R.L.S. AND BURNS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 167, 20 April 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

R.L.S. AND BURNS.

WAS STEVENSON' QUITE FAIR? In an address delivered in the Central Hall, Ecinburgh, on 25th January, Mr. J. Kelso Kelly, F.S.A Scot., said that Burns did not dwell continually ii: a twilight land of dream and shadow; he was an active, energetic man who die his fully and honest share of hard, uncompromising toil, and did it with unwavering courage in spite of many a bitter disappointment. He knew the stubborn facts of life, but, unlike the multitude of men who recognise them, he could lift his gaze from the concerns of earth and in his best and happiest hours became a sojourner in a land of rare idealism. AS AN* EXCISEMAN. In spite of the hardships and temptations of his ccmoralising calling, he performed his prosaic task with marked ability, thoroughness, and gentlemanly courtesy that was never strained by inhumanity. Robert Burns dignified a calling that was unworthy of him. Some may think that be sailed life's may even quote words of his own to .sea as in a ship without a rudder, and show that he was derelict, but by so doing they will not prove that he lived' without an aim, or that he failed to accomplish it. He dedicated the best of his life to poesy; he became a poet, a great, imperishable power in literature, and gained for himself and for his couutrv a fame that is immortal.

Burns's detractors—l speak of detractors only—Mr. Kelly went on to say—are usually small men —small in mental outfit, small in sympathy, small in a sense of equity—their virtues and their vices corresponding to their narrow outlook. Well, indeed, might they be silent: well for them had 1 they only a tithe of Robert Burns's magnanimity. In ;i different category from the puny carpers I have mentioned, but not without a certain critical bravado, 1 am sorry to find a writer so eminent and usually so fair-minded as the late Robert Louis Stevenson. In his "Familiar Studies of Men and Books," he has wilfully or mistakenly assisted in damaging the character of Robert Burns. In his essay, which is a somewhat flimsy and flamboyant effort, considering that it, is intended l to teach others what should be included m a man's biography, he (Robert Louis Stevenson) is at elaborate pains to fix attention on the poet's peccadilloes and is eager in his endeavour to prove that Burns was an assiduous and even heartless Don Juan. Of Stevenson's attitude I shall only say that his essay scarcely makes a scratch upon the surface of the subject which he adventures.

THE POETS ['LET OF CLAY. Honestly enough he tells the reader that his business has to do with the poet's feet of clay. Apparently the business suits his mood, if his purpose has really been to give new aspects of the poet's character, I am not convinced that he lias cone so. If it pleased him to expose the trivial affectations attributed to Burns he should have remembered that he himself was as much a victim of those small infirmities as Robert Burns ever was. Robert Burns never was so rebellious or so inconsiderately unconventional as to appear ;n a drawing-room (as has been said of Stevenson) attired in a red shirt with bowie-knife at belt.

11l his indictment of the port's morals Stevenson appears to he striving for bizarre effect. In vulgar language, he lias difficulty in concealing that he ,s "showing off.'' He uses Rotert Burns's personality much in tlie manner that ,1 showman manipulates a puppet, with this difference that the showman :s careful to exhihit his marionetto to advantage, wliile Stevenson teems anxious to get our pet into awkward and unhallowed fixes s o that he may raise a laugh against him, as a Merry Andrew would amuse the yokels at a fair, or he is fain to create a howl of execration, which a chiva'rom fellow-writer would endeavour to allay. Stevenson deals wiiii the poet's externalities, lie trifles with the poet's character, ind a man's character is not to be trifled with—not even a poet'.-. He gives him by way of con-olation a literary credential that .s hand-ome, but he fails to comprehend the bigness of heart which ITobert Burns had or the high altitn ■ of pure poetic thought which he attributed, in spite r.f tumultuous passions which drove him through a sea of sorrows. Loth am I to say anything that might he construed a> unfeeling or unfair to Louis Stevenson, whose memory T honour, but the reputation of Robert Burns, the Bard of Scotland, is as dear to us and as much to be protected against undue attack as is the reputation of the illustrious Scot who rests in 'one Samoa.