When at Versailles the people showed us the theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes: "Now we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson--The Englishman at Paris?" "No, no,"replied he, "we will try to act Harry the Fifth." His dislike to the French was well known to both nations, I believe; but he applauded the number of their books and the graces of their style. "They have few sentiments," said he, "but they express them neatly; they have little meat, too, but they dress it well." Johnson's own notions about eating, however, were nothing less than delicate: a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties. With regard to drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavour, but the effect, he sought for, and professed to desire; and when I first knew him, he used to pour capillaire into his port wine. For the last twelve years, however, he left off all fermented liquors. To make himself some amends, indeed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring in large quantities of cream, or even melted butter; and was so fond of fruit, that though he usually ate seven or eight large peaches of a morning before breakfast began, and treated them with proportionate attention after dinner again, yet I have heard him protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life, and that was when we were all together at Ombersley, the seat of my Lord Sandys. I was saying to a friend one day, that I did not like goose; "one smells it so while it is roasting," said I. "But you, madam," replies the Doctor, "have been at all times a fortunate woman, having always had your hunger so forestalled by indulgence, that you never experienced the delight of smelling your dinner beforehand." "Which pleasure," answered I pertly, "is to be enjoyed in perfection by such as have the happiness to pass through Porridge Island of a morning." "Come, come," says he, gravely, "let's have no sneering at what is serious to so many. Hundreds of your fellow-creatures, dear lady, turn another way, that they may not be tempted by the luxuries of Porridge Island to wish for gratifications they are not able to obtain. You are certainly not better than all of THEM; give God thanks that you are happier."I received on another occasion as just a rebuke from Mr. Johnson, for an offence of the same nature, and hope I took care never to provoke a third;for after a very long summer, particularly hot and dry, I was wishing naturally but thoughtlessly for some rain to lay the dust as we drove along the Surrey roads. "I cannot bear," replied he, with much asperity and an altered look, "when I know how many poor families will perish next winter for want of that bread which the present drought will deny them, to hear ladies sighing for rain, only that their complexions may not suffer from the heat, or their clothes be incommoded by the dust. For shame! leave off such foppish lamentations, and study to relieve those whose distresses are real."With advising others to be charitable, however, Dr. Johnson did not content himself. He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten, except the two thousand pounds he left behind; and the very small portion of his income which he spent on himself, with all our calculation, we never could make more than seventy, or at most four-score pounds a year, and he pretended to allow himself a hundred. He had numberless dependents out of doors as well as in, who, as he expressed it, "did not like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em money." For those people he used frequently to raise contributions on his richer friends; "and this," says he, "is one of the thousand reasons which ought to restrain a man from drony solitude and useless retirement. Solitude," added he one day, "is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief. Remember,"concluded he, "that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air."It was on this principle that Johnson encouraged parents to carry their daughters early and much into company: "for what harm can be done before so many witnesses? Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, it is the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy, vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can just soothe, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared. He who buzzes in her ear at court or at the opera must be contented to buzz in vain." These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, that I have heard him say, "If you shut up any man with any woman, so as to make them derive their whole pleasure from each other, they would inevitably fall in love, as it is called, with each other; but at six months' end, if you would throw them both into public life, where they might change partners at pleasure, each would soon forget that fondness which mutual dependence and the paucity of general amusement alone had caused, and each would separately feel delighted by their release."In these opinions Rousseau apparently concurs with him exactly; and Mr.
同类推荐
The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid
本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
幽默沟通学:零距离制胜的口才秘籍
幽默是一种智慧,是一种聪颖,是一种机敏。幽默是一种才华,一种力量,是一种艺术。幽默是引发喜悦和快乐的源泉,幽默是协调自我和社会关系的灵丹妙药。凡是幽默的人,无不具备一种俯瞰茫茫人世的洞察力。一个风趣幽默、具有出众口才的人,不管是人际沟通、商业谈判、职场演说、还是谈情说爱,都会让人们刮目相看,不管在什么地方都能成为人们所关注的焦点。学会了幽默沟通的方法,我们在跟人交往时就能够如鱼得水,在轻松一笑中解除一天的烦、累,让言辞多趣味,幽默到心田,我们的人生也会拥有更多的乐趣和成功。腹黑呆萌宝:鬼王的小宠妃
(全文更新)狐罂,全球第一杀手组织头牌,杀手界女王,同样她还是医学界的神。一场背叛让这个传奇般的人陨落于世,风千樱,音灵大陆天音国风府大小姐,出了名的“废材”“花痴”,只因有着太子妃的名号,被庶妹下药毒打致死。一朝穿越,当强者之魂进入弱者之躯,看她如何掀起风浪。修炼,炼丹,炼器,契约魔兽…统统不在话下。她带着宝宝闯天下…他,容貌绝色堪称妖孽,传言鬼王腹黑,残忍,嗜血,丑陋,不近女色…初见,他因毒发在水池里调息,她为压制媚毒进入了水池,将他当做解药解了媚毒,她为他压制了身体里的毒。吃干抹净后交换了双方的玉佩,从此他们的命运便连在一起了。多年后带着一对萌宝回归,又将引发怎样的故事…