Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.
Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.
Life of Johnson (Boswell).1Vol. i. Chap. vii. 1743.
This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords.3
Life of Johnson (Boswell).4Vol. ii. Chap. i. 1754.
Note 1. From the London edition, 10 volumes, 1835.
Dr. Johnson, it is said, when he first heard of Boswells intention to write a life of him, announced, with decision enough, that if he thought Boswell really meant to write his life he would prevent it by taking Boswells!Thomas Carlyle: Miscellanies, Jean Paul Frederic Richter. [back]
Note 2. From the London edition, 10 volumes, 1835.
Dr. Johnson, it is said, when he first heard of Boswells intention to write a life of him, announced, with decision enough, that if he thought Boswell really meant to write his life he would prevent it by taking Boswells!Thomas Carlyle: Miscellanies, Jean Paul Frederic Richter. [back]
Note 4. From the London edition, 10 volumes, 1835.
Dr. Johnson, it is said, when he first heard of Boswells intention to write a life of him, announced, with decision enough, that if he thought Boswell really meant to write his life he would prevent it by taking Boswells!Thomas Carlyle: Miscellanies, Jean Paul Frederic Richter. [back]