"
Bunyan died in 1688, and Dr. Johnson was born in 1709. Many years,
therefore, elapsed between the time when they each displayed their
greatest powers.
The interval was occupied by many reputable worldly-wise writers, but I
do not myself find, between these two masters of English prose,
anyone who wrote passages of such great lustre that I can quote them
for your admiration.
You will have noticed, Antony, that all the writers whom I have quoted,
and who reached the true nobility of speech necessary to command our
tribute of unstinted praise, have been men of manifest piety and
reverence.
And you will find it difficult to discover really great and eloquent prose
from the pen of any man whose heart is not filled with a simple faith in
the goodness of God.
Your loving old
G.P.
11
MY DEAR ANTONY,
I have come now to Dr. Johnson, and it is almost a test of a true man
of letters that he should love him.
He was rugged and prejudiced, but magnanimous; impatient with the
presumptuous, tender to modest ignorance, proudly independent of the
patronage of the great, and was often doing deeds of noble
self-sacrifice by stealth.
Through long years of hard, unremitting toil for his daily bread he lived
bravely and sturdily, with no extraneous help but his stout oak stick--an
unconquerable man.
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