Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
specify the names of Mrs S. C. Hall, the charming authoress, and her
accomplished husband. We looked in vain for some whose presence there
would have given an additional interest to the scene. We would fain have
seen the poets of the sister countries represented by Wordsworth and
Moore. That might not be; but their sympathies were not withheld.
Among that brilliant group, there stood an elderly female, dressed in
deep black, and three men, all past the meridian of life, with quiet,
thoughtful looks, and unpretending aspect. These were the sister and the
sons of Burns. His sister!--and half a century has wellnigh gone past
since the hot heart of the brother was stricken cold, and the manly
music of his voice made dumb for ever! Was it too much to believe that,
through these many long years of her earthly pilgrimage--sometimes, we
fear, darkened by want and neglect--that sister had always clung to the
memory of the departed dead, in the hope that the day would arrive when
his genius should receive the homage of a new generation, to atone for
the apathy and coldness of that which had passed away? What emotions
must have thrilled the bosom of that venerable woman, as she gazed on
the stirring spectacle before her, and saw her lingering hopes far more
than thoroughly realized! What a glorious welcome, too, for the sons to
their native land! They had left it--not quite as the poor man
does--but with heavy difficulties before them. They had wrestled their
way onwards through half the journey of life, and now, on their return,
they were greeted with a welcome which it were almost worth the
struggles of a life to obtain. All this they owed to their father; and
honoured among the honourable that day were the lineage and kindred of
Burns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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