200 INDOOR STUDIES 



bargees; lie was melancholy almost to madness, 

 ' radically wretched, ' indolent, blinded, diseased. 

 Poverty was long his portion; not that genteel pov- 

 erty that is sometimes behindhand with its rent, 

 but that hungry poverty that does not know where 

 to look for its dinner. Against all these things 

 had this ' old straggler ' to contend ; over all these 

 things did this ' old straggler ' prevail. Over even 

 the fear of death, the giving up of this ' intellectual 

 being, ' which had haunted his gloomy fancy for a 

 lifetime, he seems finally to have prevailed, and to 

 have met his end as a brave man should." 



This is excellently said, and is true enough. 

 This kind of victory is one test of character cer- 

 tainly; but if it is the highest test by which to try 

 a man's claims to greatness, then is the world full 

 of silent heroes greater than either Johnson or 

 Carlyle. How many men and women receive an 

 avalanche of the ills of life upon their heads and 

 shoulders, and die and make no sign! How many 

 nameless " old strugglers " there are in nearly every 

 community, who fight a losing battle with fortune all 

 their lives and utter no complaint! And it is not 

 always, or commonly, because they are made of 

 pure adamant: it is oftener because they are stolid 

 and insensible. If stolidity and insensibility are 

 terms too strong to apply to Johnson, yet we must 

 admit there was a kind of dullness and sluggishness 

 about him, which he in vain spurred with good 

 resolutions, and which shielded him from the acute 

 suffering that Carlyle's almost preternatural activ- 



