And wherever we go
with Johnson there is the lively traffic in ideas, lending vitality and
significance to everything about him.
A part of education and culture is the extension of one's narrow range
of living to include wider possibilities or actualities, such as may be
gathered from other fields of thought, other times, other men; in short,
to use a Johnsonian phrase, it is 'multiplicity of consciousness.' There
is no book more effective through long familiarity to such extension and
such multiplication than Boswell's Life of Johnson. It adds a new world
to one's own, it increases one's acquaintance among people who think, it
gives intimate companionship with a great and friendly man.
The Life of Johnson is not a book on first acquaintance to be read
through from the first page to the end. 'No, Sir, do YOU read books
through?' asked Johnson. His way is probably the best one of undertaking
this book. Open at random, read here and there, forward and back, wholly
according to inclination; follow the practice of Johnson and all good
readers, of 'tearing the heart' out of it.
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