James L. Hughes

“ It was the soul of Burns that responded to love. Neither Alison Begbie nor Mary Campbell excelled in beauty, and no one acquainted with their high character could have had the temerity to suggest that love for them was ‘the love of the flesh.’ His beautiful poems to Jean Armour place his love for her on a high plane. He was a man of strong passion, but passion was not the source of his love. ”

“ The influence of any act on society, on the brotherhood of man as a whole, was the supreme test of Burns to distinguish between goodness and evil.
To Dr Moore, of London, he said: ‘Whatsoever is not detrimental to society, and is of positive enjoyment, is of God, the giver of all good things, and ought to be received and enjoyed by His creatures with thankful delight.’
To Clarinda he wrote: ‘Thou Almighty Author of peace, and goodness, and love! Do thou give me the social heart that kindly tastes of every man’s cup! ”

“ I do not think that it is very difficult for a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practise such detestable conduct; but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of sentiment, and purity of manners—to such a one in such circumstances I can assure you, my Dear, from my own feelings at this present moment, Courtship is a task indeed. ”

“ That independent spirit, and that ingenuous modesty—qualities inseparable from a noble mind—are, with the million, circumstances not a little disqualifying. What pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the happy, by their notice and patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart of such depressed youth! I am not so angry with mankind for their deaf economy of the purse—the goods of this world cannot be divided without being lessened—but why be a niggard of that which bestows bliss on a fellow-creature, yet takes nothing from our own means of enjoyment? ”

“ Burns was naturally a student gifted with a great mind. His splendid mind was trained to act logically by his remarkable father, and quickened and illuminated by his great teacher John Murdoch. He was a great philosopher, not merely because he read Locke’s ‘Essay on the Human Understanding’ when a boy, but because during his short life he read with joyous interest many books of a philosophical character, and what is of infinitely greater importance, he interpreted all he read with an independent mind, and related all truth as he understood it to human life. ”

“ Hypocrisy is not religion.
He attacked bigotry, one of the most savage monsters that ever tried to block the way of Christ’s highest teaching, the brotherhood of man. No phenomenal religious absurdity is more incomprehensible than the idea that Christianity can be promoted by the multiplication of religious denominations; especially when, as in the time of Burns, and long after his time, leaders of so-called Christian denominations refused to have fellowship with each other, or to unite on a common platform in working for the promotion of Christian ideals. ”

“ Labouring man on farm or in factory, this is your charter. Let this be your creed. Sing this great democratic hymn at your gatherings—ay, sing it in your homes with your children, and each time you sing it, it [Pg 102] should kindle some new light in your soul that will bring you new vision of the greatest fact in connection with human life and duty, that you are alive to be God’s partner, and that while you remain honest, and unselfishly consider the rights of others, as fully as you consider your own, you are entitled to stand with kings, because you are an honest man. ”

“ A comparison of the religious principles of the best Christians in the world nearly a century and a half after his time will show, however, that the creed of the present is more—much more—like the creed of Burns than the creed of the dreadful theologians of his time. The creed of the religious leaders a century hence will be still more like the creed of Robert Burns than is the creed of to-day. ”

“ He considered justice to himself of more consequence than justice to Burns, or to humanity. His only claim to be remembered is the fact that he prepared the poems of Burns for publication, and wrote his biography. It is much to be regretted that he had not higher ideals of what a biography should be, not merely for the memory of the man about whom it is written, but for its influence in enlightening and uplifting those who read it. Biographers should reveal not weaknesses, but the things achieved for God and humanity. ”

“ There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, that I am surprised they can be used by any one in so noble, so generous a passion as Virtuous Love. No, my dear E., I shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable practices. If you will be so good and so generous as to admit me for your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater transport; but I shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man, and, I will add, of a Christian. ”

“ If my son should happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and taste, I shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that this sweet little fellow, who is just now running about my desk, will be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart; and an imagination, delighted with the painter and rapt with the poet. Let me figure him wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the glowing luxuriance of the spring; himself the while in the blooming youth of life. He looks abroad on all Nature, and thro’ Nature up to Nature’s God ”

“ This was the central thought in the work of Burns regarding the freedom of all mankind: freedom from oppression by other men; freedom from the bondage imposed on the peasant and the labouring man by customs organised by so-called ‘higher classes’; freedom from the hardship and sorrow of poverty; freedom for each child to grow under proper conditions of nourishment, of physical development, and of educational training. ”

“ What were the achievements, in addition to his poetic power, that made Burns ‘one of the most considerable men of the eighteenth century?’ Mainly the work he did to develop in the souls of men a consciousness of fundamental principles of democracy, and higher ideals of vital religion; yet Carlyle does not approve of his efforts to reform either social or religious conditions. As the centuries pass, the work of Burns for Religion, Democracy, and Brotherhood will be recognised as his greatest work for humanity. ”

“ He taught universal benevolence and vital sympathy with—not for—humanity; not merely when sorrows and afflictions bring dark clouds to hearts, but in times of happiness and rejoicing; affectionate sympathy, unostentatious sympathy, co-operative sympathy that stimulates helpfulness and hopefulness; sympathy that produces activity of [Pg 127] the divine in the human heart and mind, and leads to brotherhood.
The amazing fact is, not that Burns wrote such fundamental Christian philosophy in a love-letter, but that a youth of twenty-one could think it and express it so perfectly. ”

“ He takes a kindly view, that men as a whole are not so bad as pessimists would have us believe; that there are comparatively few that have no respect for the Divine Law, and are kept in check only by the fear of human law; but mourns because most men yet think more of self than of their neighbours, to whom they may be of service, and sees that, where our relations with our fellow-men are not satisfactorily balanced, the destroyer of harmony is universally selfishness in one form or another. ”

“ The one is composed of the different modifications of a certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. The other is made up of those feelings and sentiments which, however the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast may disfigure them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those senses of the mind, if I may be allowed the expression, which connect us with and link us to, those awful, obscure realities—an all-powerful and equally beneficent God, and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. ”

“ Many people yet believe that Burns was a universal and inconstant lover. He really did not love many women. He loved deeply, but he had not a great many really serious experiences of love. He loved Nellie Kirkpatrick when he was fifteen, and Peggy Thomson when he was seventeen. He says his love of Nellie made him a poet. There is no other experience that will kindle the strongest element in a human soul during the adolescent period so fully, and so permanently, as genuine love. ”

“ In a letter to Peter Hill, 1790, he wrote: ‘Mankind are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly instances. I do not think that avarice for the good things we chance to have is born with us; but we are placed here among so much nakedness and hunger and poverty and want, that we are under a damning necessity of studying [Pg 184] selfishness in order that we may EXIST. Still there are in every age a few souls that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase into selfishness, or even give the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. ”

“ To John Francis Erskine he wrote, 1793: ‘Burns was a poor man from birth and an exciseman from necessity; but—I will say it—the sterling of his honest worth no poverty could debase, and his independent British mind oppression might bend, but could not subdue.... Can I look tamely on and see any machination to wrest from them the birthright of my boys—the little, independent Britons, in whose veins runs my own blood?... Does any man tell me that my full efforts can be of no service, and that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle [Pg 110] with the concerns of a nation? ”

“ His philosophy clearly recognised the evils of unduly centring our minds and hearts on pleasure, and thus not only robbing ourselves of development, and humanity of the advantage of the many things we might do in our overtime devoted to pleasure, but destroying our interest in the things that were intended to give us happiness. ”

“ In another letter he wrote: ‘All my fears and cares are of this world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a Deist; but, I fear, every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is not that there are any very staggering arguments against the immortality of man, but, like electricity, phlogiston, &c., the subject is so involved in darkness that we want data to go upon.’
His philosophy left him no fears for what comes after death. ”

“ I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in the Summer noon, or the wild, mixing cadence of a troop of grey-plover in an Autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of Devotion or Poetry. ”

“ Some people have tried to say irreverently smart things about the absurdity of writing about religion in letters to his loved one. Both the religion and the love of his letters to the first woman he ever asked to marry him are too sacred to provoke ridicule in the minds of men with proper reverence for either religion or love. No one can [Pg 79] carefully read these five letters without having a deeper respect for Burns, the young gentleman who loved so deeply that he regarded love worthy to be placed in association with religion. ”

“ To Burns, the relationship of the soul to God was of first importance. He cared little for man’s formalisms, but personal connection with a loving Father he regarded as [Pg 171] the supreme source of happiness. Only a reverent and philosophic mind would think of prayer as ‘a correspondence with heaven.’
Burns holds a high rank as a profound philosopher of human life, of human growth, and of human consciousness of the Divine, as the vital centre of human power.
Burns was a philosopher in his recognition that productive work is essential to human happiness and progress. ”

“ He saw God through Nature as few men ever saw Him, and he therefore naturally used the beauty and sweetness and glory of Nature to help to reveal the beauty and sweetness and glory of love, the element of the Divine that thrilled him with the deepest joy and the highest reverence. ”

“ A genius like Burns, living with a great teacher like Murdoch, could in a month get many of the new revelations, the new visions, and the strong impulses that should come into a growing soul as the result of a university course. ”