Dr. Johnson and His Circle

alth was such that he seldom enjoyed a single day of ease; and he was so scrupulously truthful when he had a pen in his hand that that must be taken as at the least a literal record of the truth as it appeared {19} to him at that moment. But though he never enjoyed health he never submitted to the tyranny of disease. The manliness that rings through all he wrote made itself felt also in his life, and we are not surprised to hear from Mrs. Thrale, in whose house he lived so long, that he "required less attendance sick or well than ever I saw any human creature." He could conquer disease and pain, but he never affected stoic "braveries," about not finding them very actual and disagreeable realities. In the same way, he never pretended not to enjoy the universal pleasures, such as food and sleep. Boswell records him as saying: "Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously and very carefully, for I look upon it that he who do