Saturday Night-half after Ten. What luxury of bliss I was enjoying this time yesternight! My ever-dearest Clarinda, you have stolen away my soul: but you have refined, you have exalted it: you have given it a stronger sense of virtue, and a stronger relish for piety.-Clarinda, first of your sex, if ever I am the veriest wretch on earth to forget you; if ever your lovely image is effaced from my soul, "May I be lost, no eye to weep my end; And find no earth that's base enough to bury me!" What trifling silliness is the childish fondness of the every-day children of the world! 'tis the unmeaning toying of the younglings of the fields and forests: but where Sentiment and Fancy unite their sweets; where Taste and Delicacy refine; where Wit adds the flavour, and Goodness gives strength and spirit to all, what a delicious draught is the hour of tender endearment!-Beauty and Grace, in the arms of Truth and Honour, in all the luxury of mutual love. Clarinda, have you ever seen the picture realized? Not in all its very richest colouring. Last night, Clarinda, but for one slight shade, was the glorious picture— About 10th February. MY EVER DEAREST CLARINDA, I MAKE a numerous dinner party wait me while I read yours, and write this. Do not require that I should cease to love you, to adore you in my soul-'tis to me impossible-your peace and happiness are to me dearer than my soul-name the terms on which you wish to see me, to correspond with me, and you have them -I must love, pine, mourn, and adore in secret -this you must not deny me-you will ever be to me "Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart!"' I have not patience to read the puritanic scrawl. Vile sophistry!-Ye heavens! thou God of nature! thou Redeemer of mankind! ye look down with approving eyes on a passion inspired by the purest flame, and guarded by truth, delicacy, and honour; but the half-inch soul of an unfeeling, cold-blooded, pitiful presbyterian bigot cannot forgive any thing above his dungeon bosom and foggy head. Farewell; I'll be with you to-morrow evening-and be at rest in your mind--I will be yours in the way you think most to your happiness! dare not proceed-I love, and will love you, and will with joyous confidence approach the throne of the almighty Judge of men, with your dear idea, and will despise the scum of sentiment, and the mist of sophistry. SYLVANDER. No. XVII. Tuesday Evening, 12th Feb. THAT you have faults, my Clarinda, I never doubted; but I knew not where they existed. and Saturday night made me more in the dark than ever. O Clarinda! why will you wound my soul, by hinting that last night must have lessened my opinion of you? True, I was "behind the scenes with you;" but what did I see? A bosom glowing with honour and benevolence; a mind ennobled by genius, informed and refined by education and reflection, and exalted by native religion, genuine as in the climes of heaven; a heart formed for all the glorious meltings of friendship, love, and pity. These I saw.—I saw the noblest immortal soul creation ever showed me. I looked long, my dear Clarinda, for your have not caught you so far wrong as in your letter; and am vexed that you are complaining. idea, that the commerce you have with onc I friend hurts you, if you cannot tell every tittle of it to another. Why have so injurious a suspicion of a good God, Clarinda, as to think that Friendship and Love, on the sacred inviolate principles of Truth, Honour, and Religion, can be any thing else than an object of His divine approbation? I have mentioned, in some of my former scrawls, Saturday evening next. Do allow me to wait on you that evening. Oh, my angel! how soon must we part! and when can we meet again! I looked forward on the horrid interval with tearful eyes! What have I lost by not knowing you sooner! I fear, I fear my acquaintance with you is too short to make that lasting impression on your heart I could wish. SYLVANDER. No. XVIII. "I AM distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan!" I have suffered, Clarinda, from your letter. My soul was in arms at the sad perusal I dreaded that I had acted wrong. If I have robbed you of a friend, God forgive me! But, Clarinda, be comforted: let us raise the tone of our feelings a little higher and bolder. A fellow-creature who leaves us, who spurns us without just cause, though once our bosom friend-up with a little honest pride-let him go! How shall I comfort you, who am the cause of the injury? Can I wish that I had never seen you? that we had never met? No! I never will. But have I thrown you friendless? - there is almost distraction in that thought. Father of mercies! against Thee often have I sinned; through Thy grace I will endeavour to do so no more! She who, Thou knowest, is dearer to me than myself, pour Thou the balm of peace into her past wounds, and hedge her about with Thy peculiar care, all her future days and nights! Strengthen her tender noble mind, firmly to suffer, and nagnanimously to bear! Make me worthy of that friendship she honours me with. May my attachment to her be pure as devotion, and lasting as immortal life Almighty Goodness, hear me! Be to her at all times, particularly in the hour of distress or trial, a Friend and Comforter, a Guide and Guard. I JUST now received your first letter of yesterday, by the careless negligence of the pennypost. Clarinda, matters are grown very serious with us; then seriously hear me, and hear me, Heaven-I met you, my dear* *, by far the first of woman kind, at least to me; I esteemed, I loved you at first sight; the longer I am acquainted with you, the more innate amiableness and worth I discover in you.-You | have suffered a loss, I confess, for my sake: but if the firmest, steadiest, warmest friendship; if every endeavour to be worthy of your friendship; if a love, strong as the ties of nature, and holy as the duties of religion-if all these can make any thing like a compensation for the evil I have occasioned you, if they be worth your acceptance, or can in the least add to your enjoyments so help Sylvander, ye Powers these all to Clarinda! above, in his hour of need, as he freely gives mire you, I love you as a woman, beyond any I esteem you, I love you as a friend; I adone in all the circle of creation; I know I shall continue to esteem you, to love you, to pray for you, nay, to pray for myself for your sake. Expect me at eight-And believe me to be ever, my dearest Madam, yours most entirely, No. XX. SYLVANDER. February 14th, 1788. WHEN matters, my love, are desperate, we must put on a desperate face -"On reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man." Or, as the same author finely says in another place "Let thy soul spring up, Be And lay strong hold for help on him that made thee." I am yours, Clarinda, for life. Never be discouraged at all this. Look forward; in a few weeks I shall be somewhere or other out of the possibility of seeing you: till then, I shall write you often, but visit you seldom. Your fame, your welfare, your happiness, are dearer to me than any gratification whatever. comforted, my love! the present moment is the worst the lenient hand of Time is daily and hourly cither lightening the burden, or making us insensible to the weight. None of these and the other friends, I mean Mr. gentleman, can hurt your worldly support, and for their friendship, in a little time you will learn to be easy, and, by and by, to be happy without it. A decent means of livelihood in the world, an approving God, a peaceful conscience, and one firm trusty friend-can any body that has these be said to be unhappy? These are yours. To-morrow evening I shall be with you about eight; probably for the last time till I return to Edinburgh. In the meantime, should any of these two unlucky friends question you respecting me, whether I am the man, I do not think they are entitled to any information. As to their jealousy and spying, I despise them.— Adicu, my dearest Madam! No. XXI. SYLVANDER. GLASGOW, Monday Evening, 9 o'clock, 17th Feb. 1788. THE attraction of love, I find, is in an inverse proportion to the attraction of the New tonian philosophy. In the system of Sir Isaac, the nearer objects are to one another the stronger is the attractive force; in my system, every mile-stone that marked my progress from Clarinda awakened a keener pang of attachment to her. How do you feel, my love? Is your heart ill at ease? I fear it.-God forbid that these persecutors should harass that peace which is more precious to me than my own. Be assured I shall ever think of you, muse on you, and, in my moments of devotion, pray for you. The hour that you are not in all my thoughts "be that hour darkness! let the shadows of death cover it! let it not be numbered in the hours of the day!" "When I forget the darling theme, Be my tongue mute! my fancy paint no more! I have just met with my old friend, the ship captain; guess my pleasure-To meet you could alone have given me more. My brother William, too, the young saddler, has come to Glasgow to meet me; and here are we three spending the evening. I arrived here too late to write by post; but I'll wrap half a dozen sheets of blank paper together, and send it by the fly, under the name of a parcel. You shall hear from me next post town. I would write you a long letter, but for the present circumstance of my friend. Adieu, my Clarinda! I am just going to propose your health by way of grace-drink. SYLVANDER. much better pleased with them. I won't mention this in writing to any body but you and Don't accuse me of being fickle: I have the two plans of life before me, and I wish to adopt the one most likely to procure me independence. I shall be in Edinburgh next week. I long to see you: your image is omnipresent to me; nay, I am convinced I would soon idolatrize it most seriously; so much do absence and memory improve the medium through which one sees the much-loved object. To-night, at the sacred hour of eight, I expect to meet you-at the Throne of Grace. I hope, as I go home to night, to find a letter from you at the post-office in Mauchline. I have just once seen that dear hand since I left Edinburgh -a letter indeed which much affected me. Tell me, first of womankind! will my warmest attachment, my sincerest friendship, my corres pondence, will they be any compensation for the sacrifices you make for my sake! If they will, they are yours. If I settle on the farm propose, I am just a day and a half's ride from Edinburgh. We will meet-don't you say, ' "perhaps too often!" Farewell, my fair, my charming Poetess! May all good things ever attend you! I am ever, my dearest Madam, yours, SYLVANDER. No. XXII. CUMNOCK, 2nd March, 1788. I HOPE, and am certain, that my generous Clarinda will not think my silence, for now a long week, has been in any degree owing to my forgetfulness. I have been tossed about through the country ever since I wrote you; and am here, returning from Dumfries-shire, at an inn, the post-office of the place, with just so long time as my horse eats his corn, to write you. I have been hurried with business and dissipation almost equal to the insidious decree of the Persian monarch's mandate, when he forbade asking petition of God or man for forty days. Had the venerable prophet been as throng as I, he had not broken the decree, at least not thrice a-day. I am thinking my farming scheme will yet hold. A worthy intelligent farmer, my father's friend and my own, has been with me on the spot: he thinks the bargain practicable. I am myself, on a more serious review of the lands, No. XXIII. MOSSGIEL, 7th March, 1788. CLARINDA, I have been so stung with your reproach for unkindness, a sin so unlike me, a sin I detest more than a breach of the whole Decalogue, fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth articles excepted, that I believe I shall not rest in my grave about it, if I die before I see you. You have often allowed me the head to judge, and the heart to feel, the influence of female excellence. Was it not blasphemy, then, against your own charms, and against my feelings, to suppose that a short fortnight could abate my passion? You, my Love, may have your cares and anxieties to disturb you, but they are the usual recurrences of life; your future views are fixed, and your mind in a settled routine. Could not you, my ever dearest Madam, make a little allowance for a man, after long absence, paying a short visit to a country full of friends, relations, and early intimates! Cannot you guess, my Clarinda, what thoughts, what cares, what anxious forebodings, hopes and fears, must crowd the breast of the man of keen sensibility, when no less is on the tapis than his aim, his employment, his very existence, through future life? Now that, not my apology, but my defence, is made, I feel my soul respire more easily. I know you will go along with me in my justifi cation would to Heaven you could in my adoption too! I mean an adoption beneath the stars-an adoption where I might revel in the immediate beams of "She, the bright sun of all her sex." I would not have you, my dear Madam, so much hurt at Miss 's coldness. "Tis placing yourself below her, an honour she by no means deserves. We ought, when we wish to be economists in happiness-we ought, in the first place, to fix the standard of our own character; and when, on full examination, we know where we stand, and how much ground we occupy, let us contend for it as property: and those who seem to doubt, or deny us what is justly ours, let us either pity their prejudices, or despise their judgment. I know, my dear, you will say this is self-conceit; but I call it self-knowledge. The one is the overweening opinion of a fool, who fancies himself to be what he wishes himself to be thought; the other is the honest justice that a man of sense, who has thoroughly examined the subject, owes to himself. Without this standard, this column in our own mind, we are perpetually at the mercy of the petulance, the mistakes, the prejudices, nay, the very weakness and wickedness of our fellow-creatures. I urge this, my dear, both to confirm myself in the doctrine, which, I assure you, I some times need; and because I know that this causes you often much disquiet.-To return to Miss she is most certainly a worthy soul, and equalled by very, very few, in goodness of heart. But can she boast more goodness of heart than Clarinda? Not even prejudice will dare to say For penetration and discernment, Clarinda sees far beyond her to wit, Miss dare make no pretence; to Clarinda's wit, scarcely any of her sex dare make pretence. Personal charms, it would be ridiculous to run the parallel. And for conduct in life, Miss so. was never called out, either much to do or to suffer; Clarinda has been both; and has performed her part where Miss would have sunk at the bare idea. Away, then, with these disquietudes! Let us pray with the honest weaver of Kilbarchan "Lord, send us a guid conceit o' oursel!" Or, in the words of the auld sang, "Who does me disdain, I can scorn them again, There is an error in the commerce of intimacy way of exchange, have not an equivalent to give us; and, what is still worse, have no idea of the value of our goods, * [This letter must have been written after his short visit to Edinburgh, when he concluded the bargain with Mr. Miller on the 13th March. He seems to have avoided seeing Happy is our lot, indeed, when we meet with an honest merchant, who is qualified to deal with us on our own terms; but that is a rarity. With almost every body we must pocket our pearls, less or more, and learn, in the old Scotch phrase "To gie sic like as we get.' For this reason one should try to erect a kind of bank or store-house in one's own mind; or, as the Psalmist says, 'We should commune with our own hearts, and be still.' This is exactly No. XXIV.* I have I own myself guilty, Clarinda; I should have written you last week; but when you recollect, my dearest Madam, that yours of this night's post is only the third I have got from you, and that this is the fifth or sixth I have sent to you, you will not reproach me, with a good grace, for unkindness. always some kind of idea, not to sit down to write a letter, except I have time and possession of my faculties so as to do some justice to my letter; which at present is rarely my situation. For instance, yesterday I dined at a friend's at some distance; the savage hospitality of this country spent me the most part of the night over the nauseous potion in the bowl: this day-sick-head-ache-low spirit-miserable-fasting, except for a draught of water or small beer: now eight o'clock at nightonly able to crawl ten minutes' walk into Mauchline to wait the post, in the pleasurable hope of hearing from the mistress of my soul. But, truce with all this! When I sit down to write to you, all is harmony and peace. A hundred times a-day do I figure you, before your taper, your book, or work laid aside, as I get within the room. How happy have I been! and how little of that scantling portion of time, called the life of man, is sacred to happiness! I could moralize to-night like a death's head.— "O what is life, that thoughtless wish of all! A drop of honey in a draught of gall." Nothing astonishes me more, when a little sickness clogs the wheels of life, than the thoughtless career we run in the hour of health. "None saith, where is God, my Maker, that giveth songs in the night; who teacheth us more knowledge than the beasts of the field, and more understanding than the fowls of the air." Give me, my Maker, to remember thee! Give me to act up to the dignity of my nature! Give me to feel "another's woe;" and continue with me that dear-lov'd friend that feels with mine! Clarinda on this occasion. Its date is probably about the 18th of March, 1788.] BEFORE you ask me why I have not written you, first let me be informed of you how I shall write you? "In friendship," you say; and I have many a time taken up my pen to try an epistle of friendship to you; but it will not do: 'tis like Jove grasping a pop-gun, after having wielded his thunder. When I take up the pen, recollection ruins me. Ah! my ever dearest Clarinda! Clarinda!--what a host of memory's tenderest offspring crowd on my fancy at that sound! But I must not indulge that subject—you have forbid it. You would laugh were you to see me where I am just now!-would to heaven you were here to laugh with me! though I am afraid that crying would be our first employment. Here am I set, a solitary hermit, in the solitary room of a solitary inn, with a solitary bottle of wine by me-as grave and as stupid as an owl -but, like that owl, still faithful to my old song. In confirmation of which, my dear Mrs. Mack, here is your good health! may the hand-waled benisons o' Heaven bless your bonnie face; and the wretch wha skellies at your weelfare, may the auld tinkler deil get him to clout his rotten heart! Amen. You must know, my dearest Madam, that these now many years, wherever I am, in whatever company, when a married lady is called on as a toast, I constantly give you; but as your name has never passed my lips, even to my most intimate friend, I give you by the name of Mrs. Mack. This is so well known among my acquaintances that when my married lady is called for, the toast-master will say "O, we need not ask him who it is—here's Mrs. Mack!" I have also, among my conviI am extremely happy to learn that your vial friends, set on foot a round of toasts, which precious health is re-established, and that you I call a round of Arcadian Shepherdesses; that are once more fit to enjoy that satisfaction in ex- is, a round of favourite ladies, under female istence, which health alone can give us. My old names celebrated in ancient song; and then, friend has indeed been kind to you. Tell him, you are my Clarinda. So, my lovely Clarinda, that I envy him the power of serving you. II devote this glass of wine to a most ardent had a letter from him a while ago, but it was wish for your happiness! so dry, so distant, so like a card to one of his clients, that I could scarcely bear to read it, and have not yet answered it. He is a good honest fellow; and can write a friendly letter, which would do equal honour to his head and his heart; as a whole sheaf of his letters I have by me will witness: and though Fame does not blow her trumpet at my approach now, as she did then, when he first honoured me with his friendship, yet I am as proud as ever; and when I am laid in my grave, I wish to be stretched at my full length, that I may occupy every inch of ground which I have a right to. [This letter was written after the Poet's marriage.] [The following recent account of Clarinda, written in Feb. 1837, appears in a note, to the Memoir of Lord Craig, in "Kay's Edinburgh Portraits," and will be read with interest by all admirers of the Poet:-"It may, perhaps, be worthy of notice that Lord Craig was cousin-german of Mrs. M'Lehose, the celebrated Clarinda of Burns, who is still living in Edinburgh, and was left an annuity by his Lordship. She is now nearly eighty years of age, but enjoys excellent health. We found her sitting in the parlour, with some papers on the table. Her appearance at first betrayed a little of that languor and apathy which attend age and solitude; but the moment she comprehended the object of our visit, her countenance, which even yet retains the lineaments of what Clarinda may be supposed to have been, became animated and intelligent. That,' said she, rising up and pointing to an engraving over the mantel-piece, is a In vain would Prudence, with deco.ous sneer, I have been rhyming a little of late, but I do not know if they are worth postage.-Tei me SYLVANDER. likeness of my relative (Lord Craig) about whom you hare been inquiring. He was the best friend I ever had! Aher a little conversation about his Lordship, she directed our attention to a picture of Burns, by Horsburgh, after Tayır on the opposite wall of the apartment. You well know who that is-it was presented to me by Constable and Ca. for having simply declared what I knew to be true, that the likeness was good.' We spoke of the correspondence betwixt the Poet and Clarinda, at which she smiled, and pra santly remarked on the great change which the lapse of s. many years had produced on her personal appearance. Isdeed, any observation respecting Burns seemed to afford her pleasure; and she laughed at a little anecdote we told t him, which she had never before heard. "Having prolonged our intrusion to the limits of courtest, and conversed on various topics, we took leave of the ve rable lady, highly gratified by the interview."'↓ |