'Nay, Sir,' said Johnson, 'it was not the wine that made your
head ache, but the sense that I put into it.' 'What, Sir,' asks the
hapless Boswell, 'will sense make the head ache?' 'Yes, Sir, when it is
not used to it.'
Boswell is also the artist in his regard for truth. In him it was a
passion. Again and again he insists upon his authenticity. He developed
an infallible gust and unerring relish of what was genuinely Johnsonian
in speech, writing, or action; and his own account leads to the
inference that he discarded, as worthless, masses of diverting material
which would have tempted a less scrupulous writer beyond resistance. 'I
observed to him,' said Boswell, 'that there were very few of his friends
so accurate as that I could venture to put down in writing what they
told me as his sayings.' The faithfulness of his portrait, even to
the minutest details, is his unremitting care, and he subjects all
contributed material to the sternest criticism.
Industry and love of truth alone will not make the artist.
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