Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the jour~ ney of a wit to his native town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him who feels it with great sensibility, a mind able to see common incidents in their real state, is disposed by very common incidents to very serious contemplations. Let us trust that a time will come, when the present moment shall be no longer irksome; when we shall not borrow all our happiness from hope, which at last is to end in disappointment. I beg that you will show Mr. Beauclerk all the civilities which you have in your power; for he has always been kind to me. May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or at some other place nearer to Your most affectionate, humble servant, SAMUEL JOHNSON. LETTER VII. To Mr. Baretti. December 21, 1762. You are not to suppose, with all your conviction of my idleness, that I have passed all this time without writing to my Baretti. I gave a letter to Mr. Beauclerk, who, in my opinion, and in his own, was hastening to Naples for the recovery of his health; but he has stopped at Paris, and I know not when he will proceed. Langton is with him. I will not trouble you with speculations about peace and war. The good or ill success of battles and embassies extends itself to a very small part of domestic life; we have all good and evil, which we feel more sensibly than our petty part of public miscarriage or prosperity. I am sorry for your disapU pointment, with which you seem more touched than 1 should expect a man of your resolution and experience to be, did I not know that general truths are seldom applied to particular occasions; and that the fallacy of our self-love extends itself as wide as our interest or affections. Every man believes that patrons are capricious; but he excepts his own patron. We have all learned that greatness is negligent and contemptuous, and that, in courts, life is often languished away in ungratified expectation; but he who approaches greatness, or glitters in a court, imagines that destiny has exempted him from the common lot. Do not let such evils overwhelm you, as thousands have suffered, and thousands have surmounted: but turn your thoughts with vigour to some other plan of life; and keep always in your mind, that, with due submission to Providence, a man of genius has seldom been ruined but by himself. Your patron's weakness or insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by your own passions. Of your love I know not the propriety, nor can I estimate the power; but in love, as in every other passion, of which hope is the essence, we ought always to remember the uncertainty of events. I do not, however, pretend to have discovered that life has any thing more to be desired than a prudent and vir tuous marriage; therefore, I know not what counsel to give you. If you can quit your imagination of greatness, and leave your hopes of preferment, to try once more the fortune of literature and industry, the way through France is now open. We flatter ourselves that we shall cultivate with great diligence the arts of peace; and every man will be welcome among us, who can teach us any thing which we do not know. For your part, you will find all your old friends willing to receive you. I know not whether I have not sent you word that Huggins and Richardson are both dead. When we see our enemies and our friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and that we shall soon be where our doom will be fixed for ever. I pray God to bless you; and I am sir, Write soon. LETTER VIII. Dear sir, To James Boswell, esq. at Utrecht. London, Dec. 8, 1763. You are not to think yourself forgotten, or neglected, that you have had yet no letter from me. I love to see my friends, to hear from them, to talk to them, and to talk of them; but it is not without a considerable effort of resolution that I prevail upon myself to write. I would not, however, gratify my own indolence by the omission of any important duty, or any office of real kindness. The topics with which those letters are commonly filled, that are written only for the sake of writing, I seldom shall think worth communicating; but if I can have it in my power, to calm any harassing disquiet, to excite any virtuous desire, to rectify any important opinion, or fortify any generous resolution, you need not doubt but I shall at least wish to prefer the pleasure of gratifying a friend much less esteemed than yourself, before the gloomy calm of idle vacancy. Whether I shall easily arrive at an exact punctuality of correspondence, I cannot tell. You will, perhaps, wish to ask, what study I would recommend. I shall not speak of theology, because it ought not to be considered as a question whether you shall endeavour to know the will of God. I shall, therefore, consider only such studies as we are at liberty to pursue or to neglect; and of these I know not how you will make a better choice, than by studying the civil law, as your father advises, and the ancient languages, as you had determined for yourself. Resolve, while you remain in any settled residence, to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books. The dissipation of thought, of which you complain, is nothing more than the vacillation of a mind suspended between different motives, and changing its direction as any motive gains or loses strength. If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon your memory. There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself. This vanity makes one mind nurse aversions, and another actuate desires, till they rise by art much above their original state of power; and as affectation, in time, improves to habit, they at last tyrannise over him who, at first, encouraged them only for show. They are, like the viper in the bosom, who, while he was chill, was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison. You know a gentleman, who, when first he set his foot in the gay world, as he prepared himself to whirl in the vortex of pleasure, imagined a total indifference and a universal negligence to be the most agreeable concomitants of youth, and the strongest indication of an airy temper and a quick apprehension. Vacant to every object, and sensible of every impulse, he thought that all appearance of diligence would deduct something from the reputation of genius; and hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the case of carelessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and those accomplishments, which mortals of the common fabric obtain only by mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He tried the scheme of life awhile; and he was made weary of it by his sense and his virtuc. He then wished to return to his studies: but finding long habits of idleness and pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, and still willing to retain his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, he resolved the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable degree of destiny, and concluded that Nature had originally formed him incapable of rational employment. Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, be banished henceforward from your thoughts. Resolve, and keep your resolution; choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend this day in study, you will find yourself still more able to study to-morrow; not that you are to expect that you shall at once obtain a complete victory. Depravity is not very easily overcome. Resolution will sometimes relax, and diligence will sometimes be interrupted; but let no accidental surprise or deviation, whether short or long, dispose you to despondency. Consider these failings as incident to all mankind. Begin again where you left off; and endeavour to avoid the seducements that prevailed over you before. This, my dear Boswell, is advice which, perhaps, has been often given you, and given you without effect. But this advice, if you will not take from others, you must take from your own reflections, if you purpose to do the duties of the station to which the bounty of Providence has called you. Let me have a long letter from you as soon as you can. I hope you continue your journal, and enrich it with many observations upon the country in which you reside. I am, dear sir, Your affectionate servant, SAMUEL JOHNSON. |