The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-01-26

the efforts of Captain Waters in his
splendid eulogy of Burns.
Captain Waters Address.
Captain Waters spoke as follows:
II am more than an admirer of
Robert Burns. He was of the hum
blest parentage; his life was a lowly
one without the influence of clan, /
friend or family. He died at an age
seriously commence to live In so
short a time. he has been given to the
keeping of the gods His birthday is
celebrated the world over by thou
sands of gatherings. His songs are on
the lips of the tribes and races of civil
lied man. and he has filed many an
empty chamber of an aching human
heart With a tender humanity and a
charity that ranks as a regal grace
among all human virtues. He was
handicapped and enthralled all his
days by the scant circumstance of
lOWly birth and the Onerous condition
of humble life. While it seemed al
most impossible for him to escape his
own hard environment. yet dead, he
liberated a world from its cares. He
could not save himself but he could
others. I have an admiration for
man with a besetting inhrmity, or even
two or three of them; and God knows.
Bobbie Burns ought to satisfy any man
on Inat account. An egg is no fuller
Of meat than was he of frailty Blem-
ish is the trade mark of all flesh. 1
nave met few men in my life whom
knew to be an exception to this rule;
WllhOut guile; without sin; without
folly. And I never knew such a man
with whom [ wanted to travel or to
/ become particularly intimate. When I
find a fellow gives some indication of
cenSurable folly, some earthly sin
some weak transgressiOn. chuckle
over it, for I know that he is mortal
too, and has got to die like the bal
tnce of US And Burns had his faults
There is one just criticism upon him,
however, for he came very near the
/ boundary line of clarifying a vice as if
/ he were boosting some high moral
trait 1t may have been his inherit
ance OF the Scottish hills; for I know
/ to a Scotchman. d home brewed trans
erosion is of higher estimation than
an imported virtue. Burns was a poet
Of the human heart His words may
4 nave been at times lily chosen; his
rhyme may have been occasionally
/ poor. but above all other great singers
| he struck with DETER hand the chords
1 of the human heart and swept them
/ with melody of exquisite tenderness
/ that was half divine. From satrap to
slave, from prince to pauper. from
child to sire. the whole range and
gamut of sympathetic and loving song
/ We're his. He sung as it thunders; as
the bird sings; as perfume is borne on
/ the breeze: as the night Slistens; as the
! brooks bab bile; as the seas roar: as a
/ woman weeps or child may smile on
its mothers breast.
Tic rose and sang and Scotland heard:
The round world echoed with his song:
4 And hearts in every land were stirred.
With love and JOY and scorn of wrong.
World Saw Him at Worst
There was not season he did not
gather in crop of wild oats and
mostly of his own planting Burns
! kept nothing back. The world saw
him at his worst. He wore his heart
! on his sleeve. He permitted no lees
1 to settle in the bottom CT his glass and
he was persistent in shaking the bottle
/ before allowing any one else to drink.
! Probably because you know a mans
! worst, 1t begets a greater esteem for
/ his best His faults are obliterated by
/ his intense humanity. A tear he was
, always ready to drop for another but
Tor himself, his eye was dry. He had
| a voice for every misery not his own
His plea was for others while he stood
1 mute for himself. He sang the dis
4 tress of the great world to sleep. and
pillowed its Indebtedness on his bosom,
/ while he stared at the midnight with
! open eyes. and without a pillow for
/ his weary head.
Il think Burns was of such big
I heart and great soul that if he could
! nave shifted all the weaknesses and
sins of other men onto his own shout
ders, he would gladly have done so. [
/ do not say he would have enjoyed it,
! but 1 do say il would not have given
/ him curvature of the spine or made
! him bOwlegged.
He could look at king but he had
I no entree into a court circle; in fact,
l doubt whether he ever wore a pair
/ OF poets Mt FOR d regal function or even
+ drawing room. If he knew what
velvet or brocade was it was hearsav;
/ his braWny fingers never touched the
/ pile of one nor the slick sheen of the
! other. There is one thing he could
i do, however. He could give to all the
/ generations Of men a remembrance of
a field mouse that will be green when
/ the names of English kings Will be for
gotten. their cOrOnets broken. and their
/ bejeweled scepters corToded with rust
/ He could put among the guipure and
furbelow on woman's bonnet a little
lOusie that would play hide and seek in
/ ITS ribbons after the woman died and
! after she had burned the bonnet.
Burns was born i'm a hovel: but the
+ howell has become almost a strain in
! the blood Of illustriOus men. 1t is al
most an heraldic sign Of legitimacy in
I a hero, a martyr. or a God. ingalls,
I wrote an immortal ode. 1t has for its
foundation the whole miserable myth
nothing but baubles and toys that
I weight man to his grave and then
/ leaves his back SO bent that his ca M
( bered spine wears a bed sore as it
/ bumps against the coffin side, through
/ out the cons of eternity But in that
coffin never goes a single trinket that
opportunity bestowed on him. There
! is cause and effect. there is habit
there is heredity; but above all is the
purposed man for expected need.
/ Habit. poverty. hunger. obstruction.
/ self-denial. honor. are the angel foods
/ that a man must wax fat on to be
! Gods factor in the human problem.
/ Ambition. riches. station, a lucrative
/ place on a senatorial committee. and
/ even q garden seed congressman. are
the Canada thistles that bramble
decent life.
HE was born poor. lived poor and
died Door. Burns had a kindred soul