Your devoted humble Servant,
R. B.
CLXXIV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The ignominy of a poet becoming a gauger seems ever to have been present to the mind of Burns—but those moving things ca’d wives and weans have a strong influence on the actions of man.]
Ellisland, 1st Nov. 1789.
My dear Friend,
I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh.—Wherever you are, God bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil!