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 nowise 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, strait-set eyes, in
which there is something bewildered-looking,--bewildered, peering with
lynx-eagerness. A face full of misery, even ignoble misery, and also of
the antagonism against that; something mean, plebeian there, redeemed
only by _intensity_: the face of what is called a Fanatic,--a sadly
_contracted_ Hero! We name him here because, with all his drawbacks, and
they are many, he has the first and chief characteristic of a Hero: he
is heartily _in earnest_. In earnest, if ever man was; as none of these
French Phil