Robert Burns: How To Know Him

By WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON Professor of English, Harvard University
Author of Essentials of Poetry, etc.
WITH PORTRAIT
INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1917 The Bobbs-Merrill Company
PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N.Y.
TO MY BROTHER
The Nasmyth Portrait of Robert Burns.
These two paragraphs form respectively the beginning and the end of a long autobiographical letter written by Robert Burns to Doctor John Moore, physician and novelist. At the time they were composed, the poet had just returned to his native county after the triumphant season in Edinburgh that formed the climax of his career. But no detailed knowledge of circumstances is necessary to rouse interest in a man who wrote like that. You may be offended by the self-consciousness and the swagger, or you may be charmed by the frankness and dash, but you can not remain indifferent. Burns had many moods besides those reflected in these sentences, but here we can see as vividly as in any of his poetry the fundamental characteristics of the man—sensitive, passionate, independent, and as proud as Lucifer—whose life and work are the subject of this volume.
I've noticed, on our Laird's court-day,—
And mony a time my heart's been wae,—
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash,