YAYIMIYIAIYIMI Fortune-tellers Generally Ignorant, if Inspired. existence; yesterday it was carbon; tomorrow, under the flow of the mysterious fluid which pervades it, it is a diamond of the purest water. Men of superior mind, with all the facets of their intellect well worn, can never exercise these supreme powers unless through miracles, which God occasionally permits. Thus it happens that necromancers and fortune-tellers, both male and female, are nearly always mendicants with untutored minds, beings apparently of coarse fibre, pebbles rolled over and over by the torrents of poverty, ground down in the ruts of existence, where they have exhausted only their physical endurance. The prophet, the seer, is Martin the laborer, who made Louis XVIII tremble as he told him a secret known only to the king; it is a Mademoiselle Lenormand, a cook like Madame Fontaine, some half-idiotic negro woman, some herdsman living among his horned beasts, a fakir sitting on the bank of a pagoda, who, by killing the flesh, has won for the spirit the untold powers of somnambulic faculties. It is in Asia that the heroes of occult science have been found throughout all time. It often happens that persons gifted with these powers who in their ordinary lives remain their ordinary selves, for they fulfil as it were the same physical and chemical functions as the conducting medium of an electric current, sometimes mere inert metal, then again the channel of mysterious fluids,—these people sinking back into their natural condition, betake themselves to practises and schemes which bring them into the police courts; and even, as in the case of the famous Balthazar, to prison or the galleys. A proof of the enormous power which necromancy wields over the masses is that the life or death of a poor musician depended on the horoscope which Madame Fontaine was about to draw for Madame Cibot. IYIIYMYMIYI BOSWELL'S JOHNSON Boswell's First Meeting with Johnson. Johnson was fifty-four years old when in 1763 Boswell was introduced to him at that memorable interview in Tom Davies's back parlor. The acquaintance soon grew into friendship, and lasted without diminution till Johnson's death in 1784. Yet during these twenty-one years, as Croker has established by an elaborate calculation, the friends were together only two hundred and seventy-six days including the time spent on the tour in Scotland, only one hundred and eighty as recorded in the biography. Boswell's plan therefore and the scale on which he wrought it necessitated many gaps which had to be filled up somehow. They are for the most part surprisingly well filled; for not only did he spare himself no labor in collecting materials (even, as he boasts, to running half over London to fix a date correctly), but he was scarcely less dexterous in utilizing the information and the wit of others than he was in employing his own. He frequently laments his delay in writing down his friend's conversation while it was still fresh in his memory, whereby its original flavor was too often impaired if not wholly lost. Yet he had so soaked his mind in Johnson that to the baldest and most meagre reports with which his friends could furnish him he was able to give something of the natural touch. But his work had been so His Methods mation. long delayed that many had anticipated him; of Utilizing InforHawkins (a dull fellow, no doubt, though his book is not quite the worthless thing that, following Boswell's lead, it has been the fashion to represent it), Mrs. Thrale, Strahan, Craddock and others. They have perished or survive only under his shadow; but at the time they did in some measure interfere with him. He borrowed from them as much as he dared, but the law of copyright, which none of them were IYAYIMIYMIYIMIYI disposed to waive in favor of one who so jealously guarded his own interests, made this comparatively little. Sometimes, too, Johnson would not be in the humor for talking, especially when the pair were alone. "I constantly watched," says Boswell, "every dawning of communication from that great and illuminated mind;" but the dawning was apt occasionally to broaden into a tempestuous day. "Sir, you have only two topics, yourself and me; I am sick of both." When the When the great mind was in that temper, even Boswell's unwearied assiduity and obstetric skill were baffled. Another of his favorite methods of extracting illumination was to talk at the Doctor, or about him, in the presence of a third person, and this too would sometimes hang fire. "Never speak of a man in his presence, ," he was once told; "it is always indelicate, and may be offensive." Nor was his somewhat brusque use of the Socratic method always countenanced; he would not seldom be reminded that "Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen." Lord Chesterfield, to whom Johnson had paid the high compliment of addressing to his Lordship the "Plan" of his Dictionary, had behaved to him in such a manner as to excite his contempt and indignation. The world has been for many years amused with a story confidently told, and as confidently repeated with additional circumstances, that a sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his having been one day kept long in waiting in his Lordship's ante-chamber, for which the reason assigned was, that he had company with him; and that, at last, when the door opened, out walked Colley Cibber; and that Johnson was so violently provoked when he found for whom he had been so long excluded, that he went away in a passion, and never would return. I remember having mentioned this story to George Lord Lyttleton, who told me he was very intimate with Lord Chesterfield; and holding it as a well-known truth, defended Lord Chesterfield by saying that, Johnson's Disgust with Chesterfield. YAYIMIYIIII "Cibber, who had been introduced familiarly by the back stairs, had probably not been there above ten minutes." It may seem strange even to entertain a doubt concerning a story so long and so widely current, and thus implicitly adopted, if not sanctioned, by the authority which I have mentioned; but Johnson himself assured me that there was not the least foundation for it. He told me that there never was any particular incident which produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterfield and him; but that his Lordship's continued neglect was the reason why he resolved to have no connection with him. The following is an extract from his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield: His Letter to "Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. "The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. "Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had it been kind, but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. "I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.' IYMIYMYKSIIYI Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: "This man," said he, "I thought had been a lord among wits, but I find he is only a wit among lords.' His Opinion of " And when his letters to his natural son were published, he observed that "they teach the morals of a courtezan and the manners of a dancing-master.' How to Read. "Idleness is a disease which must be combatted; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge." To a man of vigorous intellect and ardent curiosity like his own, reading without a regular aim may be beneficial; though even such a man must submit to it, if he would attain a full understanding of any of the sciences. His Liking for London. Johnson was much attached to London; he observed that a man stored his mind better there than anywhere else; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to degenerate from want of exercise and competition. "No place," he said, "cured a man's vanity or arrogance so well as London; for no man was either great or good per se until compared with others not so good or great. " He said "Goldsmith should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not the temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by |