-
Articles/Ads
Article ORIGINAL LETTER OF DOCTOR JOHNSON. Page 1 of 2 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Original Letter Of Doctor Johnson.
ORIGINAL LETTER OF DOCTOR JOHNSON .
THE following letter of Dr . Johnson to a friend , upon the death of his wife , Mr . Boswell , in his biographical account of that truly great man . Vol . I . p . 221 , supposes to be , and laments as , lost . " The dreadful shock of separation , " says he , " took p lace on the 8 th ; " and he ( Dr . Johnson ) immediately dispatched a letter to his friend , " the Rev . Dr . Taylorwhichas Taylor told meexpressed grief in
, , , " the strongest manner he had ever read ; so that it is much to be re" grafted it has not been preserved . '" .. It is now produced to the public by Dr . WILLIAM FAULKNER , of Bath , and is certainly well worthy of preservation .
TO THE REV . DR . TAYLOR . DEAR . SIR , March 17 , 1752 , O . S . Notwithstanding the warnings of philosophers , and the daily examples of losses and misfortunes which life forces upon us , such is the absorption of our thoughts in the business of the present day—such the resignation of our reason to empty hopes of future felicity;—or such
our unwillingness to foresee what we dread , that every calamity comes suddenly upon us , and not only presses us as a burthen , but crushes as a blow . There are evils which happen out of the common course of nature , against which it is no reproach not to be provided . A flash of lightning intercepts the traveller in his way . The concussion of an earthquake
heaps the ruin of cities upon their inhabitants . But other miseries time brings , though silently , yet visibly forward , by its own lapse , which yet approaches unseen , because we tarn our eyes away , and seize us unresisted , because we could not arm ourselves against them , but by setting them before us .
That it is in vain to shrink from what cannot be avoided , and to hide that from ourselves which must sometimes be found , is a truth which we all know , but which all neglect , and perhaps none more than the speculative reasoner , whose thoughts are always from home , whose eye wanders over life , whose fancy dances after meteors of happiness kindled by itself , and who examines every thing , rather than his
own state . Nothing is more evident than that- the decays of age must terminate in death . Yet there is no man ( says Tully ) who does not believe that he may yet live another year ; and there is none who . does not , upon the same principle , hope another year for his parent or his friend ; but the fallacy will be in time detected ; the last yearthe last day , will
, come ; it has come , and is past . — . " The life which made my own life " p leasant is at an end , and the gates of death are shut upon my pros" pects . " The loss of a friend on whom the heart was fixed , to ' whom every wish and endeavour tended , is a state of desolation in which the mind
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Original Letter Of Doctor Johnson.
ORIGINAL LETTER OF DOCTOR JOHNSON .
THE following letter of Dr . Johnson to a friend , upon the death of his wife , Mr . Boswell , in his biographical account of that truly great man . Vol . I . p . 221 , supposes to be , and laments as , lost . " The dreadful shock of separation , " says he , " took p lace on the 8 th ; " and he ( Dr . Johnson ) immediately dispatched a letter to his friend , " the Rev . Dr . Taylorwhichas Taylor told meexpressed grief in
, , , " the strongest manner he had ever read ; so that it is much to be re" grafted it has not been preserved . '" .. It is now produced to the public by Dr . WILLIAM FAULKNER , of Bath , and is certainly well worthy of preservation .
TO THE REV . DR . TAYLOR . DEAR . SIR , March 17 , 1752 , O . S . Notwithstanding the warnings of philosophers , and the daily examples of losses and misfortunes which life forces upon us , such is the absorption of our thoughts in the business of the present day—such the resignation of our reason to empty hopes of future felicity;—or such
our unwillingness to foresee what we dread , that every calamity comes suddenly upon us , and not only presses us as a burthen , but crushes as a blow . There are evils which happen out of the common course of nature , against which it is no reproach not to be provided . A flash of lightning intercepts the traveller in his way . The concussion of an earthquake
heaps the ruin of cities upon their inhabitants . But other miseries time brings , though silently , yet visibly forward , by its own lapse , which yet approaches unseen , because we tarn our eyes away , and seize us unresisted , because we could not arm ourselves against them , but by setting them before us .
That it is in vain to shrink from what cannot be avoided , and to hide that from ourselves which must sometimes be found , is a truth which we all know , but which all neglect , and perhaps none more than the speculative reasoner , whose thoughts are always from home , whose eye wanders over life , whose fancy dances after meteors of happiness kindled by itself , and who examines every thing , rather than his
own state . Nothing is more evident than that- the decays of age must terminate in death . Yet there is no man ( says Tully ) who does not believe that he may yet live another year ; and there is none who . does not , upon the same principle , hope another year for his parent or his friend ; but the fallacy will be in time detected ; the last yearthe last day , will
, come ; it has come , and is past . — . " The life which made my own life " p leasant is at an end , and the gates of death are shut upon my pros" pects . " The loss of a friend on whom the heart was fixed , to ' whom every wish and endeavour tended , is a state of desolation in which the mind