The Letters of Robert Burns

**castledangerous** · 11th February 11, 08:15 AM

Originally Posted by Canuck of NI

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** · 11th February 11, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by castledangerous

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** · 11th February 11, 10:06 AM

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!