I have a Penguin Classic paperback edition of Samuel Johnson's Collected Essays that I've been forging through at the rate of one or two a day. According to the blurb on the back cover, Johnson tackles "ethical questions such as the importance of self-knowledge, awareness of mortality, the role of the novel, and, in a lighter vein, marriage . . . ."
In a lighter vein, marriage? I think I remember, almost exactly ten years ago, Judge Jack Nordby telling Amanda and me, before pronouncing the magic words, that marriage was not to be entered into lightly, and by now she has probably come around to that view herself. Here is Dr Johnson in Rambler No. 39:
Melanthia came to town upon the death of her father, with a very large fortune, and with the reputation of a much larger; she was therefore followed and caressed by many men of rank, and by some of understanding; but having an insatiable desire of pleasure, she was not at leisure, from the park, the gardens, the theatres, visits, assemblies, and masquerades, to attend seriously to any proposal, but was still impatient for a new flatterer, and neglected marriage as always in her power; till in time her admirers fell away, wearied with expence, disgusted at her folly, or offended by her inconstancy; she heard of concerts to which she was not invited, and was more than once forced to sit still at an assembly, for want of a partner. In this distress, chance threw in her way Philotryphus, a man vain, glittering, and thoughtless as herself, who had spent a small fortune in equipage and dress, and was shining in the last suit for which his taylor would give him credit. He had been long endeavouring to retrieve his extravagance by marriage, and therefore soon paid his court to Melanthia, who after some weeks of insensibility saw him at a ball, and was wholly overcome by his performance in a minuet. They married; but a man cannot always dance, and Philotryphus had no other method of pleasing . . . .
That was in 1750. Johnson's wife, Tetty, died two years later, and when in 1759 his mother died, he defrayed the funeral expenses by hastily composing and rushing into print The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssnia, in which one of the characters, pretty clearly speaking for the author, declaims:
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 diversity 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.
The consistent outlook maintained in different circumstances raises questions about Dr Johnson's own marriage, the more so since it occurred when he was penniless and in his mid-20s, to a woman in her mid-40s who came with a dowry of £600. Tetty was dead before Johnson met Boswell, so she figures in The Life of Johnson (if memory serves) only when, on the anniversaries of her death, her presence in his daily devotion is put forward as further proof of his moral excellence. Tetty was however regarded with mirth by other of Johnson's friends, who remarked on her size (large) and debated whether her rosy complexion was best explained by her overuse of paint or spirits. We now know, though not from Boswell, that Johnson's early years in London were marred by extreme privation, including probably homelessness, and it is unclear in what part of this Tetty shared: Johnson seems to have been living as a bachelor. He never remarried, and is on record as having described second marriages as representing "the triumph of hope over experience." His long flirtation in old age with Mrs Thrale ended badly, though "flirtation" is probably not the word, since it seems she and he were practitioners of something that sounds a lot like S & M.
The conclusion of the argument is that it's easier to write well than live well.
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