Page:Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination, Walter de la Mare, 1919.djvu/11

Rh "Let us hear it," cried Goldsmith, "we'll put a bad one to it!" "No, sir, I have forgot it." And so sally succeeded sally.

How much of the virtue of Johnson's talk we are to attribute to Boswell's genius for selection and condensation, and how much to the habituality of his idol's supreme judgment, penetration, humanity and good sense, is one of the delectable problems of literature. This fact, at any rate, is unquestionable; namely, that Johnson seldom indeed let fall a remark, even though merely in passing, which is not worth a sensible man's consideration. He knew—rare felicity—what he was talking about. He spoke—rare presence of mind—not without, but after, aforethought. However dogmatic, overbearing and partisan he might be, not only in what he is recorded to have said is there always something substantive and four-square, but frequently even a light and occasional utterance of his will stand like a signpost at the cross-roads positively imploring the traveller to make further exploration.

"The lad does not care for the child's rattle." Here, surely, is one of those signposts, one more enticing invitation to explore. By rattle, obviously, Johnson meant not only things childish, but things childlike. For such things the 'lad' does not merely cease to care. He