'I have sometimes been
obliged to run half over London, in order to fix a date correctly.' He
agonized over his work with the true devotion of an artist: 'You cannot
imagine,' he says, 'what labor, what perplexity, what vexation I
have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, in
supplying omissions, in searching for papers buried in different masses,
and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing.' He
despairs of making his picture vivid or full enough, and of ever
realizing his preconception of his masterpiece.
Boswell's devotion to his work appears in even more extraordinary ways.
Throughout he repeatedly offers himself as a victim to illustrate his
great friend's wit, ill-humor, wisdom, affection, or goodness. He never
spares himself, except now and then to assume a somewhat diaphanous
anonymity. Without regard for his own dignity, he exhibits himself as
humiliated, or drunken, or hypochondriac, or inquisitive, or resorting
to petty subterfuge--anything for the accomplishment of his one main
purpose.
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