All that Boswell meant by truth will be examined later in connection with his biographical method. 'The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides' must be criticised as a book along with the 'Life of Johnson' and not apart from it. It is, in a sense, but a portion of the larger work. The same genius, the same art, has made two incomparable books. The later is more discreet. 'I have been more reserved,' says Boswell. But it is not less vividly life-like: 'I have managed so as to occasion no diminution of the pleasure my book should afford.' The 'Tour,' however--and this is the one important difference--is concerned with Johnson in an extraordinary phase of his life, and one which is not treated in the larger work. Johnson is on a holiday. The journey is called a 'jaunt.' And the atmosphere of the 'jaunt' is reflected on every page of the Journal. The freedom, the expectancy and the high spirits of a travelling holiday to those who very rarely enjoy one, the increased opportunities to Boswell for observation and his unflagging interest and pleasure in his great experiment--all these account, and are sufficient to account, for the different effect we feel in reading the 'Tour to the Hebrides': and most of those who perceive this difference will agree that it is an additional charm. * * * * * During the eight years of Boswell's life between the ages of forty-two and fifty, several important events happened beside the publication of the 'Tour to the Hebrides.' It is unfortunate that for the greater part of this period we have no letters from Boswell to Temple. If there was any correspondence between them, none has been preserved between the dates November 3rd, 1780, and January 5th, 1787. And so we hear no private utterances about the death of Boswell's father, by which he became Laird of Auchinleck, or about the death of Johnson. It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of Boswell about the first event. There can have been no great sorrow as there had been no great affection; and there must have been no little pleasure in becoming the head of an ancient family and a man of property. It is a sad thing if the records of this period have indeed been lost, for they ought to have been peculiarly rich in extravagant and pompous sayings. Of Johnson's value to Boswell we have already spoken. It would be impossible to suppose that Boswell did not realise his loss. He must have felt when he visited London, as he continued to do in spite of his Scotch inheritance, that the central figure was gone, and with it much of the zest of life in his London circle. There was no doubt a yearning sometimes for that rude strength, which had so much of tenderness besides, and a lasting grief.