On one occasion two American gentlemen sat at Mr. Wilkinson’s breakfast-table and noted his opening of letters which brought God’s supply for the day. “This is all very well, so far,” said one of the gentlemen, “but what would you do, Mr. Wilkinson, if one morning the expected supply did not come?” The answer is clear in my memory, “That can only happen, sir, when God dies.” (Text.)
(1027)
William J. Long, in “English Literature,” writes thus of Samuel Johnson:
Since the man’s work fails to account for his leadership and influence, we examine his personality; and here everything is interesting. Because of a few oft-quoted passages from Boswell’s biography, Johnson appears to us as an eccentric bear, who amuses us by his growlings and clumsy antics. But there is another Johnson, a brave, patient, kindly, religious soul, who, as Goldsmith said, had “nothing of the bear but his skin”; a man who battled like a hero against poverty and pain and melancholy and the awful fear of death, and who overcame them manfully. “That trouble passed away; so will this,” sang the sorrowing Deor in the first old Anglo-Saxon lyric; and that expresses the great and suffering spirit of Johnson, who in the face of enormous obstacles never lost faith in God or in himself.
(1028)
In the self-appointed task of educating the public to an appreciation of the best in music, Mr. Theodore Thomas had a long and up-hill struggle which would have broken a weaker man. During those days he once said to an intimate friend, says the New York Herald:
“I have gone without food longer than I should, I have walked when I could not afford to ride, I have even played when my hands were cold, but I shall succeed, for I shall never give up my belief that at last the people will come to me, and my concerts will be crowded. I have undying faith in the latent musical appreciation of the American public.” (Text.)
(1029)