Essay on BurnsAmerican book Company, 1903 - 160 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
affection Allan Ramsay Auld beauty became Beggars brilliant brother Burns's Byron called Carlyle CARLYLE'S ESSAY century character Cotter's Saturday Night Craigenputtock critics dark death Dugald Stewart Dumfries Ecclefechan Edinburgh Review English ESSAY ON BURNS farm father feeling force French Revolution friendship genius genuine German glory Goethe heart Heroes and Hero-Worship heroic Humour inspiration intellectual Irving Jeffrey John John Sterling Jolly Beggars letters light literary literature lived Lockhart London look man's mind Moore moral Mossgiel mother natural never notable passage passion perhaps poems poet poetical poetry poor poverty Professor religion rhymed Robert Robert Burns Sartor Resartus says Scotch Scotland Scots wha hae Scott Scottish seems sense Songs of Burns soul speak spirit sympathy Tarbolton things Thomas Carlyle thought tion true truth University University of Edinburgh verses voice walks words Wordsworth write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 14 - Hast thou not a heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will meet it and defy it!
Page 83 - I never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry.
Page 110 - There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large and of a dark cast, which glowed, I say literally glowed, when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.
Page 83 - Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the /Eolian 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 wo beyond death and the grave.
Page 109 - His person was strong and robust ; his manners rustic, not clownish ; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys the idea, that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I...
Page 111 - This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak in malam partem, when I say, I never saw a man in company with his superiors in station or information more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment.
Page 93 - There is a piercing wail in his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy ; he burns with the sternest ire, or laughs with the loudest or sliest mirth ; and yet he is sweet and soft, ' sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, and soft as their parting tear...
Page 158 - ... at my heels. * I had taken the last farewell of my few friends, my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia. The gloomy night is gathering fast — when a letter from Dr.
Page 109 - ... enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. Mr Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word, otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man.
Page 76 - ... of a hero. Tears lie in him, and consuming fire ; as lightning lurks in the drops of the summer cloud. He has a resonance in his bosom for every note of human feeling ; the high and the low, the sad, the ludicrous, the joyful, are welcome in their turns to his " lightly moved and all-conceiving spirit.