The Real Robert Burns Part 7

As an heroic teacher of vital religion Burns was infinitely greater than any other man of his time, and has been much more influential since his time in promoting Christ's ideals than the men named by Carlyle. He was a fearless hero, and so meets the requirements specified by Carlyle, because, when he recognised the evils connected with religion in his time, when true religion was, to use Carlyle's words, 'becoming obsolete,' he valiantly attacked them, hoping to enable his fellow-men to see the vision of true religion which his father had given him by his life and teaching.

There was absolutely no justification for calling Burns a mere verse-monger. To write such a wild nightmare dream about Scotland's greatest and most self-less poet was unworthy of one of Scotland's leading prose-writers.

It seems almost ludicrous to take notice of the a.s.sertion that Burns had not a high ideal of patriotism, as compared with the three ideal men of Carlyle--Burns, whose love for Scotland was a sacred feeling, a holy fire that never ceased to burn. This criticism needs no answer now.

CHAPTER V.

BURNS THE DEMOCRAT.

No man ever comprehended Christ's ideals regarding democracy more fully than did Burns. Christ based His teaching of the need of human liberty on His revelation of the value of the individual soul. Burns clearly understood Christ's ideals regarding individual freedom, and faithfully followed Him.

The message of Coila in 'The Vision' to Burns was:

Preserve the dignity of man With soul erect.

This was the central thought in the work of Burns regarding the freedom of all mankind: freedom from oppression by other men; freedom from the bondage imposed on the peasant and the labouring man by customs organised by so-called 'higher cla.s.ses'; freedom from the hards.h.i.+p and sorrow of poverty; freedom for each child to grow under proper conditions of nourishment, of physical development, and of educational training.

His whole nature was stirred to dignified indignation and resentment by cla.s.s distinctions among men and women who were all created in the image of G.o.d, and who, in accordance with the teaching of Christ, should be brothers. He despised cla.s.s distinctions which were made by man, whether the distinctions were made on the basis of rank or wealth. He was ashamed of the toadies who reverenced a lord merely because he chanced to be born a lord, and pitied those who accepted without protest inferiority to men of wealth. He was so true a democrat that he freely and respectfully recognised the worth of members of the aristocracy or of the wealthy cla.s.s whose ability and high character made them worthy of respect; but he held in contempt those who a.s.sumed superiority simply because of rank or gold.

One of his most brilliant poems is 'A Man's a Man for a' That.' In it he gives comprehensive expression to his opinions, based on the fundamental principle,

The honest man, though e'er sae poor, Is King o' men for a' that.

Is there for honesty poverty, That hangs his head an' a' that?

The coward-slave, we pa.s.s him by; We dare be poor for a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that, Our toils obscure, an' a' that; The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that. gold

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, Wha struts, and stares, an' a' that; Tho' hundreds wors.h.i.+p at his word, He's but a coof for a' that: blockhead

For a' that, an' a' that, His ribband, star, an' a' that; The man of independent mind He looks and laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, an' a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, above Gude faith he maunna fa' that. must not try

For a' that, an' a' that, Their dignities an' a' that, The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, Are higher ranks than a' that.

Labouring man on farm or in factory, this is your charter. Let this be your creed. Sing this great democratic hymn at your gatherings--ay, sing it in your homes with your children, and each time you sing it, it should kindle some new light in your soul that will bring you new vision of the greatest fact in connection with human life and duty, that you are alive to be G.o.d's partner, and that while you remain honest, and unselfishly consider the rights of others, as fully as you consider your own, you are ent.i.tled to stand with kings, because you are an honest man.

The discussion between Caesar the aristocratic dog and Luath the cotter's dog is a fair representation of cla.s.s conditions in Scotland in the time of Burns. Caesar describes the laird's riches, his idleness, his racked rents, and the compulsory services required from the poor tenants; dilates on the wastefulness in connection with the meals even of the servants in the homes of the great; and expresses surprise that poor folks could exist under their trying conditions.

Luath admits that sometimes the strain on the cotter was very severe: digging ditches, building d.y.k.es with dirty stones, baring a quarry, 'an'

sic like,' as a means of sustaining a lot of ragged children with nothing but his hand labour. He acknowledges that, when ill or out of work, it sometimes seems hopeless; but, after all, though past his comprehension, the poor folks are wonderfully contented, and stately men and clever women are brought up in their homes.

Caesar then expatiates on the contemptuous way the poor are 'huffed, and cuffed, and disrespecket.' He especially sympathises with the poor on account of the way tenants are treated by the laird's agents on rent-day--compelled to submit to their insolence, while they swear and threaten to seize their property; and concludes that poor folks must be very wretched.

Luath replies that, after all, they are not so wretched as he thinks; that their dearest enjoyments are in their wives and thriving children; that they often forget their private cares and discuss the affairs of kirk and state; that Hallowe'en and Christmas celebrations give them grand opportunities for happiness that make them forget their hards.h.i.+ps and sorrows, and that during these festivals the old folks are so cheery and the young ones are so frolicsome that he 'for joy has barket wi' them!'

Still, he admits that it is owre true what Caesar says, and that many decent, honest folk 'are riven out, baith root and branch, some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench.'

Caesar then describes the reckless way in which the money received from the poor cotters was wasted at operas, plays, mortgaging, gambling, masquerading, or taking trips to Calais, Vienna, Versailles, Madrid, or Italy; and finally to Germany, to some resort where their dissipations may be overcome by drinking muddy German water.

Luath is surprised to learn that the money for which the cotters have toiled so hard should be spent so wastefully; and wishes the gentry would stay at home and take interest in the sports of their own country, as it would be so much better for all: laird, tenant, and cotter. He closes by saying that many of the lairds are not ill-hearted fellows, and asks Caesar if there is not a great deal of true pleasure in the lives of the rich.

Caesar replies:

Lord, man, were ye but whyles where I am, The gentles ye wad ne'er envy them.

Admitting that they need not starve or work hard through winter's cold or summer's heat, or suffer in old age from working all day in the wet, he says:

But human bodies are sic fools, For a' their colleges and schools, That when nae real ills perplex them, They mak enow themsels to vex them; An' aye the less they hae to sturt them, In like proportion less will hurt them.

A country fellow at the pleugh, His acres till'd, he's right eneugh; A country girl at her wheel, Her dizzens dune, she's unco weel; But gentlemen, and ladies warst, Wi' ev'n-down want o' wark are curst.

They loiter, lounging, lank and lazy; Tho' deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy; Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless; Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless.

An' even their sports, their b.a.l.l.s and races, Their galloping through public places, There's sic parade, sic pomp an' art, The joy can scarcely reach the heart.

The ladies arm-in-arm in cl.u.s.ters, As great and gracious a' as sisters; But hear their absent thoughts o' ither, They're a' run deils and jads thegither.

Whyles, ower the wee bit cup an' plaitie, They sip the scandal-potion pretty; Or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbet leuks, Pore ower the devil's pictured beuks; cards Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, An' cheat like ony unhanged blackguard.

There's some exceptions, man an' woman; But this is gentry's life in common.

Burns was a philosopher, and he knew such conditions were wrong, and that they should not be allowed to last. They are better, after more than a century, since Burns became the champion of the poor; but the great problem, 'Why should ae man better fare, and a' men brothers?' is not properly answered yet. The wisest among the aristocracy know this, and admit it, and sincerely hope that the inevitable evolution to juster conditions and relations.h.i.+ps may be brought about by const.i.tutional means, and not by revolution.

Professor Dugald Stewart, of Edinburgh University, wrote: 'I recollect once he told me, when I was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth which they contained.'

It was not the unhappiness of the peasantry that stirred the democratic heart of Burns. It was 'man's inhumanity' to his fellow-men; the a.s.sumption of those belonging to the so-called upper cla.s.ses that they had a divine right to hold higher positions than the common people, and that the poorer people should be contented in the 'station to which G.o.d had called them,' that led Burns to write so ably in favour of democracy. He recognised no human right to establish stations to which people were called, and in which they should remain, in spite of their right to fill any positions for which they had proved their fitness. He could not be so irreverent or so unreasonable as to believe G.o.d could establish the conditions found all around him, so he claimed the right of every child to full opportunity for its best development, and to rise honourably to any position to which it could attain.

In a letter to Miss Margaret Chalmers, 1788, he wrote: 'What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the idle trumpery of greatness? When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same G.o.d, have the same benevolence of heart, the same n.o.bleness of soul, the same detestation of everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy--in the name of common-sense, are they not equals?'

To Mrs Dunlop he wrote in 1788: 'There are few circ.u.mstances, relating to the unequal distribution of good things of this life, that give me more vexation (I mean in what I see around me) than the importance the opulent bestow on their trifling family affairs, compared with the very same things on the contracted scale of the cottage. Last afternoon I had the honour to spend an hour or two at a good woman's fireside, where the planks that composed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver and china. 'Tis now about term-day [a regular time twice a year was fixed for hiring servants], and there has been a revolution among those creatures [servants], who, though in appearance partakers, and equally n.o.ble partakers, of the same nature as Madame, are from time to time--their nerves, sinews, their health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay, a good part of their very thoughts--sold for months and years, not only to the necessities but the caprices of the important few. We talked of the insignificant creatures; nay, notwithstanding their general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the honour to commend them. But light be the turf upon his breast who taught "Reverence thyself!" We looked down on the unpolished wretches, their impertinent wives, and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the little, dirty anthill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of his pride.'

Such experiences added fuel to the divine purpose in his mind to free a large portion of his fellow-countrymen from the bonds that had been bound on their bodies and souls by long years of cla.s.s presumption and heartless tyranny, which, till Burns attacked them, had grown more unjust and contemptuous as generation succeeded generation.

Burns's reverence for real manhood, a basic principle of true democratic spirit, is shown in the closing verse of his 'Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson':

Go to your sculptured tombs, ye Great, In a' the tinsel trash o' state!

But by thy honest turf I'll wait, Thou man of worth!

And weep the ae best fellow's fate E'er lay in earth.

To John Francis Erskine he wrote, 1793: 'Burns was a poor man from birth and an exciseman from necessity; but--I will say it--the sterling of his honest worth no poverty could debase, and his independent British mind oppression might bend, but could not subdue.... Can I look tamely on and see any machination to wrest from them the birthright of my boys--the little, independent Britons, in whose veins runs my own blood?... Does any man tell me that my full efforts can be of no service, and that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the concerns of a nation? I can tell him that it is on such individuals as I that a nation has to rest, both for the hand of support and the eye of intelligence. The uninformed Mob may swell a Nation's bulk, and the t.i.tled, tinsel, courtly throng may be its feathered ornament; but the number of those who are elevated enough in life to reason and reflect, yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a court--these are a nation's strength.'

He wrote the letter, from which this is an extract, because some super-loyalists were trying to undermine his reputation on account of his independence of spirit and his democratic principles, with a view to having him removed from the paltry position he held as an Excise officer.

He was proudly, sensitively independent. He inherited his temperamental characteristics from his mother. He was happier defending others than working for himself. Writing to the Earl of Eglintoun, he said: 'Mercenary servility, I trust, I shall ever have as much honest pride as to detest.'

Writing to Mr Francis Grose, F.S.A., in 1790, about Professor Dugald Stewart, he said: 'Mr Stewart's princ.i.p.al characteristic is your favourite feature--that sterling independence of mind which, though every man's right, so few men have the courage to claim, and fewer still the magnanimity to support.'