No intimation; not even any French
Revolution,--which we define to be a Truth once more, though a Truth
clad in hell-fire! 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, disorganization, 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 worthy to be considered
as Speakers, in some measure, of the everlasting truth, as Prophets in
that age of theirs. By Nature herself a noble necessity was laid on them
to be so. They were men of such magnitude that they could not live on
unrealities,--clouds, froth and all inanity gave way under them: there
was no footing for them but on firm earth; no rest or regular motion for
them, if they got not footing there. To a certain extent, they were Son