In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she is eminently mistress; and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their dairy and other rural business.
The muses must not be offended when I tell them, the concerns of my wife and family will, in my mind, always take the pas; but I assure them their ladyships will ever come next in place.
You are right that a bachelor state would have insured me more friends; but from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching my God, would seldom have been of the number.
I found a once much-loved and still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements; but I enabled her to purchase a shelter;—there is no sporting with a fellow-creature’s happiness or misery.
The most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure; these, I think, in a woman, may make a good wife, though she should never have read a page but the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than a penny pay-wedding.
R. B.
CXXIII.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
[Had Burns written his fine song, beginning “Contented wi’ little and cantie wi’ mair,” when he penned this letter, the prose might have followed as a note to the verse; he calls the Excise a luxury.]