When I was a kid, my dad had a book, The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill, that I read for amusement. I only remember, possibly inaccurately, a few of the entries:
- "Nothing in life is so exhilirating as to be shot at without result."
- After having visited New York City for the first time, he was asked his impressions, and replied, "Newspaper too thick, lavatory paper too thin."
- "Golf is a game in which the player must strike a small ball into a small and distant hole with implements ill-suited to the purpose."
- At a state dinner Churchill, bored with the guests, was drinking copiously, and was soon upbraided by a member of the House of Lords who, taking him aside, complained, "Sir Winston, you're drunk!" The prime minister replied, "Yes, I am. But you're an ignorant toady, and tomorrow I won't be drunk."
I just finished Boswell's Life of Johnson, and I have to say that someone determined to criticize it might say that the effect of hundreds of pages stuffed full of similarly clever ripostes, put-downs, and conversational sparklers is like too much dessert. Boswell was too fond of including them, and in at least one instance the basic question of authenticity arises, since a famous Johnsonian retort to an insult—
Sir, your wife under pretense of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods
—has been found in a joke book published before Boswell was born. The theory is that one of Boswell's sources knew and loved the line, so put it in the mouth of Johnson, and Boswell, loving this kind of thing, and being moreover keen on augmenting his own voluminous collection of Johnson's wit, simply tossed it in without performing the tedious part of the biographer's trade. In the Life, the context for the anecdote concerns the custom of boaters on the Thames to shout insults at one another, a pastime that wouldn't seem to appeal to the author of grave essays on moral topics that often seem to have been not so much composed as embalmed in a ponderous, brocaded, polysyllabic style. On the other hand, one of the great pleasures of the Life is the many vivid scenes of Johnson in the role of a picaresque adventurer, merrily undercutting a reader's sense of what the owner of his prose style must have been like. For example:
One night, when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a night-cap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to attack him. When he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and with great good humour agreed to their proposal. "What, is it you, you dogs! I'll have a frisk with you." He was soon drest, and they sallied forth together into Covent-Garden, where the greengrocers and fruiterers were beginning to arrange their hampers, just come in from the country. Johnson made some attempts to help them; but the honest gardeners stared so at his figure and manner, and odd interference, that he soon saw his services were not relished. They then repaired to one of the neighbouring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called Bishop, which Johnson had always liked; while in joyous contempt of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the festive lines,
Short, O short then be thy reign,
And give us to the world again!
They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, took a boat, and rowed to Billingsgate. Beauclerk and Johnson were so well pleased with their amusement, that they resolved to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the day. . . .
When the grave Christian moralist appears, the effect made by the lumbering essayist is offset by a dollop of possibly chauvinistic sprightliness:
I repeated to him an argument of a lady of my acquaintance who maintained, that her husband's having been guilty of numberless infidelities, released her from conjugal obligations, because they were reciprocal. JOHNSON. "This is miserable stuff, Sir. To the contract of marriage, besides the man and wife, there is a third party—Society; and if it be considered as a vow—God: and, therefore, it cannot be dissolved by their consent alone. Laws are not made for particular cases, but for men in general. A woman may be unhappy with her husband; but she cannot be freed from him without the approbation of the civil and ecclesiastical power. . . ." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, this lady does not want that the contract should be dissolved; she only argues that she may indulge herself in gallantries with equal freedom as her husband does, provided she takes care not to introduce spurious issue into his family. . . ." JOHNSON. "This lady of yours, Sir, I think, is very fit for a brothel."
My attention meter always spikes whenever the topic of the rebelling American colonists arises. Who would not concur with Boswell's concluding observation on the following small episode?
The gentleman who had dined with us at Dr. Percy's came in. Johnson attacked the Americans with intemperate vehemence of abuse. I said something in their favour; and added, that I was always sorry, when he talked on that subject. This, it seems, exasperated him; though he said nothing at the time. The cloud was charged with sulphureous vapour, which was afterwards to burst into thunder.—We talked of a gentleman who was running out his fortune in London; and I said, "We must get him out of it. All his friends must quarrel with him, and that will soon drive him away." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, we'll send you to him. If your company does not drive a man out of his house, nothing will." This was a horrible shock, for which there was no visible cause. I afterwards asked him why he had said so harsh a thing. JOHNSON. "Because, Sir, you made me angry about the Americans." BOSWELL. "But why did you not take your revenge directly?" JOHNSON (smiling). "Because, Sir, I had nothing ready. A man cannot strike till he has his weapons." This was a candid and pleasant confession.
I don't think Boswell probes very deeply into his subject's psychology, but, under the influence of his Life, one has to be determined not to love Johnson almost without reservation. From his account of Johnson's last days:
During his last illness, Johnson experienced the steady and kind attachment of his numerous friends. . . . Mr. Langton informs me, that, "one day he found Mr. [Edmund] Burke and four or five more friends sitting with Johnson. Mr. Burke said to him, 'I am afraid, Sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you.'—'No, Sir, (said Johnson,) it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state, indeed, when your company would not be a delight to me.' Mr. Burke, in a tremulous voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied, 'My dear Sir, you have always been too good to me.' Immediately afterwards he went away. This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these two eminent men. . . ."
Mr. Windham having placed a pillow conveniently to support him, he thanked him for his kindness, and said, "That will do,—all that a pillow can do."
[Snip]
Johnson, with that native fortitude, which, amidst all his bodily distress and mental sufferings, never forsook him, asked Dr. Brocklesby, as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him plainly whether he could recover. "Give me (said he) a direct answer." The Doctor having first asked him if he could hear the whole truth, which way soever it might lead, and being answered that he could, declared that, in his opinion, he could not recover without a miracle. "Then, (said Johnson,) I will take no more physick, not even my opiates: for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded." In this resolution he persevered. . . .
My tentative plan is to take the opiates, all of them, and render up my soul all beclouded, and also to reread The Life of Johnson at least one more time before these issues arise. It takes 5 to 10 years to forget all about the intermittent boring stretches so I think the actuarial charts may be in my favor.
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