The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1896-01-25

Il peuAlGuFfSt were II LnsI6u TO lHIeepcAGs
leach nlan.. He tired of this There was
nothing he could endure with nersisteney
He seems to have lost all hope and alnbl
ton. He lived without restrai llt ---Wi thout
restraint to the limit of his earnings He
had always been up and down, but for this
spell he was all down. He was in the
midst OF the brooding when the father
| died. and from the Tarbelton nights he
fastened back to the cottage and the
mother. y. fs&
This shock brought him to his best
senses. and, Joining his bad luck with his
brothers. 1.-The two leased a bit.of ground
in Mauchline. They sat out boldly to dig
and hoe living from the soil. but the
Nemesis renewed its everlasting ven
geance. It did not rain when rain was
due-was wintry when 1t should have
been warm. The scourge continued two
years. 1t Wasea hard, trying time for the
young man, and the hardships made him
thoughtful, and for the first time in his
career there is an Indication OF genuine
purpose. He realized his hope was in
| writing.
He wrote with deternination--the de-
Termination OF hungry man. He ploWed
ia the daylight and made verses as he
turned the sod or worked at the fence,
and at might. He remained firm in his
resolution for fifteen months, and the re-
suit was most OF what The world now
knows of Burns: It was the period Of
"Jean Armour, Of 'aThe Cotter's Saturday
Might "The Address to the Devil and
'sThe Mountain Daisy" and the long list
OF other fayorites. 1t was his saddest but
his richest peried but worse troubles
piled upon the bad ones he had already
ct hand. He was planning to sail TO ia
maica and would have done so had he
possessed the deck passage money. He
pedaled his songs, and Yves Johnny"
granted him EGO foo the first edition.
This was the first ray IN the gloom.
! 1t came too late, Burns pride and hope
had been blasted. His heart bled in the
wall over THE Benny Banks Of Ayr.".
| His fame was growing as fast as the peo-
pie could get his book. He was annonn-
ced in Edinburgh The literati received
him as living wonder. He was yet in
his v:gor; stalwaEt, black-eyed and fit
to look upon--llot an INVALID, like Pope,
| not Il cripple, like Scott, nor detormed like
Byron Popular curiosity and favor drove
the new man into the very center Of the
| circle Of doctors and professors.
This existence was too much of cage
cerity of the attention. He could not
count enance the appearance of hypocrisy:
lie stood it until there appeared the sec
! ond edition, and, putting his share OF the
profit in his pocket, he wandered over
Scotland. He came back to the thatch
returning to the hut which he had left
in penuly and obscurity a full-crowned
hero, with all the race singing his praises
1t was impossible for him to settle any
where, and he wandered more-wonder~
ing, dreaming, composing at all hours and
in all places, vacillating to the end
The candle expectations were realized
after his books were in the shops. He
rented a group Of barren hills, concluding
to die as he was born, under the open
sky and in the midst OF green fields.
"Tam Q'Shanter" was of this period.
/ There was still but little money in his
poems, and less in the ground he tried to
| till and have titled. He did not succeed,
he had never succeeded, and back to the
village he f1ed-back to Dumfries to have
his last battle with ills.
He had been married to Jean by this
time, but his patience with all things had
been killed. He started fresh series of
reckless habits, and the last act of the
real drama was the most pitifnl of all.
He sought help from the air and sea at
Brow. They failed to help him, and with
feeble step he walked the streets of Dunn
fries for the last time. His sickness
sent him to bed, and the post still
brought him letters from factors, collec-
tors and agents. He begged loan. 1t
| came too late, as had most everything
else in his life. He died the following
day-died in one room, while jeans fifth
1>Nf, b1,-, iy, 411
fries villagers buried the body, with TO-
900 people in the cortege. And they
built mausoleum.
1T is this story from A]loway to Dunn
fries that is told to this day in Ayrshire.
1t is softened in the harshest places, but
made faithful in the weakest to bring
out the brilliancy of the present fame by
contrast. 1t makes the gloomy first
scenes for the dazzling finale. Men and
tavern hoidens are still sitting in the
Tam o. Shanter inn and, whether good
or bad, FOSTERING or melancholy, they
excuse the moods by lines from the soul
of their own hero. This old place, which
taught him the first lessons Of the alepot,
has, held it's place under the curious
tower Of Wallace-sacred to great Sir
William, who secured the English
hence" Many houses where Burns liy-
ing was not received have survived and
are filled with the scions Of the snob-
bery-now clamorous in the great cho-
rus over the man their forefathers let
die in the meanest poverty.
Ayr and AlloWay overflow with the
memories OF Burns; the shire is the
Burns country. The sentiment and ro-
nance of its steadfast people have kept
many of the things he honored as hal
lowed ruins. One travels the roads and
river banks with the old gilt-edge edi-
ton as ones guide, and from Irvine to
MaIchline and Kilmarnoch and Dunn
fries and Tarbolton and Lochlea the bal
lads tell the one story Of the country
There is much that is new, but it is pro-
sale, and nobody cares for the modern
red kirk with the walls of the old across
the way, nor for the new mill With the
rhymed old still plodding and driven by
the Doom. The new bridges have no in
terest like the ones Burns saw with po-
etic eye. .rssy 80 80. - ~.
There is nc. longer. any question as to
Burns position in literature, save among
whimsical critics who can find their po-
etry or music in obscure meters or tan
gled measures or bars. No one of his
school approaches him. lie is the high
priest among the lake poets. Tom Moore
played upon nearly the same stops of the
human heart but he has failed to catch
the Irish fancy or the world, as has
Burns. He is natural in his simplicity
Wordsworth makes humbleness study,