My rhetoric seems quite to have lost
its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day--but
that is a "tale of other years."--In my conscience I believe that my
heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look
on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the
starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the
Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful
eccentricity of their motions, and--wish them good night. I mean this
with respect to a certain passion _dont j'ai eu l'honneur d'etre un
miserable esclave_: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me
pleasure, permanent pleasure, "which the world cannot give, nor take
away," I hope; and which will outlast the heavens and the earth.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 179: Of the Scots Musical Museum]
* * * * *
LXXXI.
TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.
[That fine song, "The Banks of the Devon," dedicated to the charms of
Charlotte Hamilton, was enclosed in the following letter.]
_Without date._
I have been at Dumfries, and at one visit more shall be decided about
a farm in that country. I am rather hopeless in it; but as my brother
is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, an exceedingly prudent, sober
man (qualities which are only a younger brother's fortune in our
family), I am determined, if my Dumfries business fail me, to return
into partnership with him, and at our leisure take another farm in the
neighbourhood.
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