfect gentleman, when he met with anything seizable he was no better than any other gauger260.”
There is but one manifestation261 of the man in these last years which need delay us: and that was the sudden interest in politics which arose from his sympathy with the great French Revolution. His only political feeling had been hitherto a sentimental262 Jacobitism, not more or less respectable than that of Scott, Aytoun, and the rest of what George Borrow has nicknamed the “Charlie over the water” Scotchmen. It was a sentiment almost entirely literary and picturesque263 in its origin, built on ballads264 and the adventures of the Young Chevalier; and in Burns it is the more excusable, because he lay out of the way of active politics in his youth. With the great French Revolution, something living, practical, and feasible appeared to him for the first time in this realm of human action. The young ploughman who had desired so earnestly to rise, now reached out his sympathies to a whole nation animated265 with the same desire. Already in 1788 we find the old Jacobitism hand in hand with the new popular doctrine266, when, in a letter of indignation against the zeal of a Whig clergyman, he writes: “I daresay the American Congress in 1776 will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as the English Convention was in 1688; and that their posterity267 will celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do ours from the oppressive measures of the wrong-headed house of Stuart.” As time wore on, his sentiments grew more pronounced and even violent; but there was a basis of sense and generous feeling to his hottest excess. What he asked was a fair chance for the individual in life; an open road to success and distinction for all classes of men. It was in the same spirit that he had helped to found a public library in the parish where his farm was situated268, and that he sang his fervent269 snatches against tyranny and tyrants270. Witness, were it alone, this verse:—
“Here’s freedom to him that wad read,
Here’s freedom to him that wad write;
There’s nane ever feared that the truth should be heard
But them wham the truth wad indite271.”
Yet his enthusiasm for the cause was scarce guided by wisdom. Many stories are preserved of the bitter and unwise words he used in country coteries272; how he proposed Washington’s health as an amendment273 to Pitt’s, gave as a toast “the last verse of the last chapter of Kings,” and celebrated Dumouriez in a doggrel impromptu274 full of ridicule275 and hate. Now his sympathies would inspire him with SCOTS, WHA HAE; now involve him in a drunken broil276 with a loyal officer, and consequent apologies and explanations, hard to offer for a man of Burns’s stomach. Nor was this the front of his offending. On February 27, 1792, he took part in the capture of an armed smuggler277, bought at the subsequent sale four carronades, and despatched them with a letter to the French Assembly. Letter and guns were stopped at Dover by the English officials; there was trouble for Burns with his superiors; he was reminded firmly, however delicately, that, as a paid official, it was his duty to obey and to be silent; and all the blood of this poor, proud, and falling man must have rushed to his head at the humiliation278. His letter to Mr. Erskine, subsequently Earl of Mar10, testifies, in its turgid, turbulent phrases, to a perfect passion of alarmed self-respect and vanity. He had been muzzled279, and muzzled, when all was said, by his paltry280 salary as an exciseman; alas! had he not a family to keep? Already, he wrote, he looked forward to some such judgment from a hackney scribbler as this: “Burns, notwithstanding the FANFARONNADE of independence to be found in his works, and after having been held forth to view and to public estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute281 of resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled282 into a paltry exciseman, and shrunk out the rest of his insignificant283 existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest284 of mankind.” And then on he goes, in a style of rhodomontade, but filled with living indignation, to declare his right to a political opinion, and his willingness to shed his blood for the political birthright of his sons. Poor, perturbed285 spirit! he was indeed exercised in vain; those who share and those who differ from his sentiments about the Revolution, alike understand and sympathise with him in this painful strait; for poetry and human manhood are lasting286 like the race, and politics, which are but a wrongful striving after right, pass and change from year to year and age to age. The TWA DOGS has already outlasted287 the constitution of Sieyes and the policy of the Whigs; and Burns is better known among English-speaking races than either Pitt or Fox.
Meanwhile, whether as a man, a husband, or a poet, his steps led downward. He knew, knew bitterly, that the best was out of him; he refused to make another volume, for he felt that it would be a disappointment; he grew petulantly288 alive to criticism, unless he was sure it reached him from a friend. For his songs, he would take nothing; they were all that he could do; the proposed Scotch play, the proposed series of Scotch tales in verse, all had gone to water; and in a fling of pain and disappointment, which is surely noble with the nobility of a viking, he would rather stoop to borrow than to accept money for these last and inadequate289 efforts of his muse255. And this desperate abnegation rises at times near to the height of madness; as when he pretended that he had not written, but only found and published, his immortal AULD LANG SYNE290. In the same spirit he became more scrupulous291 as an artist; he was doing so little, he would fain do that little well; and about two months before his death, he asked Thomson to send back all his manuscripts for revisal, saying that he would rather write five songs to his taste than twice that number otherwise. The battle of his life was lost; in forlorn efforts to do well, in desperate submissions292 to evil, the last years flew by. His temper is dark and explosive, launching epigrams, quarrelling with his friends, jealous of young puppy officers. He tries to be a good father; he boasts himself a libertine. Sick, sad, and jaded293, he can refuse no occasion of temporary pleasure, no opportunity to shine; and he who had once refused the invitations of lords and ladies is now whistled to the inn by any curious stranger. His death (July 21, 1796), in his thirty-seventh year, was indeed a kindly dispensation. It is the fashion to say he died of drink; many a man has drunk more and yet lived with reputation, and reached a good age. That drink and debauchery helped to destroy his constitution, and were the means of his unconscious suicide, is doubtless true; but he had failed in life, had lost his power of work, and was already married to the poor, unworthy, patient Jean, before he had shown his inclination to convivial294 nights, or at least before that inclination had become dangerous either to his health or his self-respect. He had trifled with life, and must pay the penalty. He had chosen to be Don Juan, he had grasped at temporary pleasures, and substantial happiness and solid industry had passed him by. He died of being Robert Burns, and there is no levity295 in such a statement of the case; for shall we not, one and all, deserve a similar epitaph?
Works.
The somewhat cruel necessity which has lain upon me throughout this paper only to touch upon those points in the life of Burns where correction or amplification296 seemed desirable, leaves me little opportunity to speak of the works which have made his name so famous. Yet, even here, a few observations seem necessary.
At the time when the poet made his appearance and great first success, his work was remarkable in two ways. For, first, in an age when poetry had become abstract and conventional, instead of continuing to deal with shepherds, thunderstorms, and personifications, he dealt with the actual circumstances of his life, however matter-of-fact and sordid297 these might be. And, second, in a time when English versification was particularly stiff, lame2, and feeble, and words were used with ultra-academical timidity, he wrote verses that were easy, racy, graphic298, and forcible, and used language with absolute tact299 and courage as it seemed most fit to give a clear impression. If you take even those English authors whom we know Burns to have most admired and studied, you will see at once that he owed them nothing but a warning. Take Shenstone, for instance, and watch that elegant author as he tries to grapple with the facts of life. He has a description, I remember, of a gentleman engaged in sliding or walking on thin ice, which is a little miracle of incompetence300. You see my memory fails me, and I positively cannot recollect301 whether his hero was sliding or walking; as though a writer should describe a skirmish, and the reader, at the end, be still uncertain whether it were a charge of cavalry302 or a slow and stubborn advance of foot. There could be no such ambiguity303 in Burns; his work is at the opposite pole from such indefinite and stammering304 performances; and a whole lifetime passed in the study of Shenstone would only lead a man further and further from writing the ADDRESS TO A LOUSE. Yet Burns, like most great artists, proceeded from a school and continued a tradition; only the school and tradition were Scotch, and not English. While the English language was becoming daily more pedantic305 and inflexible306, and English letters more colourless and slack, there was another dialect in the sister country, and a different school of poetry tracing its descent, through King James I., from Chaucer. The dialect alone accounts for much; for it was then written colloquially307, which kept it fresh and supple33; and, although not shaped for heroic flights, it was a direct and vivid medium for all that had to do with social life. Hence, whenever Scotch poets left their laborious308 imitations of bad English verses, and fell back on their own dialect, their style would kindle309, and they would write of their convivial and somewhat gross existences with pith and point. In Ramsay, and far more in the poor lad Fergusson, there was mettle310, humour, literary courage, and a power of saying what they wished to say definitely and brightly, which in the latter case should have justified311 great anticipations312. Had Burns died at the same age as Fergusson, he would have left us literally nothing worth remark. To Ramsay and to Fergusson, then, he was indebted in a very uncommon313 degree, not only following their tradition and using their measures, but directly and avowedly314 imitating their pieces. The same tendency to borrow a hint, to work on some one else’s foundation, is notable in Burns from first to last, in the period of song-writing as well as in that of the early poems; and strikes one oddly in a man of such deep originality315, who left so strong a print on all he touched, and whose work is so greatly distinguished by that character of “inevitability” which Wordsworth denied to Goethe.
When we remember Burns’s obligations to his predecessors316, we must never forget his immense advances on them. They had already “discovered” nature; but Burns discovered poetry — a higher and more intense way of thinking of the things that go to make up nature, a higher and more ideal key of words in which to speak of them. Ramsay and Fergusson excelled at making a popular — or shall we say vulgar? — sort of society verses, comical and prosaic317, written, you would say, in taverns318 while a supper party waited for its laureate’s word; but on the appearance of Burns, this coarse and laughing literature was touched to finer issues, and learned gravity of thought and natural pathos319.
What he had gained from his predecessors was a direct, speaking style, and to walk on his own feet instead of on academical stilts320. There was never a man of letters with more absolute command of his means; and we may say of him, without excess, that his style was his slave. Hence that energy of epithet321, so concise322 and telling, that a foreigner is tempted to explain it by some special richness or aptitude323 in the dialect he wrote. Hence that Homeric justice and completeness of description which gives us the very physiognomy of nature, in body and detail, as nature is. Hence, too, the unbroken literary quality of his best pieces, which keeps him from any slip into the weariful trade of word-painting, and presents everything, as everything should be presented by the art of words, in a clear, continuous medium of thought. Principal Shairp, for instance, gives us a paraphrase324 of one tough verse of the original; and for those who know the Greek poets only by paraphrase, this has the very quality they are accustomed to look for and admire in Greek. The contemporaries of Burns were surprised that he should visit so many celebrated mountains and waterfalls, and not seize the opportunity to make a poem. Indeed, it is not for those who have a true command of the art of words, but for peddling325, professional amateurs, that these pointed12 occasions are most useful and inspiring. As those who speak French imperfectly are glad to dwell on any topic they may have talked upon or heard others talk upon before, because they know appropriate words for it in French, so the dabbler326 in verse rejoices to behold327 a waterfall, because he has learned the sentiment and knows appropriate words for it in poetry. But the dialect of Burns was fitted to deal with any subject; and whether it was a stormy night, a shepherd’s collie, a sheep struggling in the snow, the conduct of cowardly soldiers in the field, the gait and cogitations of a drunken man, or only a village cockcrow in the morning, he could find language to give it freshness, body, and relief. He was always ready to borrow the hint of a design, as though he had a difficulty in commencing — a difficulty, let us say, in choosing a subject out of a world which seemed all equally living and significant to him; but once he had the subject chosen, he could cope with nature single-handed, and make every stroke a triumph. Again, his absolute mastery in his art enabled him to express each and all of his different humours, and to pass smoothly328 and congruously from one to another. Many men invent a dialect for only one side of their nature — perhaps their pathos or their humour, or the delicacy329 of their senses — and, for lack of a medium, leave all the others unexpressed. You meet such an one, and find him in conversation full of thought, feeling, and experience, which he has lacked the art to employ in his writings. But Burns was not thus hampered330 in the practice of the literary art; he could throw the whole weight of his nature into his work, and impregnate it from end to end. If Doctor Johnson, that stilted and accomplished331 stylist, had lacked the sacred Boswell, what should we have known of him? and how should we have delighted in his acquaintance as we do? Those who spoke with Burns tell us how much we have lost who did not. But I think they exaggerate their privilege: I think we have the whole Burns in our possession set forth in his consummate332 verses.
It was by his style, and not by his matter, that he affected Wordsworth and the world. There is, indeed, only one merit worth considering in a man of letters — that he should write well; and only one damning fault — that he should write ill. We are little the better for the reflections of the sailor’s parrot in the story. And so, if Burns helped to change the course of literary history, it was by his frank, direct, and masterly utterance220, and not by his homely333 choice of subjects. That was imposed upon him, not chosen upon a principle. He wrote from his own experience, because it was his nature so to do, and the tradition of the school from which he proceeded was fortunately not oppose to homely subjects. But to these homely subjects he communicated the rich commentary of his nature; they were all steeped in Burns; and they interest us not in themselves, but because they have been passed through the spirit of so genuine and vigorous a man. Such is the stamp of living literature; and there was never any more alive than that of Burns.
What a gust194 of sympathy there is in him sometimes flowing out in byways hitherto unused, upon mice, and flowers, and the devil himself; sometimes speaking plainly between human hearts; sometimes ringing out in exultation334 like a peal335 of beals! When we compare the FARMER’S SALUTATION TO HIS AULD MARE336 MAGGIE, with the clever and inhumane production of half a century earlier, THE AULD MAN’S MARE’S DEAD, we see in a nutshell the spirit of the change introduced by Burns. And as to its manner, who that has read it can forget how the collie, Luath, in the TWA DOGS, describes and enters into the merry-making in the cottage?
“The luntin’ pipe an’ sneeshin’ mill,
Are handed round wi’ richt guid will;
The canty auld folks crackin’ crouse,
The young anes rantin’ through the house —
My heart has been sae fain to see them
That I for joy hae barkit wi’ them.”
It was this ardent337 power of sympathy that was fatal to so many women, and, through Jean Armour, to himself at last. His humour comes from him in a stream so deep and easy that I will venture to call him the best of humorous poets. He turns about in the midst to utter a noble sentiment or a trenchant338 remark on human life, and the style changes and rises to the occasion. I think it is Principal Shairp who says, happily, that Burns would have been no Scotchman if he had not loved to moralise; neither, may we add, would he have been his father’s son; but (what is worthy of note) his moralisings are to a large extent the moral of his own career. He was among the least impersonal339 of artists. Except in the JOLLY BEGGARS, he shows no gleam of dramatic instinct. Mr. Carlyle has complained that TAM O’ SHANTER is, from the absence of this quality, only a picturesque and external piece of work; and I may add that in the TWA DOGS it is precisely340 in the infringement341 of dramatic propriety342 that a great deal of the humour of the speeches depends for its existence and effect. Indeed, Burns was so full of his identity that it breaks forth on every page; and there is scarce an appropriate remark either in praise or blame of his own conduct, but he has put it himself into verse. Alas! for the tenor343 of these remarks! They are, indeed, his own pitiful apology for such a marred344 existence and talents so misused345 and stunted346; and they seem to prove for ever how small a part is played by reason in the conduct of man’s affairs. Here was one, at least, who with unfailing judgment predicted his own fate; yet his knowledge could not avail him, and with open eyes he must fulfil his tragic347 destiny. Ten years before the end he had written his epitaph; and neither subsequent events, nor the critical eyes of posterity, have shown us a word in it to alter. And, lastly, has he not put in for himself the last unanswerable plea? —
“Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark — ”
One? Alas! I fear every man and woman of us is “greatly dark” to all their neighbours, from the day of birth until death removes them, in their greatest virtues as well as in their saddest faults; and we, who have been trying to read the character of Burns, may take home the lesson and be gentle in our thoughts.
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1
writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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blots
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| 污渍( blot的名词复数 )； 墨水渍； 错事； 污点 | |
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repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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inorganic
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| adj.无生物的；无机的 | |
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mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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piecemeal
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| adj.零碎的；n.片，块；adv.逐渐地；v.弄成碎块 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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solacing
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| v.安慰，慰藉( solace的现在分词 ) | |
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paternally
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| adv.父亲似地；父亲一般地 | |
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questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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ordination
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| n.授任圣职 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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19
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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emigrant
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| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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delved
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| v.深入探究，钻研( delve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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31
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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32
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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33
supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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34
herding
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| 中畜群 | |
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35
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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36
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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37
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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38
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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39
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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41
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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42
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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43
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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44
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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45
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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46
excise
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| n.(国产)货物税；vt.切除，删去 | |
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47
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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48
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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49
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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50
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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51
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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52
orthography
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| n.拼字法，拼字式 | |
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53
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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54
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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55
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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56
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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57
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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58
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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59
hisses
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| 嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 ) | |
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60
horrifying
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| a.令人震惊的，使人毛骨悚然的 | |
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61
bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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62
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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63
conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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64
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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65
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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66
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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67
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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68
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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69
flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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70
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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71
tiffs
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| n.争吵( tiff的名词复数 )；（酒的）一口；小饮 | |
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72
reconciliations
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| 和解( reconciliation的名词复数 )； 一致； 勉强接受； （争吵等的）止息 | |
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73
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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74
piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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75
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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76
battering
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| n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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77
debilitating
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| a.使衰弱的 | |
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78
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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79
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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80
agitations
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| （液体等的）摇动( agitation的名词复数 )； 鼓动； 激烈争论； （情绪等的）纷乱 | |
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81
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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82
fatuity
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| n.愚蠢，愚昧 | |
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83
belles
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| n.美女( belle的名词复数 )；最美的美女 | |
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84
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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85
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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89
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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90
clinch
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| v.敲弯，钉牢；确定；扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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91
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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92
intrepid
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| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
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auld
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| adj.老的，旧的 | |
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swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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96
apotheosis
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| n.神圣之理想；美化；颂扬 | |
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97
dames
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| n.（在英国）夫人（一种封号），夫人（爵士妻子的称号）( dame的名词复数 )；女人 | |
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98
acclaimed
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| adj.受人欢迎的 | |
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simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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ushers
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| n.引座员( usher的名词复数 )；招待员；门房；助理教员v.引，领，陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
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101
creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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102
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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103
virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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105
clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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107
satires
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| 讽刺，讥讽( satire的名词复数 )； 讽刺作品 | |
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108
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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109
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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110
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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cynosure
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| n.焦点 | |
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112
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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113
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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114
flail
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| v.用连枷打；击打；n.连枷（脱粒用的工具） | |
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115
sleeplessness
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| n.失眠，警觉 | |
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116
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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117
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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118
prostrated
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| v.使俯伏，使拜倒( prostrate的过去式和过去分词 )；（指疾病、天气等）使某人无能为力 | |
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119
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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120
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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121
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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122
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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123
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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124
caret
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| n.加字符号 | |
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125
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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126
bleaching
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| 漂白法，漂白 | |
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127
scampered
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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128
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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129
hoydenish
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| adj.顽皮的，爱嬉闹的，男孩子气的 | |
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130
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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131
averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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132
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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133
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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134
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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135
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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136
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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137
conjugally
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138
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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139
perpetuate
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| v.使永存，使永记不忘 | |
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140
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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141
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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142
incensed
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| 盛怒的 | |
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143
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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144
appease
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| v.安抚，缓和，平息，满足 | |
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145
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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146
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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147
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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148
affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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149
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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150
discomfiture
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| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
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151
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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152
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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153
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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154
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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155
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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156
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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157
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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158
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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159
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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160
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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161
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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162
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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163
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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164
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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165
amicable
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| adj.和平的，友好的；友善的 | |
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166
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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167
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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168
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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169
inclement
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| adj.严酷的，严厉的，恶劣的 | |
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170
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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171
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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172
furrow
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| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
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173
wielding
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的现在分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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174
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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175
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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176
omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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177
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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178
snobbery
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| n. 充绅士气派, 俗不可耐的性格 | |
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179
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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180
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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181
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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182
rusticity
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| n.乡村的特点、风格或气息 | |
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183
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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184
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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185
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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186
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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187
ovation
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| n.欢呼，热烈欢迎，热烈鼓掌 | |
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188
bombastic
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| adj.夸夸其谈的，言过其实的 | |
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189
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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190
intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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191
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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192
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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193
commemorated
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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194
gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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195
compliant
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| adj.服从的，顺从的 | |
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196
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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197
libertine
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| n.淫荡者；adj.放荡的，自由思想的 | |
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198
propensity
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| n.倾向；习性 | |
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199
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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200
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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201
construing
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| v.解释（陈述、行为等）( construe的现在分词 )；翻译，作句法分析 | |
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202
lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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203
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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204
avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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205
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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206
buffet
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| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
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207
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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208
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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209
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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210
frisky
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| adj.活泼的，欢闹的；n.活泼，闹着玩；adv.活泼地，闹着玩地 | |
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211
kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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212
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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213
proprieties
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| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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214
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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215
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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216
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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217
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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218
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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219
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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220
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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221
bravura
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| n.华美的乐曲；勇敢大胆的表现；adj.壮勇华丽的 | |
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222
truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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223
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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224
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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225
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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226
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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227
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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228
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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229
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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230
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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231
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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232
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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233
fustian
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| n.浮夸的；厚粗棉布 | |
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234
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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235
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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236
insipidity
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| n.枯燥无味，清淡，无精神；无生气状 | |
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237
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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238
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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239
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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240
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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241
fawning
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| adj.乞怜的，奉承的v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的现在分词 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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242
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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243
ravening
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| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
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244
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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245
embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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246
contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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247
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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248
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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249
persevere
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| v.坚持，坚忍，不屈不挠 | |
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250
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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251
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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252
philandering
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| v.调戏，玩弄女性( philander的现在分词 ) | |
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253
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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254
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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255
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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256
colloquial
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| adj.口语的，会话的 | |
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257
rosebud
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| n.蔷薇花蕾，妙龄少女 | |
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258
whittling
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| v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 ) | |
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259
prosper
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| v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣 | |
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260
gauger
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| n.收税官 | |
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261
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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262
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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263
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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264
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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265
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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266
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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267
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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268
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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269
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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270
tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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271
indite
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作 | |
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272
coteries
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| n.（有共同兴趣的）小集团( coterie的名词复数 ) | |
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273
amendment
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| n.改正，修正，改善，修正案 | |
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274
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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275
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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276
broil
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| v.烤，烧，争吵，怒骂；n.烤，烧，争吵，怒骂 | |
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277
smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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278
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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279
muzzled
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| 给（狗等）戴口套( muzzle的过去式和过去分词 )； 使缄默，钳制…言论 | |
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280
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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281
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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282
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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283
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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284
vilest
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| adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 )；可耻的；极坏的；非常讨厌的 | |
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285
perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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286
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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287
outlasted
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| v.比…长久，比…活得长( outlast的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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288
petulantly
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289
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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290
syne
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| adv.自彼时至此时，曾经 | |
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291
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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292
submissions
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| n.提交( submission的名词复数 )；屈从；归顺；向法官或陪审团提出的意见或论据 | |
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293
jaded
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| adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的 | |
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294
convivial
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| adj.狂欢的，欢乐的 | |
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295
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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296
amplification
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| n.扩大，发挥 | |
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297
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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298
graphic
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| adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的 | |
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299
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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300
incompetence
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| n.不胜任，不称职 | |
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301
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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302
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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303
ambiguity
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| n.模棱两可；意义不明确 | |
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304
stammering
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的现在分词 ) | |
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305
pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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306
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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307
colloquially
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| adv.用白话，用通俗语 | |
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308
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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309
kindle
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| v.点燃，着火 | |
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310
mettle
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| n.勇气，精神 | |
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311
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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312
anticipations
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| 预期( anticipation的名词复数 )； 预测； （信托财产收益的）预支； 预期的事物 | |
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313
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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314
avowedly
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| adv.公然地 | |
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315
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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316
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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317
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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318
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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319
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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320
stilts
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| n.（支撑建筑物高出地面或水面的）桩子，支柱( stilt的名词复数 )；高跷 | |
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321
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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322
concise
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| adj.简洁的，简明的 | |
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323
aptitude
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| n.(学习方面的)才能，资质，天资 | |
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324
paraphrase
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| vt.将…释义，改写；n.释义，意义 | |
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325
peddling
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| 忙于琐事的，无关紧要的 | |
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326
dabbler
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| n. 戏水者, 业余家, 半玩半认真做的人 | |
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327
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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328
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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329
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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330
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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331
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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332
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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333
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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334
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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335
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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336
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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337
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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338
trenchant
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| adj.尖刻的，清晰的 | |
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339
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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340
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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341
infringement
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| n.违反；侵权 | |
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342
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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343
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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344
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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345
misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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346
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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347
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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