ng, and as good as gone.--

Now it was under such conditions, in those times of Johnson, that our
Men of Letters had to live. Times in which there was properly no truth
in life. Old truths had fallen nigh dumb; the new lay yet hidden, not
trying to speak. That Man's Life here below was a Sincerity and Fact,
and would forever continue such, no new intimation, in that dusk of
the world, had yet dawned. No intimation; not even any French
Revolution,--which we define to be a Truth once more, though a Truth
clad in hellfire! How different was the Luther's Pilgrimage, with its
assured goal, from the Johnson's, girt with mere traditions,
suppositions, grown now incredible, unintelligible! Mahomet's Formulas
were of 'wood waxed and oiled,' and could be _burnt_ out of one's way:
poor Johnson's were far more difficult to burn.--The strong man will
ever find _work_, which means difficulty, pain, to the full measure of
his strength. But to make-out a victory, in those circumstances of our
poor Hero as Man of Letters, was perhaps more difficult than in any.
Not obstruction, disorganisation, Bookseller Osborne and
Fourpence-halfpenny a day; not this alone; but the light of his own
soul was taken from him. No landmark on the Earth; and, alas, what is
that to having no loadstar in the Heaven! We need not wonder that none
of those Three men rose to victory. That they fought truly is the
highest praise. With a mournful sympathy we will contemplate, if not
three living victorious Heroes, as I said, the Tombs of three fallen
Heroes! They fell for us too; making a way for us. There are the
mountains which they hurled abroad in their confused War of the
Giants; under which, their strength and life spent, they now lie
buried.

* * * * *

I have already written of these three Literary Heroes, expressly or
incidentally; what I suppose is known to most of you; what need not be
spoken or written a second time. They concern us here as the singular
_Prophets_ of that singular age; for such they virtually were; and the
aspect they and their world exhibit, under this point of view, might
lead us into reflections enough! I call them, all three, Genuine Men
more or less; faithfully, for most part unconsciously, struggling to
be genuine, and plant themselves on the everlasting truth of things.
This to a degree that eminently distinguishes them from the poor
artificial mass of their contemporaries; and renders them worth