| “But she was more than usual calm, She did not give a single dam.” |
Marjorie Fleming.
[23] Of the play Deacon Brodie.
| “Smith opens out his cauld harangues On practice and on morals.” |
The Rev. George Smith of Galston, the minister thus referred to by Burns (in the Holy Fair), was a great-grandfather of Stevenson on the mother’s side; and against Stevenson himself, in his didactic moods, the passage was often quoted by his friends when they wished to tease him.
[25] Afterwards changed to Alison.
[26] Alluding to a kind of lofty, posturing manner of G. M.’s in mind and speech, quite different from any real insincerity.