Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: During the Last Twenty Years of His LifePiozzi, Hester Lynch
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Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: During the Last Twenty Years of His Life
Piozzi, Hester Lynch
Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784
When any disputes arose between our married acquaintance, however, Mr.
Johnson always sided with the husband, "whom," he said, "the woman had
probably provoked so often, she scarce knew when or how she had
disobliged him first. Women," says Dr. Johnson, "give great offence by a
contemptuous spirit of non-compliance on petty occasions. The man calls
his wife to walk with him in the shade, and she feels a strange desire
just at that moment to sit in the sun: he offers to read her a play, or
sing her a song, and she calls the children in to disturb them, or
advises him to seize that opportunity of settling the family accounts.
Twenty such tricks will the faithfullest wife in the world not refuse to
play, and then look astonished when the fellow fetches in a mistress.
Boarding-schools were established," continued he, "for the conjugal quiet
of the parents. The two partners cannot agree which child to fondle, nor
how to fondle them, so they put the young ones to school, and remove the
cause of contention. The little girl pokes her head, the mother reproves
her sharply. 'Do not mind your mamma,' says the father, 'my dear, but do
your own way.' The mother complains to me of this. 'Madam,' said I,
'your husband is right all the while; he is with you but two hours of the
day, perhaps, and then you tease him by making the child cry. Are not
ten hours enough for tuition? and are the hours of pleasure so frequent
in life, that when a man gets a couple of quiet ones to spend in familiar
chat with his wife, they must be poisoned by petty mortifications? Put
missy to school; she will learn to hold her head like her neighbours, and
you will no longer torment your family for want of other talk.'".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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