Record Number: 21521
Reading Experience:
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, […]'
Century:1850-1899
Date:Until: Oct 1875
Country:Probably Scotland
Timen/a
Place:n/a
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: 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
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Essay on Burns
Genre:Essays / Criticism, Biography
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication DetailsRLS’s reading experience was from an unspecified edition (of Carlyle’s works?) consisting of at least 2 vols.
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:21521
Source: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://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=21521, accessed: 04 May 2024
Additional Comments:
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.
