Mince Pie

Two Days We Celebrate

If we were asked (we have not been asked) to name a day the world ought

to celebrate and does not, we would name the 16th of May. For on that

day, in the year 1763, James Boswell first met Dr. Samuel Johnson.

This great event, which enriched the world with one of the most vivid

panoramas of human nature known to man, happened in Tom Davies's

bookshop in Covent Garden. Mr. and Mrs. Davies were friends of the

Doctor, who frequently visited their shop. Of them Boswell remarks

quaintly that though they had been on the stage for many years, they

"maintained an uniform decency of character." The shop seems to have

been a charming place: one went there not merely to buy books, but also

to have a cup of tea in the back parlor. It is sad to think that though

we have been hanging round bookshops for a number of years, we have

never yet met a bookseller who invited us into the private office for a

quiet cup. Wait a moment, though, we are forgetting Dr. Rosenbach, the

famous bookseller of Philadelphia. But his collations, held in amazed

memory by many editioneers, rarely descend to anything so humble as tea.

One recalls a confused glamor of ortolans, trussed guinea-hens,

strawberries reclining in a bowl carved out of solid ice, and what used

to be known as vintages. It is a pity that Dr. Johnson died too soon to

take lunch with Dr. Rosenbach.

"At last, on Monday, the 16th of May," says Boswell, "when I was sitting

in Mr. Davies's back parlor, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs.

Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr. Davies, having

perceived him through the glass door, announced his awful approach to

me. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him.

I was much agitated." The volatile Boswell may be forgiven his

agitation. We also would have trembled not a little. Boswell was only

twenty-two, and probably felt that his whole life and career hung upon

the great man's mood. But embarrassment is a comely emotion for a young

man in the face of greatness; and the Doctor was speedily put in a good

humor by an opportunity to utter his favorite pleasantry at the expense

of the Scotch. "I do, indeed, come from Scotland," cried Boswell, after

Davies had let the cat out of the bag; "but I cannot help it." "That,

sir," said Doctor Johnson, "is what a great many of your countrymen

cannot help."

The great book that dated from that meeting in Davies's back parlor has

become one of the most intimately cherished possessions of the race. One

finds its admirers and students scattered over the globe. No man who

loves human nature in all its quirks and pangs, seasoned with bluff

honesty and the genuineness of a cliff or a tree, can afford to step

into a hearse until he has made it his own. And it is a noteworthy

illustration of the biblical saying that whosoever will rule, let him be

a servant. Boswell made himself the servant of Johnson, and became one

of the masters of English literature.

It used to annoy us to hear Karl Rosner referred to as "the Kaiser's

Boswell." For to _boswellize_ (which is a verb that has gone into our

dictionaries) means not merely to transcribe faithfully the acts and

moods and import of a man's life; it implies also that the man so

delineated be a good man and a great. Horace Traubel was perhaps a

Boswell; but Rosner never.

It is pleasant to know that Boswell was not merely a kind of animated

note-book. He was a droll, vain, erring, bibulous, warm-hearted

creature, a good deal of a Pepys, in fact, with all the Pepysian vices

and virtues. Mr. A. Edward Newton's "Amenities of Book Collecting" makes

Boswell very human to us. How jolly it is to learn that Jamie (like many

lesser fry since) wrote press notices about himself. Here is one of his

own blurbs, which we quote from Mr. Newton's book:

When we said that Boswell was a kind of Pepys, we fell by chance into a

happy comparison. Not only by his volatile errors was he of the tribe of

Samuel, but in his outstanding character by which he becomes of

importance to posterity--that of one of the great diarists. Now there is

no human failing upon which we look with more affectionate lenience than

that of keeping a diary. All of us, in our pilgrimage through the

difficult thickets of this world, have moods and moments when we have to

fall back on ourselves for the only complete understanding and

absolution we will ever find. In such times, how pleasant it is to

record our emotions and misgivings in the sure and secret pages of some

privy notebook; and how entertaining to read them again in later years!

Dr. Johnson himself advised Bozzy to keep a journal, though he little

suspected to what use it would be put. The cynical will say that he did

so in order that Bozzy would have less time to pester him, but we

believe his advice was sincere. It must have been, for the Doctor kept

one himself, of which more in a moment.

"He recommended to me," Boswell says, "to keep a journal of my life,

full and unreserved. He said it would be a very good exercise and would

yield me great satisfaction when the particulars were faded from my

remembrance. He counselled me to keep it private, and said I might

surely have a friend who would burn it in case of my death."

Happily it was not burned. The Great Doctor never seemed so near to me

as the other day when I saw a little notebook, bound in soft brown

leather and interleaved with blotting paper, in which Bozzy's busy pen

had jotted down memoranda of his talks with his friend, while they were

still echoing in his mind. From this notebook (which must have been one

of many) the paragraphs were transferred practically unaltered into the

Life. This superb treasure, now owned by Mr. Adam of Buffalo, almost

makes one hear the Doctor's voice; and one imagines Boswell sitting up

at night with his candle, methodically recording the remarks of the day.

The first entry was dated September 22, 1777, so Bozzy must have carried

it in his pocket when Dr. Johnson and he were visiting Dr. Taylor in

Ashbourne. It was during this junket that Dr. Johnson tried to pole the

large dead cat over Dr. Taylor's dam, an incident that Boswell recorded

as part of his "Flemish picture of my friend." It was then also that

Mrs. Killingley, mistress of Ashbourne's leading inn, The Green Man,

begged Boswell "to name the house to his extensive acquaintance."

Certainly Bozzy's acquaintance was to be far more extensive than good

Mrs. Killingley ever dreamed. It was he who "named the house" to me, and

for this reason The Green Man profited in fourpence worth of cider, 134

years later.

There is another day we have vowed to commemorate, by drinking great

flaggonage of tea, and that is the 18th of September, Dr. Johnson's

birthday. The Great Cham needs no champion; his speech and person have

become part of our common heritage. Yet the extraordinary scenario in

which Boswell filmed him for us has attained that curious estate of

great literature the characteristic of which is that every man imagines

he has read it, though he may never have opened its pages. It is like

the historic landmark of one's home town, which foreigners from overseas

come to study, but which the denizen has hardly entered. It is like

Niagara Falls: we have a very fair mental picture of the spectacle and

little zeal to visit the uproar itself. And so, though we all use

Doctor Johnson's sharply stamped coinages, we generally are too lax

about visiting the mint.

But we will never cease to pray that every honest man should study

Boswell. There are many who have topped the rise of human felicity in

that book: when reading it they feel the tide of intellect brim the mind

with a unique fullness of satisfaction. It is not a mere commentary on

life: it _is_ life--it fills and floods every channel of the brain. It

is a book that men make a hobby of, as golf or billiards. To know it is

a liberal education. I could have understood Germany yearning to invade

England in order to annex Boswell's Johnson. There would have been some

sense in that.

What is the average man's conception of Doctor Johnson? We think of a

huge ungainly creature, slovenly of dress, addicted to tea, the author

of a dictionary and the center of a tavern coterie. We think of him

prefacing bluff and vehement remarks with "Sir," and having a knack for

demolishing opponents in boisterous argument. All of which is passing

true, just as is our picture of the Niagara we have never seen; but how

it misses the inner tenderness and tormented virtue of the man!

So it is refreshing sometimes to turn away from Boswell to those

passages where the good old Doctor has revealed himself with his own

hand. The letter to Chesterfield is too well known for comment. But no

less noble, and not nearly so well known, is the preface to the

Dictionary. How moving it is in its sturdy courage, its strong grasp of

the tools of expression. In every line one feels the weight and push of

a mind that had behind it the full reservoir of language, particularly

the Latin. There is the same sense of urgent pressure that one feels in

watching a strong stream backed up behind a dam:

There were certain dates which Doctor Johnson almost always commemorated

in his private notebook--his birthday, the date of his wife's death,

the Easter season and New Year's. In these pathetic little entries one

sees the spirit that was dogmatic and proud among men abasing itself in

humility and pouring out the generous tenderness of an affectionate

nature. In these moments of contrition small peccadilloes took on tragic

importance in his mind. Rising late in the morning and the untidy state

of his papers seemed unforgivable sins. There is hardly any more moving

picture in the history of mankind than that of the rugged old doctor

pouring out his innocent petitions for greater strength in ordering his

life and bewailing his faults of sluggishness, indulgence at table and

disorderly thoughts. Let us begin with his entry on September 18, 1760,

his fifty-second birthday:

Sept. 18, 1764.

This is my 56th birthday, the day on which I have concluded 55 years.

I have outlived many friends, I have felt many sorrows. I have made few

improvements. Since my resolution formed last Easter, I have made no

advancement in knowledge or in goodness; nor do I recollect that I have

endeavored it. I am dejected, but not hopeless.

I resolve,

To study the Scriptures; I hope, in the original languages. Six hundred

and forty verses every Sunday will nearly comprise the Scriptures in a

year.

To read good books; to study theology.

To treasure in my mind passages for recollection.

To rise early; not later than six, if I can; I hope sooner, but as soon

as I can.

To keep a journal, both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.

To take care of my health by such means as I have designed.

To set down at night some plan for the morrow.

To-morrow I purpose to regulate my room.

"I am not yet in a state to form many resolutions; I purpose and hope to

rise early in the morning at eight, and by degrees at six; eight being

the latest hour to which bedtime can be properly extended; and six the

earliest that the present system of life requires."

One of the most pathetic of his entries is the following, on September

18, 1768:

"This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy.

On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much

disturb me."

From time to time there have been stupid or malicious people who have

said that Johnson's marriage with a homely woman twenty years older than

himself was not a love match. For instance, Mr. E.W. Howe, of Atchison,

Kan., in most respects an amiable and well-conducted philosopher,

uttered in _Howe's Monthly_ (May, 1918) the following words, which (I

hope) he will forever regret:

"I have heard that when a young man he (Johnson) married an ugly and

vulgar old woman for her money, and that his taste was so bad that he

worshiped her."

Against this let us set what Johnson wrote in his notebook on March 28,

1770:

So let us wish Doctor Johnson many happy returns of the day, sure that

as long as paper and ink and eyesight preserve their virtue he will bide

among us, real and living and endlessly loved.