Had
he shared more of the spirit which made Johnson refuse to owe to the
benevolence of others what Providence had enabled him to do for
himself, it might have been better, no doubt, for the world and for the
work which he did therein.
But when we consider what that work was, how varied and how wonderful,
it seems idle--nay, it seems ungrateful and ungracious--to speculate
too curiously on what further or other benefits this great intellect
might have conferred upon mankind, had its possessor been endowed with
those qualities of resolution and independence which he lacked. That
Coleridge so often only _shows_ the way, and so seldom guides our
steps along it to the end, is no just ground of complaint. It would be
as unreasonable to complain of a beacon-light that it is not a steam-tug,
and forget in the incompleteness of its separate services the glory of
their number. It is a more reasonable objection that the light itself
is too often liable to obscuration,--that it stands erected upon a rock
too often enshrouded by the mists of its encircling sea. But even this
objection should not too greatly weigh with us. It would be wiser and
better for us to dwell rather upon its splendour and helpfulness in the
hours of its efficacy, to think how vast is then the expanse of waters
which it illuminates, and its radiance how steady and serene.
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