Life of Johnson
1791
(A friend explains what made one of the greatest figures of the 18th century tick).
All text except quotations is copyright 1999 by David Lahti, and represents his views alone. 
CONTENTS:
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Boswell's assiduous and affectionate rendering of the life and thought of Samuel Johnson brings to light not only a man (actually two if we count the author himself) but a world-view, a way of life, even a culture. The ethnological or sociological significance of having such a close account of a middle-class Englishman in the eighteenth century is likely to be very great. Of deeper interest to me, however, was the steady gaze that was afforded into Johnson's philosophy on the one hand, and into his social relationships on the other. Two of the chiefly captivating elements of this work are the exposition of the personal and the intellectual sides to this Socratic figure. Although there are 1250 pages to be traversed in my edition, and although one need not digest the entire book word for word (especially given the voluminous notes), every paragraph must be looked at, and by far the most of them read straight through, in order to gather all that is of value in these respects. Johnson was the type of man that could leak a great deal of insight and wisdom with a casual line offered in the midst of an otherwise unremarkable exchange.
C. S. Lewis once remarked on the paucity of deep male-male friendships that occur in modern literature. That of Boswell and Johnson is perhaps one of the most dominating themes throughout the work, especially since the years of Johnson's life within which Boswell figures are immensely more detailed than the previous ones (The first 200 pages of the book deal with the first 50 years of Johnson's life, the following 1050 with the last 25. The last 100 pages is devoted to less than one year). We are given so many touching examples of their deep regard for one another, and of the particulars of their ongoing relationship, that I doubt whether a deeper look into a single instance of friendship can be found in the entire of English literature. All of the personal idiosyncrasies, the vicissitudes of mood, the easy and frank conversation are elaborated. Other personal relationships of Johnson are recorded as well, which are often of great interest. The dozens of male and female characters who are introduced and thus share these pages with Johnson and Boswell, whether through dialogue, description, or letters, provide us with foils for Johnson's acumen, humor, and sometimes temper. When they themselves are famous, such as Goldsmith, Burke, King George III, or (though not in person) Swift and Voltaire, one's interest is compounded, for here the ideas are assured literary, historical, and philosophical significance. The personal side to Boswell's work is not, however, provided just so that the reader may "identify" with Johnson, nor was it included to indulge an insatiable appetite in some rare reader for secret details of private life, characteristics so prevalent in modern biographies. Rather, the faithful Boswell shows us a whole man, complete with moral failings but unfailing principle, fear of death together with unceasing Christian devotion, in order to convey to us a piece of human nature as it is manifested in the noteworthy Samuel Johnson. Boswell was truly impressed with every aspect of the doctor's life, and sought to convey this impression to any readers who would care to find in the man a subject for learning about the human condition, as well as the role model for the pious and meditative human being. It is through the relating of the personal life of Johnson that we see what so captivated Boswell, and by so doing Boswell is able to draw us into his own friendship with the man.
Johnson the human being mingles with Johnson the philosopher, and it is precisely because these two people cannot be extricated from one another that Boswell finds the man to be worthy of such an extended monograph. If what Kierkegaard said about purity of heart being the ability to be single-minded has any truth, then surely one way to phrase the chief goal of any human being is the quest to unite all aspects of one's existence. In fact, this is not enough, for that unison must be towards the proper end; and that for Johnson was the truth of Christ. So, the fact that in Johnson we find not "a human being and also sometimes a philosopher", but rather a "philosopher-human" of the type Plato sought to produce in his fellow citizens, is a fact that is well to be demonstrated and inculcated to us through Boswell's writing. One reads this theme in the book as one accepts criticism or reads instructions-- perhaps not with sensuous entertainment, but with thoughtfulness. Edification is therefore Boswell's goal in drawing this theme throughout the book; it is a commendable theme, for in the words of George Eliot, "a book is good for nothing if it is not admirably good".
Of course, Johnson's philosophy touches on several matters besides the eminently spiritual, and in these as well there is much of value. If his political views are partially unsavory to us, with his hatred of America and all things rebellious to monarchy and hierarchical political structure, at the very least they are useful as a counterpoise to much of what we take for granted in our society. The ideals of liberty and equality are interpreted in a much different way by Johnson than they were by, say, his contemporary Jefferson, and we would do well to understand that culture out of which our forefathers came when they decided to establish a nation on distinctly different principles-- or, rather, principles differently understood. We may have occasion for pride when we read of Johnson's continual doubt that a democratic system could ever work; but we will also have a multitude of other occasions on which to pause and reconsider our assumptions about the way the world, our country, and our minds work. Such reconsideration would especially be forthcoming in this age which would be vehemently decried by Johnson as being thoroughly sopping with "Whiggishness", liberality of thought and unprincipled departure from norms not only political and social, but also moral and spiritual.
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Johnson
"Friendship, 'the wine of life', should, like a well-stocked cellar, be thus continually renewed."
-1755.
"The truth, however, is, that we judge of the happiness and misery of life differently at different times, according to the state of our changeable frame."
-1759.
"'In America there is little to be observed except natural curiosities.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1762.
"'Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1762.
"'Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labour; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"'...there must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"'A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"'But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"'There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."'
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"'Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"Against melancholy he recommended constant occupation of mind, a great deal of exercise, moderation in eating and drinking, and especially to shun drinking at night."
-1763.
"'Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"'I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind any thing else.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1763.
"'Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity'".
-Samuel Johnson, 1766.
"'There is in human nature a general inclination to make people stare.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1769.
"'Sir, (said he,) we know our will is free, and there's an end on't.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1769.
"'He observed, that the established clergy in general did not preach plain enough; and that polished periods and glittering sentences flew over the heads of the common people, without any impression on their hearts.'"
-Rev. Dr. Maxwell (a friend), on Johnson, 1770.
"'That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1770.
"...a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization."
-Samuel Johnson, 1770.
"'The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1775.
"'No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1776.
"'Marriage is the best state for a man in general; and every man is a worse man, in proportion as he is unfit for the married state.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1776.
"'You may translate books of science exactly. You may also translate history, in so far as it is not embellished with oratory, which is poetical. Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language, if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1776.
"'The characteristick of our own government at present is imbecility.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1776.
"'How seldom is any man convinced by another's argument; passion and pride rise against it.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1778.
"'Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1778.
"'The happiness of heaven will be, that pleasure and virtue will be perfectly consistent."
-Samuel Johnson, 1778.
"'...there is no more reason to suppose that the choice of a rabble will be right, than that chance will be right.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1778.
"'Any fresh instance of the uncertainty of life makes one embrace more closely a valuable friend.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1779.
"Every man is to take care of his own wisdom and his own virtue, without minding too much what others think.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1779.
"It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing."
-Samuel Johnson, 1783.
"'Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.'"
-Samuel Johnson, 1784.
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...you want to 'touch base' with the culture from which the United States originally branched; or to meet and get to know an interesting person who strove after truth, wisdom, and piety.
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If you like this, you'd also like...
(for the honorary member of Johnson's circle:)
-Edmund Burke, The Sublime and the Beautiful (1757).
-Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1764).
-Samuel Johnson, The Rambler (1752).
(for the hunter after thoughtful biography:)
-Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (1793).
-Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781).
-Plutarch, Lives (1st century A.D.).
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