Life of Robert Burns |
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Page iii
... pleasure's maze , To care and guilt unknown ! How ill exchanged for riper times , To feel the follies or the crimes Of others or my own ! " CHAPTER III . · • • · 55 " The star that rules my luckless lot Has fated me the russet coat ...
... pleasure's maze , To care and guilt unknown ! How ill exchanged for riper times , To feel the follies or the crimes Of others or my own ! " CHAPTER III . · • • · 55 " The star that rules my luckless lot Has fated me the russet coat ...
Page 9
... house of Keith- Marischall ; and the poet took pleasure in be- A 66 lieving , that his humble ancestors shared the prin- 66 My father was a farmer upon the Carrick Border, And carefully he brought me up in decency and order.
... house of Keith- Marischall ; and the poet took pleasure in be- A 66 lieving , that his humble ancestors shared the prin- 66 My father was a farmer upon the Carrick Border, And carefully he brought me up in decency and order.
Page 14
... pleasure in leading his children in the path of virtue ; not in driving them , as some parents do , to the performance of duties to which they themselves are averse . He took care to find fault but very seldom ; and therefore , when he ...
... pleasure in leading his children in the path of virtue ; not in driving them , as some parents do , to the performance of duties to which they themselves are averse . He took care to find fault but very seldom ; and therefore , when he ...
Page 16
... pleasure in , was The Vision of Mirza , and a hymn of Addison's , beginning , How are thy servants blest , O Lord ! I particularly remember one half- stanza , which was music to my boyish ear : For though on dreadful whirls we hung High ...
... pleasure in , was The Vision of Mirza , and a hymn of Addison's , beginning , How are thy servants blest , O Lord ! I particularly remember one half- stanza , which was music to my boyish ear : For though on dreadful whirls we hung High ...
Page 22
... pleasure in lending him books , and surely no kindness could have been more use- ful to him than this . As for his coevals , he him- self says , very justly , " It is not commonly at that green age that our young gentry have a due sense ...
... pleasure in lending him books , and surely no kindness could have been more use- ful to him than this . As for his coevals , he him- self says , very justly , " It is not commonly at that green age that our young gentry have a due sense ...
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance admiration Allan Cunningham appears auld Ayrshire Bachelor's Club bard beautiful bosom brother Burns's celebrated character circumstances Correspondence Cromek Dalswinton dear death delight doubt Dr Currie Dr Moore Dugald Stewart Dumfries Dunlop Edinburgh Elliesland Excise fancy farm father favour favourite feelings Fintray fortune Gavin Hamilton genius Gilbert Burns Gordon Castle grave happy heart Heron Holy Fair honour hope humble Irvine Jacobite Jenny Geddes kind Kirkoswald labour lady language letter lived look manners Mauchline melancholy ment mind mingled Mossgiel never noble occasion parish passion perhaps period person pleasure poems poet poet's poetical poetry political pride reader Reliques Robert Burns says scenes Scotch Scotland Scots Scottish sentiments Shanter sion society song soul spect spirit stanzas talents Tarbolton taste thing Thomson thou thought tion verses Walker William Burnes wish writing young youth
Popular passages
Page 280 - THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes THY glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun...
Page 17 - Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier ; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.
Page 197 - JEolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident; or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities: a God that made all things, man's immaterial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave.
Page 184 - And mony a hill between ; But, day and night, my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean. I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair : I hear her in the tunefu...
Page 136 - ... in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation, a most thorough conviction that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation, he was exactly where he was entitled to be; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered...
Page 118 - Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's called by the unpromising title of 'The Justice of the Peace'.
Page 16 - In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, deadlights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery.
Page 197 - I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and, passing from one thought to another, surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream.
Page 22 - Meditations, had formed the whole of my reading. The collection of songs was my vade mecum. I pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is.
Page 35 - I staid, I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless.