79 Sir Joshua Reynolds having said that he took the 1784 altitude of a man's taste by his stories and his wit, and of his understanding by the remarks which he repeated; being always sure that he must be a weak man, who quotes common things with an emphasis as if they were oracles;-Johnson agreed with him; and Sir Joshua having also observed that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements, --Johnson added, "Yes, sir; no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures."

80 The difference, he [Johnson] observed, between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is this: "One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion. You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other till you find reason to love him."

81 [Contributed to Boswell by a friend of Johnson's.] "It has been supposed that Dr. Johnson, so far as fashion was concerned, was careless of his appearance in public. But this is not altogether true, as the following slight instance may show Goldsmith's last comedy was to be represented during some court-mourning; and Mr. Steevens appointed to call on Dr. Johnson, and carry him to the tavern where he was to dine with others of the Poet's friends. The Doctor was ready dressed, but in colored clothes; yet being told that he would find everyone else in black, received the intelligence with a profusion of thanks, hastened to change his attire, all the while repeating his gratitude for the information that had saved him from an appearance so improper in the front row of a front box. "I would not,' added he, 'for ten pounds, have seemed so retrograde to any general observance.""

82 He [Johnson] entered upon a curious discussion of the difference between intuition and sagacity; one being im

1784 mediate in its effect, the other requiring a circuitous process; one he observed was the eye of the mind, the other the nose of the mind.

A young gentleman present took up the argument against him and maintained that no man ever thinks of the nose of the mind, not adverting that though that figurative sense seems strange to us, as very unusual, it is truly not more forced than Hamlet's “In my mind's eye, Horatio." He persisted much too long, and appeared to Johnson as putting himself forward as his antagonist with too much presumption: upon which he called to him in a loud tone, “What is it you are contending for if you be contending?"-And afterwards imagining that the gentleman retorted upon him with a kind of smart drollery, he said, "Mr. it does not become you to talk so to me. Besides, ridicule is not your talent; you have there neither intuition nor sagacity."-The gentleman protested that he had intended no improper freedom, but had the greatest respect for Dr. Johnson. After a short pause, during which we were somewhat uneasy,―JOHNSON: "Give me your hand, sir. You were too tedious, and I was too short." Mr.: "Sir, I am honored by your attention in any way." JOHNSON: "Come, sir, let's have no more of it. We offended one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by our compliments."

83 To Mr. Henry White, a young clergyman, with whom he [Johnson] now formed an intimacy, so as to talk to him with great freedom, he mentioned that he could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. "Once, indeed," said he, "I was disobedient; I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago I desired to atone for this fault. I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a considerable

time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father's 1784 stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory.'

84 [BOSWELL comments upon the death of Johnson, which occurred in 1784.] I trust, I shall not be accused of affectation, when I declare, that I find myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a "Guide, Philosopher, and Friend." I shall, therefore, not say one word of my own, but adopt those of an eminent friend, which he uttered with an abrupt felicity, superior to all studied compositions: "He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up.Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best:—there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson."

37

THE ART OF VIRTUE 1

1

Benjamin Franklin

T was about this time 2 I conceived the bold and arduous

IT

project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live. without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed

1 From the Autobiography.

2 About 1731, when Franklin was twenty-five years of age.

to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning. These names of virtues, with their precepts were:

I TEMPERANCE

Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2 SILENCE

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3 ORDER

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4 RESOLUTION

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5 FRUGALITY

Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

6 INDUSTRY

Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7 SINCERITY

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.