(Now, don't
put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any
clishmaclaver about it among our acquaintances.) I assure you that
to my lovely Friend you are indebted for many of your best songs
of mine. Do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of
existence could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy--could
fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos equal to the
genius of your Book? No, no!!! Whenever I want to be more than
ordinary _in song_; to be in some degree equal to your diviner
airs, do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation?
_Tout au contraire!_ I have a glorious recipe; the very one that
for his own use was invented by the Divinity of Healing and Poesy
when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a
regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the
adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my
verses. The lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and
the witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon!"
Burns is here, of course, on his rhetorical high horse, and the songs
to Chloris hardly bear him out; but there is much in the passage to
enlighten us as to his composing processes. In his younger days his
hot blood welcomed every occasion of emotional experience; toward the
end, he sought such occasions for the sake of the patriotic task that
lightened with its idealism the gathering gloom of his breakdown.
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