The Letters of Robert Burns

[Lallans]

Hey Bugbear,

I remember Mark Twain recounting in a book written in his own later years that after Burns had died, they put up a big monument for him somewhere and took his mother to see it. Her comment was "Och, Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they ha' ga'en ye a stone!" I've never gotten that image out of my head even though I was never sure that Twain was actually talking about Burns or thinking of his own troubles at the time. Do you see any sign of starvation and so on in the later letters of Robert Burns? I guess I've always been sort of scared about looking into the truth of Burns' circumstances just before his death.

[castledangerous]

Hey Bugbear,

I remember Mark Twain recounting in a book written in his own later years that after Burns had died, they put up a big monument for him somewhere and took his mother to see it. Her comment was "Och, Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they ha' ga'en ye a stone!" I've never gotten that image out of my head even though I was never sure that Twain was actually talking about Burns or thinking of his own troubles at the time. Do you see any sign of starvation and so on in the later letters of Robert Burns? I guess I've always been sort of scared about looking into the truth of Burns' circumstances just before his death.

Hmmmm. Well, if was an actual quote...

[Lallans]

Hmmmm. Well, if was an actual quote...

Yes, but " if " - that's the thing. Twain was a writer, not an historian. I reckon he told a stretcher or two in his books, or so Huck said.

[MacBean]

His last letter (in part)...

"BROW, on the Solway Firth, 12th July 1796.
After all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds. A cruel wretch of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me into jail."

May that be a lesson to those of us who long for yet another kilt!

[Bugbear]

Hey Bugbear,

I remember Mark Twain recounting in a book written in his own later years that after Burns had died, they put up a big monument for him somewhere and took his mother to see it. Her comment was "Och, Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they ha' ga'en ye a stone!" I've never gotten that image out of my head even though I was never sure that Twain was actually talking about Burns or thinking of his own troubles at the time. Do you see any sign of starvation and so on in the later letters of Robert Burns? I guess I've always been sort of scared about looking into the truth of Burns' circumstances just before his death.

Ok, that quote was from, The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain, part 4,chapter XXXVI
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/p4.htm#ch38
That should get you most of the way there at the Project Gutenberg site.

Twain is discussing the Potemkin Stairs and Duc de Richelieu Monument in Odessa, Ukraine; comparing Richelieu to Burns in his quote.
There is much too much Twain, letters and all, for me to go through right now, so I don't know if he had more to say about Burns; someone else will need to answer that.
I have not found the source for Twain's quote, yet.

MacBean has quoted a Burns letter, and there are other descriptions by Burns like that in the collection. He seemed to be very aware he was dying, but others should speak to how that should be interpreted.
I found this on a quick search:
"The Death of Robert Burns," from the Alexandria Burns Club


Twain's contemporaries, Whitman and Longfellow, as well as Lincoln, all wrote on Burns, which was pointed out in this thread:

Walt Whitman's "Robert Burns as Poet and Person"
Hope the links help a little bit, just thought they might be useful in the XMTS library.

[Lallans]

Thanks Bugbear, I now do recall that is indeed the source of Twain's Burns quote. Innocents Abroad is one of his several books that is so funny that it hurts to read it, the proverbial aching sides being a result. But he did have some dark things to say as well. And from the other source I can see where Burns' mother got her angst; she was thinking of the bairns I'm sure.