cious
excess in parsimony and nearness, is in its more honorable aspects no
end in itself but merely a means to independence. If they are keen to
"gather gear,"

It's no to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train-attendant,
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.

Along with these substantial and admirable qualities of integrity and
independence Burns inherited certain limitations. In the peasant class
in which he was born and reared, the fierceness of the struggle for
existence has crowded out some of the more beautiful qualities that
need ease and leisure for their development. The virtues of chivalry
do indeed at times appear among the very poor, but they are the
characteristic product of a class in which conditions are more
generous, the necessaries of life are taken for granted, and the
elemental demands of human nature are satisfied without competitive
striving. When a peasant is chivalrous he is so by virtue of some
individual quality, and in spite of rather than because of the spirit
of his class. Burns was too acute and too observant not to gather much
from the social ideals of the ladies and gentlemen with whom he came
in contact, and what he gathered affected his conduct profoundly; but
at times under stress of frustrated passion or mortified vanity he
reverted to the ruder manners of the peasantry from which he sprang.
So have to be accounted for certain brutalities in his treatment of
the women who loved him or who had been unwise enough to yield to his
fascination.

Other characteristics belong to him individually rather than to his
family or class or nation. He was to an extraordinary degree proud and
sensitive. He reacted warmly to kindness, and showed his gratitude
without stint; but he allowed no man to presume upon the obligations
he had conferred. He was very conscious of difference of rank, and
never sought to ignore it, however little he thought it mattered in
comparison with intrinsic merit. But the very degree to which he was
aware of the social gap between him and many of his acquaintances put
him ever on the alert for slights; and when he perceived or imagined
that he had received them, his indignation was sometimes less than
dignified and often excessive. Though he knew that he possessed
uncommon gifts, he was essentially modest in fact as well as in
appearance, and on the whole underestimated his genius.

He had a warm heart, and in his relations with his e