He melts away in the blessed daylight over the volume
or the account-book, in the simple talk about arrangements or
affairs, and above all perhaps in trying to disentangle and relieve
another's troubles and anxieties. We cannot get rid of fear by
drugs or charms; we have to turn to the work which is the appointed
solace of man, and which is the reward rather than the penalty of
life.
XI
DR. JOHNSON
There is one great and notable instance in our annals which ought
once and for all to dispose of the idea that there is anything weak
or unmanly in finding fear a constant temptation, and that is the
case of Dr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson holds his supreme station as the
"figure" par excellence of English life for a number of reasons. His
robustness, his wit, his reverence for established things, his
secret piety are all contributory causes; but the chief of all
causes is that the proportion in which these things were mixed is
congenial to the British mind. The Englishman likes a man who is
deeply serious without being in the least a prig; a man who is
tender-hearted without being sentimental; he likes a rather
combative nature, and enjoys repartee more than he enjoys humour.
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