FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158  
159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>  
those bag-cheeks, hanging like half-filled wine-skins, still able to contain more; in that coarsely protruded shelf mouth, that fat dewlapped chin; in all this, who sees not sensuality, pretension, boisterous imbecility enough; much that could not have been ornamental in the temper of a great man's overfed great man (what the Scotch name _flunky_), though it had been more natural there. The under part of Boswell's face is of a low, almost brutish character.... And now behold the worthy Bozzy, so pre-possessed and held back by nature and by art, fly nevertheless like iron to its magnet, whither his better genius called! You may surround the iron and the magnet with what enclosures and encumbrances you please,--with wood, with rubbish, with brass: it matters not, the two feel each other, they struggle restlessly toward each Other, they _will_ be together. The iron may be a Scottish squirelet, full of gulosity and "gigmanity"; the magnet an English plebeian, and moving rag-and-dust mountain, coarse, proud, irascible, imperious; nevertheless, behold how they embrace, and inseparably cleave to one another! It is one of the strangest phenomena of the past century, that at a time when the old reverent feeling of Discipleship (such as brought men from far countries, with rich gifts, and prostrate soul, to the feet of the Prophets) had passed utterly away from men's practical experience, was no longer surmised to exist, (as it does,) perennial, indestructible, in man's inmost heart,--James Boswell should have been the individual, of all others, predestined to recall it, in such singular guise, to the wondering, and, for a long while, laughing, and unrecognising world. It has been commonly said, The man's vulgar vanity was all that attached him to Johnson; he delighted to be seen near him, to be thought connected with him. Now let it be at once granted that no consideration springing out of vulgar vanity could well be absent from the mind of James Boswell, in this his intercourse with Johnson, or in any considerable transaction of his life. At the same time ask yourself: Whether such vanity, and nothing else, actuated him therein; whether this was the true essence and moving principle of the phenomenon, or not rather its outward vesture, and the accidental environment (and defacement) in which it came to light? The man was, by nature and habit, vain; a sycophant-coxcomb, be it granted; but had there been nothing more than va
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158  
159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>  



Top keywords:
magnet
 

vanity

 

Boswell

 

nature

 

behold

 
vulgar
 
Johnson
 

moving

 
granted
 

singular


laughing

 

unrecognising

 
wondering
 

Prophets

 
passed
 

utterly

 
prostrate
 
brought
 

countries

 

practical


experience

 

individual

 

predestined

 

inmost

 

indestructible

 

surmised

 

longer

 

perennial

 

recall

 

connected


phenomenon

 
principle
 

outward

 

vesture

 

essence

 
Whether
 

actuated

 
accidental
 

environment

 
coxcomb

sycophant
 

defacement

 
Discipleship
 
thought
 

attached

 

delighted

 
consideration
 

springing

 
transaction
 

considerable