Prof. Wilson

Cited as Prof. Wilson. — 36 quotations

bam

To relieve the tedium, he kept plying them with all manner of bams.

Commerce

Musicians . . . taught the people in angelic harmonies to commerce with heaven.

Craft

The evolutions of the numerous tiny craft moving over the lake.

Craze

It was quite a craze with him [Burns] to have his Jean dressed genteelly.

Degree

It has been said that Scotsmen . . . are . . . grave to a degree on occasions when races more favored by nature are gladsome to excess.

Desiderate

Pray have the goodness to point out one word missing that ought to have been there -- please to insert a desiderated stanza. You can not.

Epicene

The literary prigs epicene.

Ever

She [Fortune] soon wheeled away, with scornful laughter, out of sight for ever and day.

Facete

“How to interpose” with a small, smart remark, sentiment facete, or unctuous anecdote.

Facile

This is treating Burns like a child, a person of so facile a disposition as not to be trusted without a keeper on the king's highway.

Fig

Were they all in full fig, the females with feathers on their heads, the males with chapeaux bras?

Flow

The exhilaration of a night that needed not the influence of the flowing bowl.

Fork

Forking the sheaves on the high-laden cart.

Go-by

Some songs to which we have given the go-by.

Hearsay

Much of the obloquy that has so long rested on the memory of our great national poet originated in frivolous hearsays of his life and conversation.

Hieroglyphic

Pages no better than blanks to common minds, to his, hieroglyphical of wisest secrets.

Human

We humans often find ourselves in strange position.

Lion

Such society was far more enjoyable than that of Edinburgh, for here he was not a lion, but a man.

Ongoing

The common ongoings of this our commonplace world, and everyday life.

Open

Poetry that had opened up so many delightful views into the character and condition of our “bold peasantry, their country's pride.”

Plack

With not a plack in the pocket of the poet.

Pulpiteer

We never can think it sinful that Burns should have been humorous on such a pulpiteer.

Quiescent

In times of national security, the feeling of patriotism . . . is so quiescent that it seems hardly to exist.

Racy

The rich and racy humor of a natural converser fresh from the plow.

Revolutionary

Dumfries was a Tory town, and could not tolerate a revolutionary.

Run

Burns never dreamed of looking down on others as beneath him, merely because he was conscious of his own vast superiority to the common run of men.

Salaam

Finally, Josiah might have made his salaam to the exciseman just as he was folding up that letter.

Sederunt

'T is pity we have not Burns's own account of that long sederunt.

So-so

He [Burns] certainly wrote some so-so verses to the Tree of Liberty.

Spunk

A lawless and dangerous set, men of spunk, and spirit, and power, both of mind and body.

Staff

He spoke of it [beer] in “The Earnest Cry,” and likewise in the “Scotch Drink,” as one of the staffs of life which had been struck from the poor man's hand.

Supereminence

He was not forever beset with the consciousness of his own supereminence.

Swallow

There being nothing too gross for the swallow of political rancor.

Tedium

To relieve the tedium, he kept plying them with all manner of bams.

Till

Similar sentiments will recur to every one familiar with his writings -- all through them till the very end.

Troll

Thence the catch and troll, while “Laughter, holding both his sides,” sheds tears to song and ballad pathetic on the woes of married life.