The veneration of Samuel Johnson is a curiously British cult. T.C. finds a plinth of equal elevation for Hume, almost.
"Both realised the highest task of Manhood, that of living like men; each died not unfitly, in his way; Hume as one with the factitious, half-false gaiety, taking leave of what was itself wholly but a Lie; Johnson as one, with awe-struck, yet resolute and piously expectant heart, taking leave of a Reality, to enter a Reality still higher. Johnson had the harder problem of it, from first to last; whether, with some hesitation, we can admit that he was intrinsically the better gifted, may remain undecided."
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