We are surprised at the prose style of Robert; that
of Gilbert need surprise us no less; even William writes a remarkable
letter for a young man of such slender opportunities. One anecdote marks
the taste of the family. Murdoch brought "Titus Andronicus," and, with
such dominie elocution as we may suppose, began to read it aloud before
this rustic audience; but when he had reached the passage where Tamora
insults Lavinia, with one voice and "in an agony of distress" they
refused to hear it to an end. In such a father, and with such a home,
Robert had already the making of an excellent education; and what
Murdoch added, although it may not have been much in amount, was in
character the very essence of a literary training. Schools and colleges,
for one great man whom they complete, perhaps unmake a dozen; the strong
spirit can do well upon more scanty fare. Robert steps before us, almost from the first, in his complete
character--a proud, headstrong, impetuous lad, greedy of pleasure,
greedy of notice; in his own phrase "panting after distinction," and in
his brother's "cherishing a particular jealousy of people who were
richer or of more consequence than himself"; with all this, he was
emphatically of the artist nature. Already he made a conspicuous figure
in Tarbolton church, with the only tied hair in the parish, "and his
plaid, which was of a particular colour, wrapped in a particular manner
round his shoulders." Ten years later, when a married man, the father of
a family, a farmer, and an officer of Excise, we shall find him out
fishing in masquerade, with fox-skin cap, belted great-coat, and great
Highland broadsword. He liked dressing up, in fact, for its own sake. This is the spirit which leads to the extravagant array of Latin Quarter
students, and the proverbial velveteen of the English landscape-painter;
and, though the pleasure derived is in itself merely personal, it shows
a man who is, to say the least of it, not pained by general attention
and remark. His father wrote the family name _Burnes_; Robert early
adopted the orthography _Burness_ from his cousin in the Mearns; and in
his twenty-eighth year changed it once more to _Burns_. It is plain that
the last transformation was not made without some qualm; for in
addressing his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to
spelling number two. And this, again, shows a man preoccupied about the
manner of his appearance even down to the name, and little willing to
follow custom. Again, he was proud, and justly proud, of his powers in
conversation. To no other man's have we the same conclusive testimony
from different sources and from every rank of life. It is almost a
commonplace that the best of his works was what he said in talk. Robertson the historian "scarcely ever met any man whose conversation
displayed greater vigour"; the Duchess of Gordon declared that he
"carried her off her feet"; and, when he came late to an inn, the
servants would get out of bed to hear him talk. But, in these early days
at least, he was determined to shine by any means. He made himself
feared in the village for his tongue. He would crush weaker men to their
faces, or even perhaps--for the statement of Sillar is not absolute--say
cutting things of his acquaintances behind their back. At the church
door, between sermons, he would parade his religious views amid hisses. These details stamp the man. He had no genteel timidities in the conduct
of his life. He loved to force his personality upon the world. He would
please himself, and shine. Had he lived in the Paris of 1830, and joined
his lot with the Romantics, we can conceive him writing _Jehan_ for
_Jean_, swaggering in Gautier's red waistcoat, and horrifying Bourgeois
in a public café with paradox and gasconnade. A leading trait throughout his whole career was his desire to be in
love. _Ne fait pas ce tour qui veut._ His affections were often enough
touched, but perhaps never engaged. He was all his life on a voyage of
discovery, but it does not appear conclusively that he ever touched the
happy isle. A man brings to love a deal of ready-made sentiment, and
even from childhood obscurely prognosticates the symptoms of this vital
malady. Burns was formed for love; he had passion, tenderness, and a
singular bent in the direction; he could foresee, with the intuition of
an artist, what love ought to be; and he could not conceive a worthy
life without it. But he had ill-fortune, and was besides so greedy after
every shadow of the true divinity, and so much the slave of a strong
temperament, that perhaps his nerve was relaxed and his heart had lost
the power of self-devotion before an opportunity occurred. The
circumstances of his youth doubtless counted for something in the
result. For the lads of Ayrshire, as soon as the day's work was over and
the beasts were stabled, would take the road, it might be in a winter
tempest, and travel perhaps miles by moss and moorland to spend an hour
or two in courtship. Rule 10 of the Bachelors' Club at Tarbolton
provides that "every man proper for a member of this Society must be a
professed lover of _one or more_ of the female sex." The rich, as Burns
himself points out, may have a choice of pleasurable occupations, but
these lads had nothing but their "cannie hour at e'en." It was upon love
and flirtation that this rustic society was built; gallantry was the
essence of life among the Ayrshire hills as well as in the Court of
Versailles; and the days were distinguished from each other by
love-letters, meetings, tiffs, reconciliations, and expansions to the
chosen confidant, as in a comedy of Marivaux. Here was a field for a man
of Burns's indiscriminate personal ambition, where he might pursue his
voyage of discovery in quest of true love, and enjoy temporary triumphs
by the way. He was "constantly the victim of some fair enslaver"--at
least, when it was not the other way about; and there were often
underplots and secondary fair enslavers in the background. Many--or may
we not say most?--of these affairs were entirely artificial. One, he
tells us, he began out of "a vanity of showing his parts in courtship,"
for he piqued himself on his ability at a love-letter. But, however they
began, these flames of his were fanned into a passion ere the end; and
he stands unsurpassed in his power of self-deception, and positively
without a competitor in the art, to use his own words, of "battering
himself into a warm affection,"--a debilitating and futile exercise. Once he had worked himself into the vein, "the agitations of his mind
and body" were an astonishment to all who knew him. Such a course as
this, however pleasant to a thirsty vanity, was lowering to his nature. He sank more and more towards the professional Don Juan.