Heroes and Hero Worship [92]
whole soul, at all moments, in all ways, tells him that there is no standing. He is under the noble necessity of being true. Johnson's way of thinking about this world is not mine, any more than Mahomet's was: but I recognize the everlasting element of _heart-sincerity_ in both; and see with pleasure how neither of them remains ineffectual. Neither of them is as _chaff_ sown; in both of them is something which the seedfield will _grow_.
Johnson was a Prophet to his people; preached a Gospel to them,--as all like him always do. The highest Gospel he preached we may describe as a kind of Moral Prudence: "in a world where much is to be done, and little is to be known," see how you will _do_ it! A thing well worth preaching. "A world where much is to be done, and little is to be known:" do not sink yourselves in boundless bottomless abysses of Doubt, of wretched god-forgetting Unbelief;--you were miserable then, powerless, mad: how could you _do_ or work at all? Such Gospel Johnson preached and taught;--coupled, theoretically and practically, with this other great Gospel, "Clear your mind of Cant!" Have no trade with Cant: stand on the cold mud in the frosty weather, but let it be in your own _real_ torn shoes: "that will be better for you," as Mahomet says! I call this, I call these two things _joined together_, a great Gospel, the greatest perhaps that was possible at that time.
Johnson's Writings, which once had such currency and celebrity, are now as it were disowned by the young generation. It is not wonderful; Johnson's opinions are fast becoming obsolete: but his style of thinking and of living, we may hope, will never become obsolete. I find in Johnson's Books the indisputablest traces of a great intellect and great heart;--ever welcome, under what obstructions and perversions soever. They are _sincere_ words, those of his; he means things by them. A wondrous buckram style,--the best he could get to then; a measured grandiloquence, stepping or rather stalking along in a very solemn way, grown obsolete now; sometimes a tumid _size_ of phraseology not in proportion to the contents of it: all this you will put up with. For the phraseology, tumid or not, has always _something within it_. So many beautiful styles and books, with _nothing_ in them;--a man is a malefactor to the world who writes such! _They_ are the avoidable kind!--Had Johnson left nothing but his _Dictionary_, one might have traced there a great intellect, a genuine man. Looking to its clearness of definition, its general solidity, honesty, insight and successful method, it may be called the best of all Dictionaries. There is in it a kind of architectural nobleness; it stands there like a great solid square-built edifice, finished, symmetrically complete: you judge that a true Builder did it.
One word, in spite of our haste, must be granted to poor Bozzy. He passes for a mean, inflated, gluttonous creature; and was so in many senses. Yet the fact of his reverence for Johnson will ever remain noteworthy. The foolish conceited Scotch Laird, the most conceited man of his time, approaching in such awe-struck attitude the great dusty irascible Pedagogue in his mean garret there: it is a genuine reverence for Excellence; a _worship_ for Heroes, at a time when neither Heroes nor worship were surmised to exist. Heroes, it would seem, exist always, and a certain worship of them! We will also take the liberty to deny altogether that of the witty Frenchman, that no man is a Hero to his valet-de-chambre. Or if so, it is not the Hero's blame, but the Valet's: that his soul, namely, is a mean _valet_-soul! He expects his Hero to advance in royal stage-trappings, with measured step, trains borne behind him, trumpets sounding before him. It should stand rather, No man can be a _Grand- Monarque_ to his valet-de-chambre. Strip your Louis Quatorze of his king-gear, and there _is_ left nothing but a poor forked radish with a head fantastically carved;--admirable to no valet. The Valet does not know a Hero when he sees him! Alas,
Johnson was a Prophet to his people; preached a Gospel to them,--as all like him always do. The highest Gospel he preached we may describe as a kind of Moral Prudence: "in a world where much is to be done, and little is to be known," see how you will _do_ it! A thing well worth preaching. "A world where much is to be done, and little is to be known:" do not sink yourselves in boundless bottomless abysses of Doubt, of wretched god-forgetting Unbelief;--you were miserable then, powerless, mad: how could you _do_ or work at all? Such Gospel Johnson preached and taught;--coupled, theoretically and practically, with this other great Gospel, "Clear your mind of Cant!" Have no trade with Cant: stand on the cold mud in the frosty weather, but let it be in your own _real_ torn shoes: "that will be better for you," as Mahomet says! I call this, I call these two things _joined together_, a great Gospel, the greatest perhaps that was possible at that time.
Johnson's Writings, which once had such currency and celebrity, are now as it were disowned by the young generation. It is not wonderful; Johnson's opinions are fast becoming obsolete: but his style of thinking and of living, we may hope, will never become obsolete. I find in Johnson's Books the indisputablest traces of a great intellect and great heart;--ever welcome, under what obstructions and perversions soever. They are _sincere_ words, those of his; he means things by them. A wondrous buckram style,--the best he could get to then; a measured grandiloquence, stepping or rather stalking along in a very solemn way, grown obsolete now; sometimes a tumid _size_ of phraseology not in proportion to the contents of it: all this you will put up with. For the phraseology, tumid or not, has always _something within it_. So many beautiful styles and books, with _nothing_ in them;--a man is a malefactor to the world who writes such! _They_ are the avoidable kind!--Had Johnson left nothing but his _Dictionary_, one might have traced there a great intellect, a genuine man. Looking to its clearness of definition, its general solidity, honesty, insight and successful method, it may be called the best of all Dictionaries. There is in it a kind of architectural nobleness; it stands there like a great solid square-built edifice, finished, symmetrically complete: you judge that a true Builder did it.
One word, in spite of our haste, must be granted to poor Bozzy. He passes for a mean, inflated, gluttonous creature; and was so in many senses. Yet the fact of his reverence for Johnson will ever remain noteworthy. The foolish conceited Scotch Laird, the most conceited man of his time, approaching in such awe-struck attitude the great dusty irascible Pedagogue in his mean garret there: it is a genuine reverence for Excellence; a _worship_ for Heroes, at a time when neither Heroes nor worship were surmised to exist. Heroes, it would seem, exist always, and a certain worship of them! We will also take the liberty to deny altogether that of the witty Frenchman, that no man is a Hero to his valet-de-chambre. Or if so, it is not the Hero's blame, but the Valet's: that his soul, namely, is a mean _valet_-soul! He expects his Hero to advance in royal stage-trappings, with measured step, trains borne behind him, trumpets sounding before him. It should stand rather, No man can be a _Grand- Monarque_ to his valet-de-chambre. Strip your Louis Quatorze of his king-gear, and there _is_ left nothing but a poor forked radish with a head fantastically carved;--admirable to no valet. The Valet does not know a Hero when he sees him! Alas,