Here Robert got into evil company and trouble. He sinned and
repented and sinned again. We find him writing to his father,
"As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I
am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the
gay. I shall never again be capable of entering into such
scenes." Burns knew himself to be a man of faults. The
knowledge of his own weakness, perhaps, made him kindly to other.
In one of his poems he wrote--
"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,*
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark
How far perhaps they rue it.
*A very little wrong.
"Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us:
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
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