��when a man gets a couple of quiet ones to spend in familiar chat with his wife, they must be poisoned by petty mortifications ? Put missey to school ; she will learn to hold her head like her neighbours, and you will no longer torment your family for want of other talk.'
The vacuity of life had at some early period of his life struck so forcibly on the mind of Mr. Johnson, that it became by repeated impression his favourite hypothesis, and the general tenor of his reasonings commonly ended there, wherever they might begin. Such things therefore as other philosophers often attribute to various and contradictory causes, appeared to him uniform enough ; all was done to fill up the time, upon his principle 1 . I used to tell him, that it was like the Clown's answer in All's well that ends well 2 , of * Oh Lord, Sir ! ' for that it suited every occasion. One man, for example, was profligate and wild, as we call it, followed the girls, or sat still at the gaming table. 'Why, life must be filled up (says Johnson), and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.' Another was a hoarder :
- Why, a fellow must do something ; and what so easy to a
narrow mind as hoarding halfpence till they turn into sixpences.' Avarice was a vice against which, however, I never much heard Mr. Johnson disclaim 3 , till one represented it to him connected with cruelty, or some such disgraceful companion. * Do not (said he) discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it : whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite ; and shews
1 'When I, in a low-spirited fit, must resolve to avoid it; and it was talking to him with indifference must be avoided generally by the of the pursuits which generally en- science of sparing.' Rambler, No. gage us in a course of action, and 57.
inquiring a reason for taking so To Boswell, who had come into
much trouble ; " Sir (said he, in an his inheritance, he wrote :--* Do not
animated tone) it is driving on the think your estate your own, while
system of life.'" Life, iv. 112. any man can call upon you for
2 Act ii. sc. 2. money which you cannot pay ; there-
3 ' The prospect of penury in age fore begin with timorous parsimony, is so gloomy and terrifying, that Let it be your first care not to be in every man who looks before him any man's debt.' Lz/e, iv. 1 54.
besides
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