lly made
the best of life, and tried to be glad in it. Once, when a clergyman was
complaining of the dulness of society in the country, saying "they only
talk of runts" [17young cows], Johnson felt flattered by the observation
of Mrs. Thrale's mother, who said, "Sir, Dr. Johnson would learn to
talk of runts"--meaning that he was a man who would make the most of his
situation, whatever it was.

Johnson was of opinion that a man grew better as he grew older, and that
his nature mellowed with age. This is certainly a much more cheerful
view of human nature than that of Lord Chesterfield, who saw life
through the eyes of a cynic, and held that "the heart never grows better
by age: it only grows harder." But both sayings may be true according
to the point from which life is viewed, and the temper by which a man is
governed; for while the good, profiting by experience, and disciplining
themselves by self-control, will grow better, the ill-conditioned,
uninfluenced by experience, will only grow worse.

Sir Walter Scott was a man full of the milk of human kindness. Everybody
loved him. He was never five minutes in a room ere the little pets of
the family, whether dumb or lisping, had found out his kindness for all
their generation. Scott related to Captain Basil Hall an incident of his
boyhood which showed the tenderness of his nature. One day, a dog coming
towards him, he took up a big stone, threw it, and hit the dog. The poor
creature had strength enough left to crawl up to him and lick his feet,
although he saw its leg was broken. The incident, he said, had given
him the bitterest remorse in his after-life; but he added, "An early
circumstance of that kind, properly reflected on, is calculated to have
the best effect on one's character throughout life."

"Give me an honest laugher," Scott would say; and he himself laughed the
heart's laugh. He had a kind word for everybody, and his kindness acted
all round him like a contagion, dispelling the reserve and awe which his
great name was calculated to inspire. "He'll come here," said the keeper
of the ruins of Melrose Abbey to Washington Irving--"he'll come here
some-times, wi' great folks in his company, and the first I'll know of
it is hearing his voice calling out, 'Johnny! Johnny Bower!' And when I
go out I'm sure to be greeted wi' a joke or a pleasant word. He'll stand
and crack and laugh wi' me, just like an auld wife; and to think that of
a man that has SUCH AN AWFU' KN