mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends?" Affectation: It is not folly but pride, not error but deceit, which the world means to persecute, when it raises the full cry of nature to hunt down affectation. . . . Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy, as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities which we might, with innocence and safety, be known to want. . . . Hypocrisy is the necessary burthen of villany, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop. Contempt is the proper punishment of affectation, and detestation the just consequence of hypocrisy. Rambler, No. 20. SCARCE any man becomes eminently disagreeable, but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education have left him unqualified. Rambler, No. 179. Wit and of Samuel Johnson. Allegories: ALLEGORIES drawn to great length will always break. Works, vii. 323. Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson. Allegorical Paintings: I HAD rather see the portrait of a dog that I know than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world. Works (ed. 1787) xi. 208. Ambition: generally proportioned to capacity : It is, I believe, a very just observation, that men's ambition is generally proportioned to their capacity. Providence seldom sends any into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have not abilities likewise to perform them. Works, vi. 275. Ambulatory Students: TOM RESTLESS has long had a mind to be a man of knowledge, but he does not care to spend much time among authors; for he is of opinion that few books deserve the labour of perusal, that they give the mind an unfashionable cast, and destroy that freedom of thought and easiness of manners indispensably requisite to acceptance in the world. Tom has therefore found another way to wisdom. When he rises he goes into a coffee-house, where he creeps so near to men whom he takes to be reasoners as to hear their discourse, and endeavours to remember something which, when it has been strained through Tom's head, is so near to nothing, that what it once was cannot be discovered. This he carries round from friend to friend through a circle of visits, till, hearing what each says upon the question, he becomes able at dinner to say a little himself; and, as every great genius relaxes himself among his inferiors, meets with some who wonder how so young a man can talk so wisely. At At night he has a new feast prepared for his intellects; he always runs to a disputing society, or a speaking club, where he half hears what, if he had heard the whole, he would but half understand; goes home pleased with the consciousness of a day well spent, lies down full of ideas, and rises in the morning empty as before. Amendments: Idler, No. 48. AMENDMENTS are seldom made without some token of a rent. Wit and of Samuel Johnson. Amusements: I AM a great friend to publick amusements; for they keep people from vice. Ancestors: Ib. ii. 169. REASON, indeed, will soon inform us, that our estimation of birth is arbitrary and capricious, and that dead ancestors can have no influence but upon imagination: let it then be examined, whether one dream may not operate in the place of another; whether he that owes nothing to forefathers, may not receive equal pleasure from the consciousness of owing all to himself; whether he may not, with a little meditation, find it more honourable to found than to continue a family, and to gain dignity than transmit it; whether if he receives no dignity from the virtues of his family, he does not likewise escape the danger of being disgraced by their crimes; and whether he that brings a new name into the world, has not the convenience of playing Wit and Wisdom playing the game of life without a stake, and opportunity of winning much though he has nothing to lose. of Samuel Johnson. Anecdotes: Adventurer, No. 111. 'DR. JOHNSON had last night looked into Lord Hailes's Remarks on the History of Scotland. Dr. Robertson and I said, it was a pity Lord Hailes did not write greater things. His lordship had not then published his Annals of Scotland. JOHNSON. "I remember I was once on a visit at the house of a lady for whom I had a high respect. There was a good deal of company in the room. When they were gone, I said to this lady, 'What foolish talking have we had!' 'Yes, (said she,) but while they talked, you said nothing.' I was struck with the reproof. How much better is the man who does anything that is innocent, than he who does nothing. Besides, I love anecdotes. I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. If a man is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in getting them, and get but few, in comparison of what we might get."' Boswell's Life of Johnson, v. 38. Antipathies: THERE is one species of terror which those who are unwilling to suffer the reproach of cowardice have wisely dignified with the name of antipathy. A man who talks with intrepidity of the monsters of the wilderness while they are out of sight will readily confess his antipathy to a mole, a weasel, or a frog. He has indeed no dread of harm from an insect or a worm, but his antipathy turns him pale whenever they approach him. He believes that a boat will transport him with as much safety as his neighbours, but he cannot conquer his antipathy to the water. Thus he goes on without any reproach from his own reflections, and every day multiplies antipathies, till he becomes contemptible to others, and burdensome to himself. It is indeed certain, that impressions of dread may sometimes be unluckily made by objects not in themselves justly formidable; but when fear is discovered to be groundless, it is to be eradicated like other false opinions, and antipathies are generally superable by a single effort He that has been taught to shudder at a mouse, if he can persuade himself to risk one encounter, will find his own superiority, and exchange his terrors for the pride of conquest. Antiquaries: A MERE antiquarian is a rugged being. Rambler, No. 126. Boswell's Life of Johnson, iii. 278. Anxious Cleanliness: THERE is a kind of anxious cleanliness which I have always noted as the characteristic of a slattern; it is the superfluous scrupulosity of guilt, dreading discovery, and shunning suspicion: it is the violence of an effort against habit, which, being impelled by external motives, cannot stop at the middle point. Rambler, No. 115. Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson. Appetite : A MAN who rides out for an appetite consults but little the dignity of human nature. Works (ed. 1787) xi. 204. Arguments |