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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: the situation but the old cry of Geronte: "Que diable allait-
il faire dans cette galere?" And every merit we find in the
book, which is sober and candid in a degree unusual with
biographies of Burns, only leads us to regret more heartily
that good work should be so greatly thrown away.
It is far from my intention to tell over again a story that
has been so often told; but there are certainly some points
in the character of Burns that will bear to be brought out,
and some chapters in his life that demand a brief rehearsal.
The unity of the man's nature, for all its richness, has
fallen somewhat out of sight in the pressure of new
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