Evidence: | 'The best trumpet that I can suggest is to read Thomas Carlyle’s Essay on Burns. Sick as I am of reading anything in which so much as Burns’s name appears, I was really electrified (beg pardon for such a "Daily Telegraphism") by this. It is full of very fine criticism, expressed here and there in rather an old-fashioned academical style, full of beautiful humanity − see the noble passage about Burns having refused money for his songs − and full of wonderful wisdom. The whole conclusion is indeed admirable; as where he says that all fame, riches, fortune of all sorts is to true peace no more than “mounting to the house top to reach the stars”; and again about Byron: “the fire that was in him, was the mad fire of a volcano; and now we look sadly into the ashes of a crater which erelong[sic] will fill itself with snow.”.
I subscribe to that essay. My own is quite unnecessary. Do read it; it will do you good; it would do the dead good. It has reminded me once again of the great mistake of my life − and of everybody else’s; that we are all trying to gain the whole world if you will, except what alone is worth keeping; our own soul. God bless T.Carlyle, say I.
[…]
Read that essay, it is in volume two, […]'
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Century: | 1850-1899 | ||||||||||
Date: | Until: Oct 1875 | ||||||||||
Country: | Probably Scotland | ||||||||||
Time: | n/a | ||||||||||
Place: | n/a | ||||||||||
Type of Experience (Reader): |
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Type of Experience (Listener): |
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Reader: | Robert Louis Stevenson |
Age | Adult (18-100+) |
Gender | Male |
Date of Birth | 13 Nov 1850 |
Socio-economic group: | Professional / academic / merchant / farmer |
Occupation: | Writer |
Religion: | Uncommitted |
Country of origin: | Scotland |
Country of experience: | Probably Scotland |
Listeners present if any: (e.g. family, servants,
friends, workmates) |
n/a |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Author: | Thomas Carlyle |
Title: | Essay on Burns |
Genre: | Essays / Criticism, Biography |
Form of Text: | Print: Book |
Publication details: | RLS’s reading experience was from an unspecified edition (of Carlyle’s works?) consisting of at least 2 vols. |
Provenance: | unknown |
Record ID: | 21521 | |
Source - | ||
Author: | Robert Louis Stevenson | |
Editor: | Bradford A. Booth | |
Title: | The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879 | |
Place of Publication: | New Haven and London | |
Date of Publication: | 1994 | |
Vol: | 2 | |
Page: | 161-2 | |
Additional comments: | Letter 420, To Frances Sitwell, [4 October 1875], [17 Heriot Row]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The material in square brackets has been added by the editors. |
Citation: | Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879 (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 161-2, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=21521, accessed: 28 March 2024 |
Carlyle (1795-1881)’s essay on Burns first appeared as the leading article in the Edinburgh Review, no. 96, in 1828, as a review of The Life of Robert Burns by J.G. Lockhart, Edinburgh, 1828. |
Reading Experience Database version 2.0. Page updated: 27th Apr 2016 3:15pm (GMT)