The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-22
From the Outlook.

N OSTERITY is greatly interested in N Johnson, stands good deal in ! awe of Burke. who was a man of the first order of brain, has a hearty liking for Sir Joshua and his trumpet, but loves Oliver Goldsmith. As matter of sound Anglo-Saxon judgment, this love is not quite legitimate. If love should follow regularity of habit and symmetry of character, Goldsmith has received much to which he was not en- titled; for he was a wayward and ir- responsible Irishman, who did many things that were reprehensible and left undone many things that are commend able He was Bohemian Celt in the most highly organized conventionally prudent and moral country in the world. There was strain of wildness in his taste as well as in his habits. Johnson was abominably careless in dress; Gold smith would have worn the rainbow compacently if he could have laid hands on it. AS it was, he did what he could to run it's gayest colors to earth and light up dirty London streets and somber London drawing rooms.
 NIO1uSIultn NdS at tiihCS o iCoi No6o bond; not picturesque flute player un- der a vine in Sorrento. but shabby wan derer, half famished, drenched with sudden rains, a victim of the worst for tunes of the open road. But he was all ways the beloved vagabond." The plain fact is that we love, not what is admir- able, but what is loyabje. There are hosts of trustworthy people who keep the law but acc never taken to the hearts of their fellows. because they lack the generosity of spirit, the warmth of nature, the capacity for companionship which draws us, not with bands of steel, but with the compelling power of sun light
 Right thinking, right feeling and right acting people keep the conscience and sanity of the world, but it's heart is in the hands of those ardent souls whose sympathy flows like a fountain, whose presence is cheer and whose capacity for love covers multitude of faults. The business of life is conducted by the prompt, the methodical, the reliable; but the joy of life, the sense of its free dom and beauty are largely in the keep ing of those who stray through the ways of the world like children in a garden, whose expectation of food and raiment, though often disappointed. never fades into the common day.
 Goldsmith came of an improvident country and an improvident family, and never, under any circumstances, could have been other than a borrower to whom the day of payment was always an Irish adaptation of the Spanish ''to- morrow Poverty and wealth would have been alike to him; if he had had more money, he would have given more away; not pound would have stayed by him. His gayety vas inextinguish- able, as his misfortunes were interrni- nable; the debtors prison could not de- stroy the first, nor could the Bank Of England have kept him permanently in funds. His inability to deal with life on the practical side was simply gro- tesoue: to attach moral responsibility to him is absurd.
 The delicate genius which gave the world "The Deserted Village" and '"The Vicar of Wakefield" and the spontan- eous and charming wit which gave us 'she Stoops to Conquer" and "The Good -Natured Man." needed to make the world no other payment for such care as 1t bestowed on Goldsmith. He paid the price of his open-heartedness, his open-handedness and his childlike innocence of practical sagacity. His life, which had fountain-like quality of joy and hope in its depths. was touched with a heartbreaking pathos of loneliness homelessness. and privation. But when the news of his death came, Burke burst into tears, Reynolds laid down his brushes, left his painting room, and spent the day in solitude; Johnson mourned for him to the day of his death; and when, sixty years later, the Jessamy bride was laid to rest. there was found in her possession small gold locket in which she had kept lock of Goldsmith's hair. To those who love