Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Poems and songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect

XII
treads a particular walk in literature or In life,
pleasure and perseverance. Those who enjoy the
more substantial gifts of fortune, know not the pe-
culiar and attractive favours shed by the muse on
her votaries, whom, on that account, they are apt
to undervalue.
He found it required a disagreeable effort to
meet a stranger, particularly if in a station superior
to his own. He had no favour to ask ; he disliked
servility, and from seldom associating with superiors,
he had contracted a fear or awe of their presence.
Intercourse would have removed this uneasiness,
but the opportunities of brushing off diffidence
were not sufficiently frequent, and perhaps, consi-
dering his period of life and confirmed habits, it
was rather fortunate for his own happiness that he
shunned every occasion of being admitted to the
tables of the wealthy. In one instance his friend
Mr. S. contrived to inveigle him to a dinner in the
neighbourhood. He had conceived the manner of
the great to be stiff, insolent, and overbearing; but,
on coining away in the evening, he acknowledged
to his friend that he was agreeably disappointed,
having experienced so much kindness and attention
under the hospitable roof of J. W. Esq.