1941-01-25 — Page 9

Saturday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

January 25, 1941

By Ernie Bushmiller

I HAVE AN IDEA!

YOUR

MOVE,

NANCY

NANCY

NO, MARIGOLD--- I CAN'T GO OUT TODAY BECAUSE I WAS

BAD!

WELL THEN LET'S- STAY IN AN' PLAY-

GAMES!

NO--- MY AUNT FRITZI HID ALL MY TOYS AND

GAMES TO PUNISH

ME!

To-day, 182 Years Ago, Robert Burns was Born

RANTIN ROVIN' ROBIN

DOBERT BURNS sings of his never very robust, broke down Sufficient stress on 'the other Ret and fato in Rantin, completely, and he died the fol- hand, las, not always been

Rovin' Robin":

There was a lad was born in Kyle, But whatna day o' whatna style.

I doubt it's hardly worth the while

To be sac nico w' Hobin.

Robin was a rovin' boy,

Rantin, rovin', rantin, rovin'

Robin was a rovin' boy, Rantin, rovla Robin!

Our manaret's hindmost your but

ano

Was five and twenty days begun, "Twas then a blast o Janwar win'

Blew honsel In on Robin.

He'll hoc misfortunes grest and sma', But aye a heart aboon them a'; He'll be a credit till us a',

We'll a' be proud o' Robin.

lowing year (July 21) at the thrown upon his generosity, his early age of thirty-goven.

wide sympathies and his manly independence, as shown, for THESE then, are the bare facts example, in his relations with of the life of a man and a gen- his aristocratic patrons in the

understood by the people of his ius who might have been better capitul.

time. Defiance of public opinion,

But of Burns' talent, and his

one of the most charming themes poetry, there is little division of of his verse, ostracised him from opinion. Professor Wilson said: the very circles which had been "Burns is, by far the greatest prepared to accept him. Even in an age of hard drinking, the fre- port that ever sprung from the quent occasions on which he bosom of the people," and his Carlyle said transgressed led him into dis- words are true.

repute, and the social taboo was that no British man had so tightened with his own growing deeply affected the thoughts and The date was the 25th of revolt, the heat of which led him feelings of so many men as January, 1759, and the place was further into excesses.

Burns. In his songs the com- of artlessness and the village of Alloway, about two

His death was a kindly dis- bination miles from the town of Ayr. He was the first of seven children pensation, said Robert Louis genius is so intimate that in no Stevenson: "It is the fashion to poct is it so dificult to trace the who, in spite of hard struggle with poverty, their father suc-Bay that he died of drink; many true quality of that genius, and ceeded in equipping with a good man has drunk more, and yet in none is it so elusive. It is education which included an ex- lived with reputation, and reach-enwoven in the very fibre of the cellent grounding in Engilsh, debauchery helped to destroy his

ed a good age. That drink and verse.

Endowed with a marvellous French and the rudiments of

constitution and were the means gift of song, he is supreme in Latin. Robert in his early of his unconscious suicide, is his lyrica; but he is also great youth was of studious habits, à trait which he seemed to have doubtless true; but he had failed as a descriptive poet and as a

-in-life,-and-had-lost-his-power-satirist-and-in-all-these- inherited from his father."

of work... He had chosen to be capacities his absolute sincerity He worked on his father's Don Juan, he had grasped, at lies at the root of his power. farm from childhood till he was temporary pleasures, and sub- True to himself and to the soil twenty-tive, leading a life of stantial happiness and solid in- from which he sprang, he hard and unproductive manual dustry had passed him by," fashioned his verse directly out toil. He had, however, through

of his own experiences and the wide reading acquired a taste for

things amid which he was born the ballads of his native land, and WHAT are the faults of the and bred. He is thus the faith- was constantly studying them, common man are the vices of ful interpreter of the Scottish at meals and while driving his the great; fame throws a pene peasant folk-of their thoughts, cart. Guiding the plough, he also trating searchlight upon the feelings, joys, sorrows, passions, began to shape verses in his thoughts and nets of extraordin- superstitions, racy humour, mind and in time he began to ary people, who thus pay their homespun philosophy-even of acquire a local reputation as a price for their elevation. Posses- their lawlessness and debau-. poet.

sing the same human feelings cheries.

*

as the normal man, they are expected to set an exalted ex-

WHEN the elder Burns died, ample; reacting to the same IT is ny a lyric singer that he Robert entered with his bro- causes as their less illustrious is at his greatest. His claim. ther upon the tenancy of a small brothers, they are denied any to rank amongst the foremost farm, but the venture proved to allowance of privacy, their every has been accepted far beyond his be most unfortunate, so much so word and every move being etch- own country,, Was not Goethe that, embittered by lack of suc- ed upon a public record to feed one of his greatest admirers? cess, he resolved to leave his avid interest. The pity is that native land and emigrate to genius is expected to be godlike picces in miniature of vivid des- Thus, even in the present day, cription, rollicking fun, and pon- With the purpose of purchas. Burns' character is still attacked. gent satire as "The Jolly Beg ing a passage thence, he publish. Only a few years ago, Stephen gars," "Tam o' Shanter" and ed his poems at Kilmarnock in Embleton, a newspaper colum- "Holy Willie's Prayer" show his 1789. This brought him £20, nist, called Burns, "one of the genius at its highest.

Jamaica.

After his songs, such master-

Literary Edinburgh at once took lewdest, drunken, and most His best work is almost dissolute libertines, that ever flattering notice of the young

In entirely in his Scota poetry; that farmer-poet, and he was encour stained human records." aged to publish a eccond edition, charity, he continued, he would written in standard English has by contrast too This brought him £400 and open like to think that the majority generally ed the door for him to the elite of those who comprise the great "literary a flavour, while it society of the city,

gatherings on Burns Night know often falls into the artificial nothing of the "libidinous facts mannerisms of the time.

After rambling through tho that befoul their hero's history." country, he took the farm of

It was

Burns regarded "Tom 0' Ellisland, near Dumfries, where Embleton is discomfited be- Shanter," apart from his songs, his union with Jean Armour was cause posterity has forgotten or as his best work, an estimate with which most discerning Those who come regularised by marriage in 1788, forgiven. But ill-fortune still pursued him, after are often better judges of critics have agreed. and having lost what little values than those who live in composed in answer to a request money he had saved, he accepted the hero's own time, and the for "a witch story," and was the post of an excise officer, ob- work of their hero, the product the work of a single day, and tained through the kindness of of his special talent, is what to this day the topography of ä friend.

With his farm going from bad

matters.

the famous ride between the town of Ayr and the Brig of Doon is an over-absorbing source.

to worse, he gave it up altogether F Burns' moral failings, of interest to the many thou- in 1791 and removed to Dumfries, enough has always been sands of pilgrims who annually whore his government position made; such "thoughtless follica," visit the land of Burns. was his solo means of support. In his own words, “laid him low"

In the autumn of 1795 his health, and havo "stained his name." "

A.C.G.

Robert Burns-Pact of Scotland.

DEC-9

Conversation-1990

VES, grandfather, I sce brought about a revolutionary 1 that. But why didn't change in policy, and we sup- Hitlerism end when the war ported the idea of a Russian was won?

Constantinople, except when -Well, my boy, there's no the 1917 Leninist revolution simple answer. There's n interrupted for a time Rus- Hitlerism in every human sia's progress as a nationalist -heart-tho-normal-individual State. That's all first-year learns in time the way of stuff. Did the Fund actually release. But when collective buy off Moscow? -No. What Just to conquer, to possess,

diasunded infects the body politic it's them was the resolute stand like malaria: it breaks out of the Federal East. The again and again long after original group: Turkey, Iraq, you think the fever dead. Iran and Syria had been Hitler himself had disappear- strengthened by the adhesion ed before Eden's new army of Egypt and all the Arabias. flew to Berlin with leaflets You'll find by far the best and loaves-and a few hand account of all this in Lord grenades, just in case the Eden's book. Emergency Reichstag Com- Eden whose army flew to mittec's invitation was

Berlin?

phoney.

Phoney, grandpa?

The same Anthony Rich- ard Law it was who, after forming his second Cabinet, sent Eden East as Ambassa- -You'll find the word in dor just when Trebizond's the Dictionary of War Slang, ancient glories were being re- But vived to make It a fit Federal It came from America. don't give the United States capital, after the 1950 earth- too much credit for quashing quake razed Ankara, the Nazi gang. Mind you, The one mother can just besides the transfer of the remember hearing about as a destroyers and the sharing of child. But the Fund, grand- Singapore, it was an admir- father.

able move for, Washington to

It

n

issue that magnificent peace The Fund created a Russo- loun, without so much at a German içe empire above the dollar interest. It meant such Intitude seventy north, extra prosperity that Wall colonised disease free areas hither- Street clamoured to lend more to the estate of reindeer. In carly on the same terms. But that post-war years it was a mighty triumph of good will. You nee, was only after Europe had the scheme eradicated the Ger- removed the tyrant.

mans chief lack in Versailles I see. There was a Euro- Europe: a constructive task. They pean Fund, though, was there were shown to be above all

nation needing to lose themselves not?

In work. The Great North froze You're thinking of the out the Nazism in them. It was Reconstruction Fund. That late, though, before the world dia- was Britain's price for finally covered that the bridge between making harmless the Berlin France and Germany needed to bo built not over the Rhine, bat Moscow alliance. It was start across many degrees of latitude. ed after Stalin-no, not Thank you, grandfather.

That .Stalin, his successor, the fel- has cleared up one or two points low with the queer Russian for my history essay.

And now, my boy, do please name an old man can't pos- run and

DBK your mother it the sibly be expected to remember plane is ready, and tell her I'll -massed a Black Sea armada have only one tablet for lunch. and demanded Constantinople She's taking me to Geneva to see for Russia,

An aim which Britain op- posed until the Kalser's war

the International Follies' Museum. Their new exhibli is the house through which the boundary line between Germany and Poland rari

all during the 1019-1939 armistice.

W. H.

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