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Familiar Studies of Men & Books-Part10_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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where the chill north wind of Prudence shall never blow over

the flowery field of Enjoyment?" The design may be that of



an Old Hawk, but the style is more suggestive of a Bird of

Paradise. It is sometimes hard to fancy they are not gravely



making fun of each other as they write. Religion, poetry,

love, and charming sensibility, are the current topics. "I



am delighted, charming Clarinda, with your honest enthusiasm

for religion," writes Burns; and the pair entertained a



fiction that this was their "favourite subject." "This is

Sunday," writes the lady, "and not a word on our favourite



subject. O fy 'divine Clarinda!' " I suspect, although

quite unconsciously on the part of the lady, who was bent on



his redemption, they but used the favourite subject as a

stalking-horse. In the meantime, the sportive acquaintance



was ripening steadily into a genuinepassion. Visits took

place, and then became frequent. Clarinda's friends were



hurt and suspicious; her clergyman interfered; she herself

had smart attacks of conscience, but her heart had gone from



her control; it was altogether his, and she "counted all

things but loss - heaven excepted - that she might win and



keep him." Burns himself was transported while in her

neighbourhood, but his transports somewhat rapidly declined



during an absence. I am tempted to imagine that, womanlike,

he took on the colour of his mistress's feeling; that he



could not but heat himself at the fire of her unaffected

passion; but that, like one who should leave the hearth upon



a winter's night, his temperature soon fell when he was out

of sight, and in a word, though he could share the symptoms,



that he had never shared the disease. At the same time, amid

the fustian of the letters there are forcible and true



expressions, and the love verses that he wrote upon Clarinda

are among the most moving in the language.



We are approaching the solution. In mid-winter, Jean, once

more in the family way, was turned out of doors by her



family; and Burns had her received and cared for in the house

of a friend. For he remained to the last imperfect in his



character of Don Juan, and lacked the sinister courage to

desert his victim. About the middle of February (1788), he



had to tear himself from his Clarinda and make a journey into

the south-west on business. Clarinda gave him two shirts for



his little son. They were daily to meet in prayer at an

appointed hour. Burns, too late for the post at Glasgow,



sent her a letter by parcel that she might not have to wait.

Clarinda on her part writes, this time with a beautiful



simplicity: "I think the streets look deserted-like since

Monday; and there's a certain insipidity in good kind folks I



once enjoyed not a little. Miss Wardrobe supped here on

Monday. She once named you, which kept me from falling



asleep. I drank your health in a glass of ale - as the

lasses do at Hallowe'en - 'in to mysel'.' " Arrived at



Mauchline, Burns installed Jean Armour in a lodging, and

prevailed on Mrs. Armour to promise her help and countenance



in the approaching confinement. This was kind at least; but

hear his expressions: "I have taken her a room; I have taken



her to my arms; I have given her a mahogany bed; I have given

her a guinea. . . . I swore her privately and solemnly never



to attempt any claim on me as a husband, even though anybody

should persuade her she had such a claim - which she has not,



neither during my life nor after my death. She did all this

like a good girl." And then he took advantage of the



situation. To Clarinda he wrote: "I this morning called for

a certain woman. I am disgusted with her; I cannot endure



her;" and he accused her of "tasteless insipidity, vulgarity

of soul, and mercenary fawning." This was already in March;



by the thirteenth of that month he was back in Edinburgh. On




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