Sam and Wayne, Friends and Followers

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Friendship was one of the most important things that Sam valued in life. He complained about many things, and many things gave him pain, but he constantly reiterated the value of having friends

And, as this quote illustrates, he knew that those friendships had to be tended to as well. You couldn’t just assume that they would carry on by momentum alone. They needed to be nurtured, talked about, repaired when necessary, because the end result—a continued friendship which has had its challenges, but whose challenges have been confronted and resolved—that friendship can be even stronger than it was originally.

Sam had a variety of friends in his life. He let a motley crew (not this one with too many umlauts) of friends, acquaintances, and various hangers-on live in his own house. He had Boswell, whom he really loved, but in a sense not as an equal. Boswell needed Sam as what we would call his “mentor” today, and Sam did good by him. His more equal friendships were with some of the men and women who were either members of the literary clubs he was part of during his life, or writers in the broader literary community in London.

The two friendships I always think of when I think of Sam, though, are the ones he had with Hester Thrale and with Richard Savage. Savage was a character, part poet, part profligate, part obsessive, and part madman. Throughout his life he claimed to be the illegitimate child of Lady Macclesfield, a claim she vehemently denied. Even that notwithstanding, Savage led a messy life of poverty and drinking and squandering the goodwill of many of his friends and supporters. Oh, and he once killed a man in a bar fight. Sam loved him though, and after his death wrote his biography (1744). (There’s also a modern account of their relationship, Dr Johnson & Mr Savage, by Richard Holmes.)

His friendship with Hester Thrale was one of equals. She had wealth and a comfortable estate outside of London, where Sam spent much time during the last 20 years of his life. Their friendship was solid and good, with Sam being thankful for the respites from busy London, and Hester being happy to have a famous literary man in her home, but also putting up with many of Sam’s idiosyncracies. And apart from those external things, the friendship was true. It ended sadly, just months before Sam’s death, when she happened to marry a man she loved but of whom Sam did not approve (partly because the new husband was Catholic). Sam was wrong, and Hester wrote a gracious final letter to him which effectively ended the long friendship.

I know that some of the people who have subscribed to my blog have been my actual friends, but I am also thankful to those who subscribed to follow my musings even without knowing me. This is the last of my blog postings and podcasts about My Sam Johnson. Everything has its time, and this feels like a good time for me to end off. One practical advantage is that I will have more time to write the actual book! So, that’s a good thing. Thank you so much for following me: I hope you fill in the gap in time you now have by reading some of Sam. Also: I’ve made a note of your email addresses, and when the book is published—I am aiming for 2022—I will contact you to offer you a free signed copy.

Thank you!

Sam Prays

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Sam not only prayed frequently but also wrote his own prayers, sometimes tailored for a specific occasion, and sometimes simply composing something original instead of mouthing a well-known prayer, a passage from the Bible, or something like that. When he was nearly 60 (in the year 1768) he in fact transcribed many of his prayers, and made notes about when they were composed. They were later published the year after his death as Prayers and Meditations.

Of the one below, which has the great phrase “vain scruples” in it, Sam writes that it was transcribed on June 26, 1768, but that it is undated, “nor can I conjecture when it was composed.”

O Lord, who wouldst that all men should be saved, and who knowest that without thy grace we can do nothing acceptable to thee, have mercy upon me. Enable me to break the chain of my sins, to reject sensuality in thought, and to overcome and suppress vain scruples; and to use such diligence in lawful employment as may enable me to support myself and do good to others. O Lord, forgive me the time lost in idleness; pardon the sins which I have committed, and grant that I may redeem the time mispent, and be reconciled to thee by true repentance, that I may live and die in peace, and be received to everlasting happiness. Take not from me, O Lord, thy holy spirit, but let me have support and comfort for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

You see here some of the topics and self-criticisms that come up in a lot of his prayers. Wasting time is the one that I notice coming up over and over again, either castigating himself for having done it, or asking God to give him the diligence to avoid it in the future. I don’t think any man ever accomplished so much while at the same time berating himself about never getting anything done.

As for “vain scruples,” the latter word is actually defined in Sam’s dictionary:

Doubt; difficulty of determination; perplexity: generally about minute things.

So, again, it’s related to action and therefore to the fear of inaction: he’s asking God to give him the strength not to be held back by doubt and hesitation from getting things done. Sam’s practice was to provide quotations from other writers to illustrate the defined words (ahem) in action. One of those quoted for scruple is the 17th-century writer Jeremy Taylor:

For the matter of your confession, let it be severe and serious; but yet so as it may be without any inordinate anxiety, and unnecessary scruples, which only intangle the soul.

play

Image credit: AbeBooks.com

In my own life, there used to be a time when I was a very good boy, and actually knelt by the side of my bed and “said my prayers,” as my mother would put it. Maybe there are other lapsed theists out there who also remember the kind of jingle of a prayer that I recited:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

And if I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

It’s a pretty stark thing for a child to be saying every night before he goes to bed. If I should die before I wake??

I went to a Catholic school because my mother thought I would get a better education there than in the public school system, but I wasn’t and have never been Catholic. A kind nun, Sister Ruth O’Reilly, allowed me and my younger brother to attend the school with the great name of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. My mother was a single mom (a lot rarer and more demonized in the mid-1960’s than it is now) and this was a great help to her as she trudged off to work as a waitress at Woolworth’s.

I “saw the light,” so to speak, when I was in about Grade 10, and during one of the Pentecostal services which my mother attended irregularly, I was, as they call it, “saved.” That lasted for about a year, and was sincere while I was in the throes of it, but I eventually stopped going to any church. Over the course of time my belief in God disappeared and I turned into a self-righteous but lovable atheist, which I am still today. Oh. I’m also a “backslider,” which is what the Pentecostals call anyone who has been saved, but has now slid in the wrong direction—back, of course, and in their view there’s no chance that I’ll ever be going up.

More about Sam and me in this week’s podcast. Please suppress the vain scruples which prevent you from listening.

Details from Sam’s Biographers: Who Thinks What Is Important

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I own about 15 modern biographies of Sam Johnson as well as another 15 written by his contemporaries. Some are long; some are short. Some are scholarly; some are not. Some are comprehensive; some cover an aspect or a period of Sam’s life. I thought it would be interesting to pick a single incident from his life and see how each biographer covers it. The incident is a simple and famous one that you likely know if you’ve read Boswell’s biography or almost any other one frankly. As a man in his early 20’s and still living with his parents in his birthplace, Lichfield, Sam refused one day to man the bookseller stall that his father would regularly set up in the market town of Uttoxeter, about 30 km north. About 50 years later, in 1781 during a visit to his home town, Sam takes the time to travel to Uttoxeter to do something to make up for his lazy teenaged disobedience. He feels some sympathy for the father whom he reluctantly helped most of the time, but not always. And so he just stands in the rain right at the spot where his father used to set up his stall.

Here’s how four biographers cover it, with some comments by me:

James Boswell (1791)

To Mr. Henry White, a young clergyman, with whom he now formed an intimacy, so as to talk to him with great freedom, he mentioned that he could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. ‘Once, indeed, (said he,) I was disobedient; I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter-market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago, I desired to atone for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father’s stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory.’

  • Boswell is the original source of the story, doing his research as usual by talking and listening to people, and then writing down what he heard.
  • A little surprising that Boswell doesn’t make any comment beyond recording the quote. He was an admirer of Sam’s character and this was a good opportunity to praise him.

Christopher Hibbert (1971)

  • I find this treatment very odd: basically relegating the story to an endnote. Yes, it’s true that Sam’s refusal itself is something significant, but the fact that he remembered and felt guilty about it all those years is pretty significant too.
  • Interesting that there is more than one contemporary source for the story.
  • I have to admit that I had to look up the word contumacy. According to Merriam-Webster online, it means: “stubborn resistance to authority” or “refusal to comply.” It reminded me of a similar-sounding word from Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy: “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin?” (Hamlet, III.i). It turns out though that these two words are not related and have different etymologies. Contumely means (Merriam again): “rude language or treatment arising from haughtiness and contempt.”

John Wain (1975)

The business in Market Street was not doing well. In spite of his energy, in spite of the diversification of his trade and the long miles he rode for orders, Michael Johnson was losing ground. It would have been only natural for the sorely tried man to imagine that with two sons growing up he might look forward to the day when they would take his business off his hands and, by working hard in co-operation, make it prosper at last. But Sam was obviously not cut out to be a tradesman; though he grudgingly went along with it, learning the elements of the business and becoming a tolerable hand at the practical skill of bookbinding, his resentment at the menial life of trade was always smouldering just below the surface. One day there was a nasty scene when he refused point blank to go to Uttoxeter Market, some ten miles away, and take charge of the stall which Michael regularly set up there. Michael was forced to capitulate: Sam just would not go, and other arrangements had to be made.

[…]

One memory in particular filled him with remorse—his point-blank refusal to go and take care of the stall in Uttoxeter. One day when he was on a visit to Lichfield—the date is unknown, but it was in his late middle age—he got up and, without telling anyone where he was going, made his way to Uttoxeter. It was raining; he uncovered his head and stood for what he recalled as “a considerable time” in the market-place, oblivious of the staring citizens and the pelting weather: an outward and viable sign of his deep wish to be at peace with the spirit of his father.

  • A kind of matter-of-fact way of dealing with it, neither ignoring it, but not going on too long either about its significance.

David Nokes (2010)

But for Samuel, newly returned from Oxford, these were signs of shame. He had as little as possible to do with bookselling, despite the fact that both his parents, and even Nathaniel [Sam’s brother], were keen for him to take it up. It seemed an obvious occupation for a young man who was so evidently fond of books; yet Johnson, more as a mark of independence than for any practical reason, refused to consider it. One day, towards the end of his life, Michael asked that he might accompany him to Uttoxeter market but Samuel adamantly refused. Years later this disobedience still haunted him. ‘Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful.’ He attempted to atone for the fault: ‘I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father’s stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory.’ This act of expiation, while no doubt genuine, is a public act, an example of Johnson using Boswell, who recorded the act, to turn a personal sense of guilt into a public spectacle of contrition.

  • Very concise.
  • Definitely not overstating it, but at the same time putting the incident into the broader context of Sam bristling against the career that his father might have wanted for him.

In my podcast this week, I talk about the process of writing a biography, where often you have to gather all the information you can find about the person, but then cannot use all that information because it wouldn’t make for a readable biography. You know you want to listen …

Sam’s Signature

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Thousands of letters that Sam sent during his lifetime, from his early 20s to his mid-70s, have survived to this day (and mostly, fortunately, are in the care of large academic libraries), and so his signature is a pretty familiar sight to anyone who studies, reads about, or just keeps up with all-things-Sam. Here it is:

It’s pretty legible as both modern and 18th-century signatures go, but note two things:

  • I have been calling him Sam all throughout this blog and in my podcast, and intend to call him that in the title of the book when it’s published, but scholars of course refer to him as Johnson, or, as necessary, Samuel Johnson. I use Sam because it fits with the tone and style I intend for the writing, and for the eventual general readership, and so it’s interesting that in virtually all the signatures on his letters he refers to himself as Sam, too. Note though: not only Sam, but Sam followed by a colon or at least two dots, to indicate the abbreviation. I did some research at one point in writing the book to see if this colon was a common way to abbreviate and I never really came up with anything definitive. I may still do a little poking around, but I’ve heard from at least one scholar/editor that using a colon was a fairly common way to abbreviate. (But why? And how did it come about?)

    At one point in my research on the book I was curious enough about Sam’s signatures in his letters, that I went through the entire authoritative edition of those letters, and determined how he signed each of them. Of all the letters in the nearly-2,000-page, 5-volume edition of Sam’s letters, there are only six letters which are not signed as above. The variations are:

Saml: Johnson: two letters

S.J.: one letter

Samuel Johnson: three letters

  • Note that the signature has what looks more like an “f” than an “s” in Johnson. You may or may not know that this is not just a quirk of Sam’s style. It is what is referred to as “the long s.” It was used routinely throughout the 18th century and eventually died out in the 19th century. In print, it basically looks like an “f” with the righthand side of the crossbar missing—and in some printed books from the 18th century, even the lefthand side is barely visible, perhaps from the printing press just not picking up enough ink for such a small bit of a letter.

One interesting aspect of it is that it was used only within or at the beginning of a word, never at the end (there were a few other rules for its use as well). You can see it in Sam’s Rasselas (published 1759) on the right. Note that the capital (uppercase) S’s are all modern S’s as we see today. Below in the text, though, you can see several examples of the (lowercase) long s.

In my podcast for this week, I’ll talk a little more about the long s (internet, be prepared to be broken!), as well as Sam’s letters generally, and some specific examples. Hey, have a listen …