In this playful manner did he run on, exulting in his own pleasantry, which certainly was not such as might be expected from the author of The Rambler, but which is here preserved that my readers may be acquainted even with the slightest occasional characteristics of so eminent a man.
Something of Boswell’s genius is revealed in a passage like this. The genius of Johnson is harder to capture and define. Perhaps it might be said to consist in an unfailing instinct for the realities of life. When he utters what sounds like a commonplace, it will be found on examination to be something far different from a commonplace, something that calls attention back to the forgotten essential, which, when once it is remembered, puts an end to the idle play of theory. ‘A man is loath to be angry at himself.’ ‘Babies do not want to hear about babies.’ ‘The great end of comedy is to make an audience merry.’ ‘When a man is tired of London he is tired of life.’ ‘A cow is a very good animal in a field, but we turn her out of a garden.’ ‘No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.’ ‘It is a sad thing for a man to lie down and die.’ These are not wit in the usual sense of that word; but if they be understood in their
