[blows]
I'll be merry and free,
I'll be sad for naebody;
Naebody cares for me,
I care for naebody.
Early in his residence at Ellisland he formed a close relation with a
neighboring proprietor, Colonel Robert Riddel. For him he copied into
two volumes a large part of what he considered the best of his
unpublished verse and prose, thus forming the well-known Glenriddel
Manuscript. Had not one already become convinced of the fact from
internal evidence, it would be clear enough from this prose volume
that Burns's letters were often as much works of art to him as his
poems. This is of supreme importance in weighing the epistolary
evidence for his character and conduct. Even when his words seem to be
the direct outpourings of his feelings--of love, of friendship, of
gratitude, of melancholy, of devotion, of scorn--a comparative
examination will show that in prose as much as in verse we are dealing
with the work of a conscious artist, enamored of telling expression,
aware of his reader, and anything but the naif utterer of
unsophisticated emotion. To recall this will save us from much
perplexity in the interpretation of his words, and will clear up many
an apparent contradiction in his evidence about himself.
Burns was never very sanguine about success on the Ellisland farm. By
the end of the summer of 1789 he concluded that he could not depend on
it, determined to turn it into a dairy farm to be conducted mainly by
his wife and sisters, and took up the work in the excise for which he
had prepared himself.
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