The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1896-01-25
HOW BOBBY BURNS LIVED
Thoughts Of the Peasant Scottish
Poet Anent His Anni- 5l.s
versary. NJ
Homage Given to Him Never Will
Come to Another Genius in
II Such a, Way.

Struggling Against He Found
His Success and Solace *s.: =.3
i'm Song.
Scotchmen in the Chicago assembly
have made the Robert. Burns annlver-
sary of this year q conspicuous fete and,
have thus given it special slgnlheanee..l
1t is the first time the scions OF the clans:
have rallied in a Highland festival for q
night of song and worship at this shr1ne.s;
1t is the beginning of Il movement TO
raise funds for a monument, and the en-s
thusiasm over the 137th celebratiolNso
the birth of the Alloway peasant is new
evidence that the Burns Influence if1-
crease with the years. The fact that the
interest and devotion grows in intensity
makes it pertinent to ask what manner
of man this hero was that he still m0ldS
Scotch character and holds the heart OF
the race, writes H r. l1owrie in the Chi
cago Herald. ab 3@
Robert Burns was a flax heckler; he
failed grain in his fathers barn; he
weighed candles for taxes; he was q
gauger of ale barrels; he estimated. crops
for shilling day: he led the sackiers
from dawn to dusk; he toted more pounds
on his shoulders than any pumpkin In
Ayrshire; he danced filings with the
maidens of the tavern; he raised holly
hooks and daffodils In gentlemen s gar=
dens; he studied letter writing from a
cook maids compendium; he rivaled the
rustics in the dancing school,; he swung
a. lusty arm in the country squabbles;
he abandoned trigonometry for fi]lette;
he wrote curious letters to holden; he
loved the drudge In the house of Gal
stcn farmer; his apprentice salary was
less than the price of the diet Of oatmeal;
he slipped the punch bowl the nights; he
wrote from his deathbed to beg pitt
tance of loan.
This was one side of his character. II
was not poetic. 1t did not have a poetic
feature He was born amid misfortune y
The very night of his birth wild wind
swept over the moors and hills and
''tirled', the roof of the "clay biggin.'
The torrent poured down upon the fam
ily The mother and the swaddler in
FAINT were sheltered in the next hut
Heaven sent i'll bours at the beginning
Poverty was his inheritance. He was
starved in boyhood. Plow handles
twisted his fingers. There was not a
gentle circumstance in his life, less than
half lived. He was poor--wretchedly
and desperately poor-driyen from pillar
to post by law agents and threatened
with the pillory for lacking the sum OF q
weeks wage. He dug and hoed. WeaVad
and heckled, piodded as a pack horse,
peddled the beets and carrots OF the
garden-all most honorable tasks, but
drea dfully unpoetic.
There is nothing in, all this to make d
hero. Millions have Jared the same.
Their names are listed only In the reg
listers Of the grave-yards. Their lives
left no impression, even in the parishes
where they worshiped. A year or two,
or ten, and they have been forgotten.
This man was a commoneT like them.
He has lain a century In his tomb, but
for some reason there is barely a town In
Scotland without his monument; there
is barely spot he trod that Is un
marked; there is barely Wiggle or twist
with evil luck which Is not in the books /.
of biographers or critics; his hunblest
moments are themes OF pity and 1'haps- 4
ody; his virtue Is lauded, his vices for-#
given, his loves are endured, his aie-pots
are condoned and from the banks Of ths
Doom around the world and back again,
wherever there is Scot by birth or by
blood, this week is a. holy week at his
shrine. a
Homage like this never came to anOth-
er genius. There never has been a. na-
.tional worship like it. No one ever had
the world at his feet like this one. And +
yet Robert Burns never spilled blood;3
he never won a. war not yet strung ro-#
nance, mythology or mysticism along.
the lengths Of an epic. He had but little
to do with Psyche or Andromeda or Bau-
els or Cleopatra, but being ever SO little
less classical than they who did, his vol
VI ,vv1t IL fnstU
writ, the Bibles companion piece In cot
tage Of the Anglo-Saxon race. There as
no dust on it's cover; it is thumbed and
marked and the pages are turned down
while plenty Of the classical names are
but little more than myths IN the popular 4
mind Men and women in the workaday.
world know him, and the knowledge 0fS,
him grows as the string Of years grows
from the wild January night.in 1859.
Robert Burns must have been bern: a
great genius, since he was q genius and
is great. There was nothing in hfs ex-Si
ternal life to inspire the simplest ballad
The town Of Alloway had and has no u
attraction It Is fat It's hills are only 3
half hills, and barren at that The doom B
is no more than any ordinary country
creek. with trees close to the water edge
and mill with moss on the gates and
boards. The old kirk from which the
..hellish legion saillied,. for Tam q, Shan!
ter's fright stood and now stands III
copse Of oaks Puritans and Caivins,g
tcountryn1en and neighbors are under thet4sss
sod and brierl bushes. This is the scene
into which the man was born. This;
cramped field was the beginning. 1neS5s
hundred years from the end it has groNnss
to embrace the globe. A. ;s 5S
. Nature gave him no grand ggestion,.s..Z