George Mallory

“ But this idea appeared like the ideas we are taught in the schools to form of things which may exist, but do not; of seas of milk, and ships of amber. But I saw my highest idea realised in Paoli. It was impossible for me, speculate as I pleased, to have a little opinion of human nature in him.
One morning, I remember, I came in upon him without ceremony, while he was dressing. I was glad to have an opportunity of seeing him in those teasing moments, when, according to the Duke of Rochefoucault, no man is a hero to his valet de chambre. ”

“ It is not the mad whim that may occur once in a lifetime, the event which stands as it were by itself apart from the man; it is not an experiment miscarried, that has taken him away from his usual self and so must remain unexplained or be put to the long account of genius: rather it is the sort of oddity that we come to expect of Boswell. ”

“ HUMOROUS VERSE the difference between humour and wit. The latter involves the power of expression; and a man may as easily be full of humour, without making a joke, as he may be by nature a poet without ever writing a line of good poetry. Boswell had some wit, but not very much—far less than anyone would imagine merely from reading the 'Life' or the 'Tour.' His position perhaps is not unlike that of several poets who have written some stanzas and stray lines of a rare beauty, and are none the less poets because they have written also much that seems quite unpoetical. ”

“ There is no better fellow alive.
Stories about 'frolic' (to use Boswell's word) are not as a rule very laughable, and we are perhaps too apt to consider them as merely childish and contemptible when they fail to amuse us. The exact atmosphere of the moment which accounts for its merriment is forgotten too often and seldom reproduced, and we are left cold after a recital of such behaviour as we may suppose the Club of Soapers to have indulged in. In Boswell's character there was a large vein of buffoonery which is apt when recounted by anyone but himself to appear stupid enough. ”

“ A biography of Boswell, though it might profess to be complete, could say little about his domestic life. If he has told us very little about it, there is, however, no reason that we should seek to know more. It was a very essential part of Boswell that he should have a wife and family: a wife, because she adds a certain flavour of respectability and is a definite asset to the social position of a man, still more perhaps because she increases responsibility and so intensifies the sensation of importance; a family, because to the man of estate there must be born an heir. ”

“ He looked upon men much as we look upon works of art, distinguishing that which, as art, has merit, and crediting with a certain value every design or idea which has been executed well, but attaching ourselves more particularly to a few rare objects which have some special significance or appeal for our own nature. Johnson and Paoli had this appeal for Boswell. Wilkes and Hume attracted him more because they were interesting individuals for whom, though he really disapproved of them, he might retain some slight affection because they were representative men. ”

“ Of the influences of our early years there are some which we reject; and the judgments which we make about the problems that affected us when young, differ as a rule from those about other questions which come upon us only in maturer years. In youth we must either love or hate—there is no indifference; and so in youth very often are formed the prejudices of a lifetime. Thus it was with Boswell. ”

“ His interest was Corsica, and, if we may believe Boswell, there was hardly a thought of self in the matter. In this he was perhaps not different from the greater part of his countrymen; but he had besides enthusiasm a wise moderation and self-control, a knowledge of men and a military ability which gave him an authority of the most absolute kind over the Corsicans. His power [pg 56] rested solely upon the weight of his personal influence. It was an impressive figure no doubt—a man to be admired; and Boswell was good at admiring: but a man also to be loved, direct, kind-hearted and sympathetic. ”

“ The ambition which Boswell had, and which he expressed so freely, is peculiar in some ways for the end desired, but it is not essentially different from that of other artists.
He who publishes a book, affecting not to be an 'authour',9 and professing an indifference for literary fame, may possibly impose upon many people such an idea of his consequence as he wishes may be received. For my part, I should be proud to be known as an authour and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for of all possessions I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. ”

“ The affectation or extravagance of Boswell appears also from time to time in his pious and moral remarks.
Being in a frame of mind which I hope, for the felicity of human nature, many experience—in fine weather—at the country house of a friend—consoled and elevated by pious exercises—I expressed myself with an unrestrained fervour to my 'Guide, Philosopher and Friend': 'My dear Sir, I could fain be a good man; and I am very good now. I fear God and honour the king, I wish to do no ill, and to be benevolent to all mankind.'25 ”

“ A man who is in love is like a man who has got the toothache: he feels in most acute pain, while nobody pities him. In that situation I am at present, but well do I know that I will not be long so. So much for inconstancy!
Boswell represented himself in the letters to Erskine very much as he affected to be in real life—the gay young wit with a serious background, the jolly good fellow and at the same time the budding genius, and finally, the cynical philosopher, such as he alludes to in the first letter to Temple. ”

“ Whatever philosophy may determine of material nature, it is certainly true of intellectual nature that it 'abhors a vacuum'; our minds cannot be empty; and evil will break in upon them, if they are not preoccupied by good. My dear Sir, mind your studies, mind your business, make your lady happy, and be a good Christian.
There was no place for any intellectual unquiet—and herein it was essentially respectable—in Johnson's scheme of life as he presented it to others. ”

“ The intimate relations which sprang up between Boswell and Paoli were, as we may judge from Boswell's own account, very similar to those already in existence between himself and Johnson.
The taste for the heroic may be satisfied easily. Even about the scamp Wilkes in exile there was a glamour which appealed to the imaginative young Bozzy. But for the real Boswellian admiration something more was required—the portentous possession of the 'solid virtues.' The probity of Paoli could never be in question. ”

“ It is probable that Boswell was in earnest both about the young lady and about his religion. But since, in order to be entirely respectable, it is often necessary to give a hypocritical consistency to our fickle inclinations, we are not thought to be serious if we do not affect to be constant. We can assume, in the case of most people, from a sort of faith they hold in the durability of sentiment, and a desire which they have to prove by a time test the depth of their emotion, that the feelings which do not appear to endure are trivial and shallow. ”

“ What then is the range of Boswell's conventionality and what are its limits?
Beliefs are the result, as a rule, either of tradition, or of emotional experience, or of mere desire. In a few rare spirits they may be determined in more intellectual fashion; but Reason is seldom mistress, and very often she is servant and nurse. By reason, we seek to justify our prejudices and convictions. With varying degrees of intellectual dishonesty we make use of reason to reject what we dislike and nourish what we prefer. ”

“ Modern criticism has done much to raise the besmirched name of the biographer, but has managed at the same time to envelop his character in a sort of generous obscurity. 'Boswell,' Professor Raleigh has boldly exclaimed, 'was a genius.' The Boswellian student will probably agree: but in agreeing we must be cautious not to confuse our ideas about Boswell's character; to say that a man is a genius is not to say that he is unaccountable for his actions, or even of necessity to imply that he is mad. The genius is often more complex than other men, but not more incomprehensible. ”

“ Boswell wrote and published the 'Tour' with a greedy enjoyment and uncontained expansiveness entirely typical of him, and in amazing ignorance of some of the strongest human feelings—of the proprietorship that men feel with respect to their own lives which surrounds them with a sacred halo of privacy, and of their inordinate desire to appear more virtuous and more successful than they are. ”

“ And so we hear no private utterances about the death of Boswell's father, by which he became Laird of Auchinleck, or about the death of Johnson.
It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of Boswell about the first event. There can have been no great sorrow as there had been no great affection; and there must have been no little pleasure in becoming the head of an ancient family and a man of property. It is a sad thing if the records of this period have indeed been lost, for they ought to have been peculiarly rich in extravagant and pompous sayings. ”

“ This Boswell never was able to understand. His own point of view was concerned with what he could get from others; and though he was by nature in many ways excellent as the member of a community, he had no conception of himself in this capacity. He cared a great deal about his importance, but very little about his value. He took systematically, he gave at random. Interest in human beings simply for his own sake because it pleased him3: that is one prime motive which impelled him to seek the acquaintance of distinguished men. ”

“ His behaviour, however, was not merely undignified and grotesque, it was rude. His whole attitude towards Johnson was a rude one. Curiosity indulged as he indulged it cannot be polite. Johnson told him more than once that he had no manners. Langton said: 'Boswell's conversation consists entirely in asking questions, and is extremely offensive.' Boswell, in fact, as the biographer, was rude not only to Johnson but to the whole company; concerned entirely with his own purpose, he ignored the social obligation. ”

“ It is this ignorance of the minds of others about oneself, a certain simplicity of character, an unquestioning, childlike self-confidence, that makes fools of men. No fool would wish to be thought foolish, and if a fool were to understand what was thought about him he would soon alter his behaviour. His foolishness depends upon the fact that in this respect he has no imagination. The ignorance of Boswell about the effect of his behaviour is the more remarkable because he was in many ways intelligent, sagacious, and extremely observant. ”

“ It seems particularly appropriate that Boswell should have forgotten the pride of birth to meet so, in humble circumstances, the object of his devotion. The scene which took place in Tom Davies' back-parlour has the essence of true comedy. Two of the actors are light-heartedly unconscious that the moment has the least importance; the third is painfully and anxiously aware that it is important to him, and naturally unaware that it can have a value to anyone else. And it has, too, that dramatic quality of great events taking place by accident, as it seems, among incongruous circumstances. ”