His relations with women were extremely varied in nature. At one
extreme there were friendships like that with Mrs. Dunlop, the letters
to whom show that their common interests were mainly moral and
intellectual, and were mingled with no emotion more fiery than
gratitude. At the other extreme stand relations like that with Anne
Park, the heroine of _Yestreen I had a Pint o' Wine_, which were
purely passionate and transitory. Between these come a long procession
affording excellent material for the ingenuity of those skilled in the
casuistry of the sexes: the boyish flame for Handsome Nell; the
slightly more mature feeling for Ellison Begbie; the various phases of
his passion for Jean Armour; the perhaps partly factitious reverence
for Highland Mary; the respectful adoration for Margaret Chalmers to
whom he is supposed to have proposed marriage in Edinburgh; the
deliberate posing in his compliments to Chloris (Jean Lorimer); the
grateful gallantry to Jessie Lewars, who ministered to him on his
deathbed.
In the later days in Dumfries, when his vitality was running low and
he was laboring to supply Thomson with verses even when the
spontaneous impulse to compose was rare, we find him theorizing on the
necessity of enthroning a goddess for the nonce. Speaking of
_Craigieburn-wood_ and Jean Lorimer, he writes to his prosaic editor:
"The lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in
Scotland; and in fact (_entre nous_) is in a manner to me what
Sterne's Eliza was to him--a Mistress, or Friend, or what you
will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love.
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