This is, I suppose, a
question of vitality, not necessarily of activity of mind and body,
but a deep instinctive desire to live; the thought of deliberate
suicide was wholly unintelligible to Johnson, death was his
ultimate fear, and however much he suffered from disease or
depression, his intention to live was always inalienable.
His fear then was one which no devoutness of faith, no resolute
tenacity of hope, no array of reasons could ever touch. It was
simply the unknown that he feared. Life had not been an easy
business for Johnson; he had known all the calamities of life, and
he was familiar with the worst calamity of all, the causeless
melancholy which makes life weary and distasteful without ever
removing the certainty that it is in itself desirable.
We may see from all this that to attempt to seek a cure for fear in
reason is foredoomed to failure, because fear lies in a region that
is behind all reason. It exists in the depth of the spirit, as in
the fallen gloom of the glimmering sea-deeps, and it can be touched
by no activity of life and joy and sunlight on the surface, where
the speeding sail moves past wind-swept headlands.
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