'
On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual
manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun
to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When
we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at
his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in
a placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I a
country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have
crowds in my house.' BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he
remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house:
that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.'
JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your statement
lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of counting. It
brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind
indefinitely.'
BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON.
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