For had ye stayed whole weeks awa'
Your wives they n'er had missed ye.
In my short career I have run up against lots of folks who cannot take a joke or see the point of one and these poor people I pity, but do not blame, for they were born that way. I have always been poor but never proud and could take a joke—that is, when I could see the point of it. When I couldn't see the point of it I did not get angry.
Burnsie was a farmer and lived on ranches the most of his life. He was a hayseed from way back but as soon as he got celebrated high society began to run after him and the poor fellow couldn't keep away from it if he tried. It didn't take him long to learn how to make a bow without upsetting the table, but he was out of his element among the grand folks. Did he need polish to make him shine? I trow not. Wasn't his genius just as great before he struck society? Sure! But just to please folks he hobnobbed with them though he was as much out of his element as a fish when out of water. No doubt he wore a biled shirt and black claw-hammer coat and made his coat tails fly around pretty lively as he skipped around in a dance, but as society wanted him it got him. Had he lived long enough he might have been a baron, marquis, duke or count. Who can tell? While a plowman he scorned titles, but I wonder whether he would have rejected a patent of nobility had it been tendered him.
Genius is a complex quality. Samuel Smiles in his great work, "Self Help," says that genius is nothing more nor less than a capacity for taking infinite pains, and the world in general seems to have accepted his definition or explanation, but I, Windy Bill, an untutored savage from the Wild West, beg to differ wholly from Sam and I will "show you" why, and permit you to judge for yourself. Had Samuel defined art instead of genius as "an infinite capacity for taking pains" he might have been nearer the truth. Let us take the case of Burns. While plowing he wrote rhymes, but as he knew little or nothing of the art of versification he set his thoughts in mellifluous language of his own. Was it his thoughts or their setting that captivated people? His thoughts, of course, though the jingle made them more harmonious. Genius is the thought; art the setting. Tell me then that genius is a capacity for taking pains. Nary time. It comes forth spontaneous, natural, can't help itself. It is a God-given quality which lots of people possess to a greater or less degree. Musicians have it, as have painters, architects, writers, sculptors and people in all walks of life. Lots of poets in Scotland had genius long before our great friend Rabbie was born, and lots since them have had more or less of a share of the "divine afflatus," as some writers call it, but were any of them gifted as highly as Puir Rabbie? Not a one. Will another like him arise? Search me! There hasn't yet.
Notwithstanding that Rabbie was so highly gifted, he didn't know it. Don't you believe me? If you don't you needn't take my word for it, for I have evidence here that will prove it. I quote the preface that he wrote to the first book of his that ever was printed. Here it is:
"The following trifles are not the production of the poet, who, with all the advantages of learned art and perhaps amid the elegancies and idleness of upper life looks down for a rural theme with an eye to Theocritus or Virgil. Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing poetry by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. Though a rhymer from his earlier years it was not till very lately that the applause (perhaps the partiality) of friendship awakened his vanity so as to make him think anything of his worth showing, for none of the poems were composed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy amid the toil and fatigue of a laborious life, these were his motives for courting the muses. Now that he appears in the public character of an author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe that even he, an obscure, nameless bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being branded as an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and because he can make shift to jingle a few doggerel Scottish rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet of no small consequence, forsooth! If any critic catches at the word Genius, the author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise the publishing, in the manner he has done, would be a maneuver below the worst character his worst enemy will ever give him. But to the genius of an Allan Ramsay or a Robert Ferguson he has not the least pretension, nor ever had, even in his highest pulse of vanity. These two justly admired Scottish poets he has often had in his eye but rather to kindle in their flame than for servile imitation.
"To his subscribers the author returns his most sincere thanks—not the mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bosom—to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly the learned and the polite who may honor him with a perusal, that they will make every allowance for education and circumstances of life; but if, after a fair, candid and impartial criticism he shall stand convicted of dullness and nonsense let him be done by as he would in that case do by others—let him be condemned without mercy, to contempt and oblivion."
It is a queer fact that those mortals who possessed the greatest genius were always the most simple and diffident, and dubious about their own powers. They had a feeling in them that they were born to soar but they were hesitating, doubtful and did not know their very simplicity was a part of their greatness. They didn't appreciate their own capacities at first any more than are their capabilities appreciated by less gifted mortals. Before Burns' time Allan Ramsay and Robert Ferguson were looked upon as the greatest poets Scotland had ever produced, and so great were they that even Burns looked upon them with awe; and yet, unknown to himself, he was far greater than they. His generation may not have known it, but this generation does. Was Shakespeare appreciated in his generation? He was not. Was any truly great man? Hardly.
The earliest book of Burns that ever was put in print consisted of his minor poems which were written while he was in the fields plowing.
Of course he wasn't plowing always, so some were written while he was outdoors, here, there and everywhere in the vicinity of his country home. They were put into book-form by the advice of his friends and John Wilson at Kilmarnock, was the man who volunteered to do the printing. The book was a thin one, about half as thick as the ordinary novel of to-day, and it was agreed that only 612 books be struck off as a first edition. Mr. John Wilson was a long-headed printer and would not agree to print a single volume until at least 300 of the books had been subscribed for beforehand. He figured it out this way: "Suppose the book fails, where do I get off at? I set it up in type, do the binding, furnish the paper, pay the devil and the compositors, do the press work, make-up and all, so can I afford to take all the chances of getting any money out of this blooming poetry?" Mr. Wilson was a canny Scot and didn't propose to take any chances. He surely didn't lose anything in this venture, but whether he made anything I am unable to say.