The Club by Leo Damrosch

Author:Leo Damrosch
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300217902
Publisher: Yale University Press

68. Boswell letter to Johnson

Just why that should have been so is not always obvious from the documentary record, but life is much more than documents. Boswell’s whimsical humorousness, enthusiasm, and gregarious charm were always a tonic for Johnson, and he knew that the pleas for advice and reassurance were wholly sincere. If Boswell found in Johnson the father he should have had, Johnson found in him the son he never had. And Boswell’s admiration, which amounted really to worship, must have filled a great need for acknowledgment in Johnson.

Beyond that, Johnson may have taken vicarious pleasure in Boswell’s spontaneity, uncensoredness, and defiant lustfulness. His very frivolity and triviality—his ability to elevate the trivial—could have been a relief from Johnson’s seriousness and high morality. Likewise Boswell’s childlike egotism, self-satisfaction, and self-indulgence were qualities that Johnson never allowed in himself. And if Johnson reproved him parentally, as indeed Boswell wanted him to, he also accepted and loved Boswell for who he was—a precious gift indeed.

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