Stories of Achievement, Volume IV | Page 4

composition, full of force and fire, absolutely wants logic and order; of all the works I ever wrote, this is the weakest in reasoning, and the most devoid of number and harmony. With whatever talent a man may be born, the art of writing is not easily learned.
I sent off this piece without mentioning it to anybody, except, I think, to Grimm.
The year following (1750), not thinking more of my discourse, I learned it had gained the premium at Dijon. This news awakened all the ideas which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the fermentation of my heart of that first leaves of heroism and virtue which my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy. Nothing now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous, superior to fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior circumstances; although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation at first prevented me from conducting myself according to these principles, and from suddenly quarrelling with the maxims of the age in which I lived, I from that moment took a decided resolution to do it. . . .

ROBERT BURNS
(1759-1796)
THE PLOUGHMAN-POET
A note of pride in his humble origin rings throughout the following pages. The ploughman poet was wiser in thought than in deed, and his life was not a happy one. But, whatever his faults, he did his best with the one golden talent that Fate bestowed upon him. Each book that he encountered was made to stand and deliver the message that it carried for him. Sweethearting and good-fellowship were his bane, yet he won much good from his practice of the art of correspondence with sweethearts and boon companions. And although Socrates was perhaps scarcely a name to him, he studied always to follow the Athenian's favourite maxim, Know thyself; realizing, with his elder brother of Warwickshire, that "the chiefest study of mankind is man."
From an autobiographical sketch sent to Dr. Moore.
[To Dr. Moore]
MAUCHLINE, August 2, 1787.
For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give you an honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for I assure you, sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble--I have, I say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship. After you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do; a predicament he has more than once been in before.
I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at Edinburgh last winter I got acquainted in the Herald's office; and, looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every name in the kingdom; but for me,
My ancient but ignoble blood Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.
Gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me.
My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large; where, after many years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for most of my little pretensions to wisdom. I have met with few who understood men, their manners and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circumstances; consequently, I was born a very poor man's son. For the first six or seven years of my life my father was gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr. Had he continued in that station, I must have marched off to be one of the little underlings about a farmhouse; but it was his dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye till they could discern between good and evil; so with the assistance of