n truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I
never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my
soul--I will not say more, but so much as Lady Mackenzie and Miss
Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest of
human kind--unfortunate even in the shades of life--when I think I
have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight
days than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight
years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world
again--I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me
with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I
am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is
less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the
noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken
me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however
overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase,
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLANY.

Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married "my Jean." This
was not in consequence of the attachment of romance, perhaps; but I
had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my
determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor
have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish
manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with
the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation: and I have got the
handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and
the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her
creed, that I am _le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnete homme_ in the
universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in
metre, spent five minutes together either on prose or verse. I must
except also from this last a certain late publication of Scots poems,
which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in the
country, as she has (O the partial lover! you will cry) the finest
"wood-note wild" I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady's
character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a share in
your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my
house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is
pervious to every blast that blows,