The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-09-01
Al THE HOME OF BURNS.

AT THE HOME OF BURNS.
The point of greatest interest visit
ed by Howard A. Burre1l in his pill
grimage of Scotland was Ayr, the
home of Robert Burns. On the way
thither he was treated to the sight OF
oceans of ferns, and he concludes that
the Creator must have had pleasant
| thoughts when he made ferns, and
SO he must have enjoyed himself first
rate in bonnie Scotland. The hills
were fringed and vendured to their
tops, as in our Vermont. The biggest,
most velvety and variegated pansles
ever saw were in Scotland, the
loveliest things ever invented, and gor-
geous roses from May TO October.
Burrell records it as his verdict that
on the whole Scotland did him more
good than any other country, though
Ireland is beautiful, too, and funny
besides. Pat he writes, with his
delicious brogue, quick wit and ire
pressible humor and warmthearted-
ness withal was sweet boon. Every
where in these isles Beauty is an as
set, and worked to the limit on the
tourist"
In Scotland all speak of the loved
poet as BURNS, with caressing
burr An electric road runs out two
miles from Ayr. and the 'Twa Brigs.
that Burns sang, by beautiful homes
empowered, to the poets humble
birthplace, and farther to the Alloway
Kirk and the Burns monument and
two gardens close by THE Brig o.
Doom. Burrell says of the surround
ings in letter to the Washington
Press:
No wonder Robert was poet-so
exquisitely beautiful region would
clasp wings on the fancy of the most
prosaic man. The Doom is the love
Hest river in the world, do believe.
The old arched stone brig is closed to
vehicles. but pedestrians walk over
it, if, perchance. they may thus get
a wee bit nearer to Robert. The cope
stone along the parapet on either side
is closely covered with names and
initials of lovers of Burns, cut in with
knives. A pin-point could not be laid
on a vacant space. Really, that is
the most touching memorial, finer
than the triangular monument and
the superb one and quarter acre
garden and the sunken garden border
ing the Doom.
1t was over this brig that Burns
made drunken Tam OShanter ride in
a thunder storm at midnight, the
witches after him, out of the Kirk,
after him in full chisel, his white
mares tail coming off in the clutch
of beautiful bar-legged she-witch,
as her feet rested on the rump of the
beast. | have the series of illustra-
tons OF that poem, that / will show
to the lovers of Burns. Coming out
of the place where sit, in coarse
sand stone, the statues of Tam and
Souter Johnny, the pigeon-toed shoe |
maker, their faces jolly, glasses in
hand, and the statue of the landlady
Of THE jolly Beggers,' l talked with |
A young and an old Scot, keepers of /
he garden; it was fine to see and |
lear the old one chuckle as he recit-
I'd lines from Tam They have all |
got Robert by heart, even my Scot |
peasant farmer, who said, in his de- t
icious brogue, There's nae mon in
Scotland since BURNS. He was nae
yeel thocht of when aleeve, but Is
nuckle made of meow Gu, aye, -
n answer to my question-'I naever
aw Scott, or Tammas Carlyle, bath
J them honest and vera clever
nen." I find that SCOTS personality
vas everything and still is that, while
burns personality goes now for alb
olutely nothing his poem and song
ictures are all In all, read with de-
ight by all classes of Scots, most of
ihom know nothing of his history,
or care to know, as for them his
oetry runs the whole gamut of the
motions of the heart. He sings to
nd for them, his a disembodied
DICE.
Burns clay matched biggen, how
itiful it is. Such a pathetic shelter
Or a genius so fine, 1t mists ones
yes to look at it, to think of it, to
ldHu NlLulH lIS Two SOiTy TUOmS.
'wo more rooms seem to have been
dded to it, one byre for cows
be wooden stalls remain. All thro'
he floors are of large fiat stones; the
ough pole rafters show, on which
be straw. thatch was laid In hole
4 the kitchen wall Baby Robert
,as born. No throne locked so good
) me as that pitiful nook No other
revice so pathetic, save the manger
Bethlehem. But divine genius
truggles thro' all sorts of untoward
destruction.
To that cottage, in 1878, came
-obert G. Ingersoll, and wrote a
hort poem on Burns, in the very
1t of the other Roberts muse. 1t