And this need cause us no surprise when we consider how much of the great work in letters and in art is directly due to the writer possessing in full measure the gift of sympathy.

People with this gift, even if they are without the faculty of expression, are beloved by those about them, which must bring them happiness.

Till he was over fifty Dr. Johnson’s life was a weary struggle with poverty.  He wrote Rasselas under the pressure of an urgent need of money to send to his dying mother.  His wife died some few years earlier.  I have always thought that the sad reflections he put into the mouth of an old philosopher towards the end of the story were indeed the true expressions of his own tired heart:—­

    “Praise,” said the sage with a sigh, “is to an old man an empty
    sound.  I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation
    of her son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband.

“I have outlived my friends and my rivals.  Nothing is now of much importance; for I cannot extend my interest beyond myself.  Youth is delighted with applause, because it is considered as the earnest of some future good, and because the prospect of life is far extended; but to me, who am now declining to decrepitude, there is little to be feared from the malevolence of men, and yet less to be hoped from their affection or esteem.  Something they may take away, but they can give me nothing.  Riches would now be useless, and high employment would be pain.  My retrospect of life recalls to my view many opportunities of good neglected, much time squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness and vacancy.  I leave many great designs unattempted, and many great attempts unfinished.

“My mind is burdened with no heavy crime, and therefore I compose myself to tranquillity; endeavour to abstract my thoughts from hopes and cares, which, though reason knows them to be vain, still try to keep their old possession of the heart; expect, with serene humility, that hour which nature cannot long delay; and hope to possess, in a better state, that happiness which here I could not find, and that virtue which here I have not attained.”

From the results of Rasselas he sent his mother money, but she had expired before it reached her.

Down to the time of Dr. Johnson it was the custom for writers of books and poems to seek and enjoy the patronage of some great nobleman, to whom they generally dedicated their works.

And in pursuance of that custom Dr. Johnson, when he first issued the plan or prospectus of his great Dictionary in 1747, addressed it to Lord Chesterfield, who was regarded as the most brilliant and cultivated nobleman of his time.  Lord Chesterfield, however, took no notice of the matter till the Dictionary was on the point of coming out in 1755, and then wrote some flippant remarks about it in a publication called The World.