trip your
Louis Quatorze of his king-gear, and there _is_ left nothing but a poor
forked radish with a head fantastically carved;--admirable to no valet.
The Valet does not know a Hero when he sees him! Alas, no: it requires
a kind of _Hero_ to do that;--and one of the world's wants, in _this_
as in other senses, is for the most part want of such.

On the whole, shall we not say, that Boswell's admiration was well
bestowed; that he could have found no soul in all England so worthy of
bending down before? Shall we not say, of this great mournful Johnson
too, that he guided his difficult confused existence wisely; led it
_well_, like a right-valiant man? That waste chaos of Authorship by
trade; that waste chaos of Scepticism in religion and politics, in
life-theory and life-practice; in his poverty, in his dust and
dimness, with the sick body and the rusty coat: he made it do for him,
like a brave man. Not wholly without a loadstar in the Eternal; he had
still a loadstar, as the brave all need to have: with his eye set on
that, he would change his course for nothing in these confused
vortices of the lower sea of Time. 'To the Spirit of Lies, bearing
death and hunger, he would in no wise strike his flag.' Brave old
Samuel: _ultimus Romanorum_!

* * * * *

Of Rousseau and his Heroism I cannot say so much. He is not what I
call a strong man. A morbid, excitable, spasmodic man; at best,
intense rather than strong. He had not 'the talent of Silence,' an
invaluable talent; which few Frenchmen, or indeed men of any sort in
these times, excel in! The suffering man ought really 'to consume his
own smoke;' there is no good in emitting _smoke_ till you have made it
into _fire_,--which, in the metaphorical sense too, all smoke is
capable of becoming! Rousseau has not depth or width, not calm force
for difficulty; the first characteristic of true greatness. A
fundamental mistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is
not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him
then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering,
he is the strong man. We need forever, especially in these
loud-shrieking days, to remind ourselves of that. A man who cannot
_hold his peace_, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no
right man.

Poor Rousseau's face is to me expressive of him. A high but narrow
contracted intensity in it: bony brows; deep, straight-set eyes, in