BRIEF ESSAYS 205 



swer differently. Some people liave a natural anti- 

 pathy to Carlyle, based largely, no doubt, on mis- 

 conception. But misconception is much, easier in 

 his case than in Johnson's. He was more of an 

 exceptional being. He was pitched in too high a 

 key for the ordinary uses of life. He had fewer 

 infirmities than Johnson, moral and physical. 

 Johnson was a typical Englishman, and appeals to 

 us by all the virtues and faults of his race. Car- 

 lyle stands more isolated, and held himself much 

 more aloof from the world. On this account, among 

 others, he touches us less nearly. Women are 

 almost invariably repelled by Carlyle; they instinc- 

 tively flee from a certain hard, barren masculinity 

 in him. If not a woman-hater, he certainly had 

 little in his composition that responded to the 

 charms and allurements peculiar to the opposite sex ; 

 while Johnson's idea of happiness was to spend his 

 life driving briskly in a postchaise with a pretty 

 and intelligent woman. Both men had the same 

 proud independence, the same fearless gift of 

 speech, the same deference to authority or love of 

 obedience. In personal presence, the Englishman 

 had the advantage of mere physical size, breadth, 

 and a stern forbidding countenance. Johnson's 

 ■power was undoubtedly more of the chest, the 

 stomach, and less of the soul, than Carlyle's, and 

 was more of a blind, groping, unconscious force; 

 but of the two men he seems the more innocent and 

 childlike. His journal is far less interesting and 

 valuable as literature than Carlyle's; but in some 



