The greatest talents are usually coupled with the most acute sensibility. Rousseau imagined a phantom ever by his side; Luther had his demon, who frequented his study at all hours. So realistic was the great reformer's imagination, that he was accustomed to throw at the intruder any article nearest at hand. The confusion thus caused may easily be conceived when on one such occasion he cast his inkstand, with its contents, at the supposed demon. Cowper's weird and fatal messenger will also be remembered. Tasso's spirits glided in the air,[127] and Mozart's "man in black" induced him to write his own requiem. But Johnson saw omens in the most trifling circumstances. If he chanced, in passing out of the house, to place his left foot foremost, he would return and start with the right, as promising immunity from accident and a safe return. Strange as it may seem, this eminent and profound man put faith in a long list of equally ridiculous omens in every-day life. He was a most voluminous and versatile writer, and excelled in delineating female characters; though Burke did say "all the ladies of his dramatis personæ were Johnsons in petticoats." Few persons with means so limited as his ever spent more for charitable purposes; and if his disposition was irritable, his heart was kind. "He loved the poor," says Mrs. Thrale, "as I never yet saw any one else love them. He nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat." Now and then, throughout Johnson's life, we get a glimpse that shows us the man, not as the world at large knew him, but as his unmasked heart appeared. Does the reader recall the incident of his kneeling by the dying bed of an aged woman, and giving her a pious kiss, afterwards recording, "We parted firmly, hoping to meet again"?