ning the dramatic
intensity without disturbing the unity. We watch with breathless
interest, dumbly wondering what the end will be. It is tragedy, comedy,
melodrama, and burlesque all in one.

Driven almost to madness by the faithlessness of Jean Armour, he rends
himself in a whirlwind of passion, and seeks sympathy and solace in the
love of Mary Campbell. What a situation for a novelist! This is just how
the story-teller would have made his jilted hero act; sent him with
bleeding heart to seek consolation in a new love. For novelists make a
study of the vagaries of love, and know that hearts are caught in the
rebound.

Most of the biographers of Burns are agreed that this Highland lassie
was the object of by far the deepest passion he ever knew. They may be
right. Death stepped in before disillusion, and she was never other than
the adored Mary of that rapturous meeting when the white
hawthorn-blossom no purer was than their love. Thus was his love for
Mary Campbell ever a holy and spiritual devotion. Auguste Angellier
says: 'This was the purest, the most lasting, and by far the noblest of
his loves. Above all the others, many of which were more passionate,
this one stands out with the chasteness of a lily. There is a complete
contrast between his love for Jean and his love for Mary. In the one
case all the epithets are material; here they are all moral. The praises
are borrowed, not from the graces of the body, but from the features of
the soul. The words which occur again and again are those of honour, of
purity, of goodness. The idea of seeing her again some day was never
absent from his mind. Every time he thought of eternity, of a future
life, of reunions in some unknown state, it was to her that his heart
went out. The love of that second Sunday of May was ever present. It was
the love which led Burns to the most elevated sphere to which he ever
attained; it was the inspiration of his most spiritual efforts. This
sweet, blue-eyed Highland lassie was his Beatrice, and waved to him from
the gates of heaven.'

We know little about Mary Campbell from the poet himself; and though
much has been ferreted out about her by a host of snappers-up of
unconsidered trifles, this episode in his life is still involved in
mystery. It is pleasant to reflect that his reticence here has kept at
least one love passage in his life sacred and holy. Is not mystery half
the charm and beauty of love? Yet, in spite of his silence, or pr