Stories of Achievement, Volume IV | Page 4

in the night, and this method, which for a long
time I observed, preserved me many things I should otherwise have
forgotten.
As soon as the discourse was finished, I showed it to Diderot. He was
satisfied with the production, and pointed out some corrections he

thought necessary to be made. However, this 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