Still happily swimming in Dr. Johnson's orotundities. Here he is, in Rasselas, on an old problem:
Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.
When Johnson speaks of marriage, it is tempting to make biographical applications. His wife, who was his senior by about 25 years, is a somewhat shadowy character in The Life of Johnson. Perhaps Boswell didn't know too much about her, perhaps details would not serve a quasi-hagiographic purpose. Perhaps both. What I know of the record suggests that Johnson at first adored her, then neglected her, and finally, after her death, suffered terribly from remorse over his behavior toward her. In Rambler No. 45 he advances the argument that people only think that marriage makes them miserable. They recall their youth, when they were vigorous and full of hope, also as yet unmarried, then look across the room (I'm paraphrasing) and attribute to the first thing the eye settles on their current unhappiness. But the real problem is that they are no longer young and vigorous and full of hope. I shall cease paraphrasing: "It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that whether married or unmarried we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous the longer it is worn."
By the way, if the SAT is in the future of your offspring, you may want to push on them Johnson's Ramblers and Idlers. Hell, he wrote the Dictionary, and it shows.
The fact of second marriages is adduced to show that matrimony, though complained about, is most probably not an inferior state. There is wisdom in crowds. Johnson, however, did not himself remarry, and lived a widower for his last 32 years. Despite his many good traits it is hard to doubt that he would have been a trying domestic companion. Better to read him, even if you've already taken the SAT. Clear thinking, forceful expressions, a scorn for cant and sentimentality--recommended for all. His great theme is wishful thinking, a ruinous folly that, on the topic at hand, wears the aspect of self-serving convictions. Why do spouses resent one another? "We are always willing to fancy ourselves within a little of happiness and when, with repeated efforts, we cannot reach it, persuade ourselves that it is intercepted by an ill-paired mate, since if we could find any other obstacle it would be our own fault that it was not removed."
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