. . young men have
more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every
respect.' At sixty-eight he said: 'I value myself upon this, that there
is nothing of the old man in my conversation.' Upon women of all classes
and ages he exerts without trying a charm the consciousness of which
would have turned any head less constant than his own, and with their
fulsome adoration he was pleased none the less for perceiving its real
value.
But the most important of his friendships developed between him and such
men of genius as Boswell, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and Edmund Burke. Johnson's genius left no fit testimony of
itself from his own hand. With all the greatness of his mind he had no
talent in sufficient measure by which fully to express himself. He had
no ear for music and no eye for painting, and the finest qualities in
the creations of Goldsmith were lost upon him. But his genius found
its talents in others, and through the talents of his personal friends
expressed itself as it were by proxy.
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