For instance,
a good worthy man asks you to taste his wine, which he has had twenty
years in his cellar.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, all this notion about benevolence
arises from a man's imagining himself to be of more importance to
others, than he really is. They don't care a farthing whether he drinks
wine or not.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 'Yes, they do for the time.' JOHNSON.
'For the time!--If they care this minute, they forget it the next. And
as for the good worthy man; how do you know he is good and worthy? No
good and worthy man will insist upon another man's drinking wine. As to
the wine twenty years in the cellar,--of ten men, three say this, merely
because they must say something;--three are telling a lie, when they
say they have had the wine twenty years;--three would rather save the
wine;--one, perhaps, cares. I allow it is something to please one's
company: and people are always pleased with those who partake pleasure
with them. But after a man has brought himself to relinquish the
great personal pleasure which arises from drinking wine, any other
consideration is a trifle.
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