pty
verbiage; but taken as a {199} whole the passage moves with a grave
music fitted to its sober truth. The art in it is as admirable as the
emotion is sincere.

Or take a different illustration from a _Rambler_, in which he is
discussing the well-known fact that the commonest cause of shyness is
self-importance.

"Those who are oppressed by their own reputation will perhaps not be
comforted by hearing that their cares are unnecessary. But the truth
is that no man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that
considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others will learn
how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we
see multitudes passing before us of whom, perhaps, not one appears to
deserve our notice or excite our sympathy, we should remember that we,
likewise, are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to
glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that
the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant
hour with prattle, and be forgotten."

All good writers write of themselves; not, as vain people talk, of
their triumphs, and grievances and diseases, but of what they have
succeeded in grasping as their own out of all the floating wisdom of
the world. In {200} a passage like this one almost hears Johnson
reflecting aloud as he walks back in his old age to his lonely rooms
after an evening at "The Club" or the Mitre. It is the graver side of
what he once said humorously to Boswell: "I may leave this town and go
to Grand Cairo without being missed here or observed there." But the
autobiographical note is sometimes even plainer. Of whom could he be
thinking so much as of himself when he wrote the 101st _Rambler_?

"Perhaps no kind of superiority is more flattering or alluring than
that which is conferred by the powers of conversation, by
extemporaneous sprightliness of fancy, copiousness of language, and
fertility of sentiment. In other exertions of genius, the greater part
of the praise is unknown and unenjoyed; the writer, indeed, spreads his
reputation to a wider extent, but receives little pleasure or advantage
from the diffusion of his name, and only obtains a kind of nominal
sovereignty over regions which pay no tribute. The colloquial wit has
always his own radiance reflected on himself, and enjoys all the
pleasure which he bestows; he finds his power confessed by every one
that approaches him, sees friendship