Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, should less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, my Lord.
Your Lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
—Sam Johnson
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The critics, I believe, have made a distinction between large men and great men.
Samuel Johnson was both. He was massive in intellect, colossal in culture, prodigious in memory, weighed nigh three hundred pounds, and had prejudices to match. He was possessed of a giant's strength, and occasionally used it like a giant—for instance, when he felled an offending bookseller with a folio.
Johnson was most unfortunate in his biographer. In picturing the great writer, Boswell writes more entertainingly than Johnson ever did, and thereby overtops his subject. And when in reply to the intimation that Boswell was going to write his life, Johnson answered, "If I really thought he was, I would take his," he spoke a jest in earnest.
Walking along Market Street in the city of Saint Louis, with a friend, not long ago, my comrade suddenly stopped and excitedly pointed out a man across the way—"Look quick—there he goes!" exclaimed my friend, "that man with the derby and duster—see? That's the husband of Mrs. Lease of Kansas!" And all I could say was, "God help him!"
Not but that Mrs. Lease is a most excellent and amiable lady; but the idea of a man, made in the image of his Maker, being reduced to the social state of a drone-bee is most depressing.