"thought of Tom Thumb." So when Boswell used an
illustration from Roman manners he put him down with, "Why we know very
little about the Romans."

Wide as the country he could cover was, he is always coming back to his
favourite topic, which can only be described as life; how it is lived
and how it ought to be; life as a spectacle and life as a moral and
social problem. That by itself makes a sufficiently varied field for
talk. But real as his variety was, it is still not the most remarkable
thing about his talk. Where he surpassed all men was in the readiness
with which he could put what he possessed to use. Speaking of the
extraordinary quickness with which he "flew upon" any argument, Boswell
once said to Sir Joshua, "he has no formal preparation, no flourishing
with the sword; he is through your body in an instant." Sometimes he
condescended to achieve this by mere rudeness, as once when, being hard
pressed in an argument about the passions, he said, "Sir, {162} there
is one passion I advise you to be careful of. When you have drunk that
glass don't drink another." But the notion, which one hears
occasionally expressed, that his principal argumentative weapon was
rudeness is an entire mistake. Every impartial reader of Boswell will
admit that the rudeness of his retorts where it exists is entirely
swallowed up and forgotten in their aptness, ingenuity and wit. He was
rude sometimes, no doubt; as, for instance, to the unfortunate young
man who went to him for advice as to whether he should marry, and got
for an answer, "Sir, I would advise no man to marry who is not likely
to propagate understanding." But, human nature being what it is,
sympathy for the victim is in such cases commonly extinguished in
delighted admiration of the punishment. That will be still more
whole-hearted when the victim is obviously a bore, like the gentleman
who annoyed Johnson by persisting in spite of discouragement in an
argument about the future life of brutes, till at last he gave the
fatal opportunity by asking, "with a serious metaphysical pensive
face," "But, really, sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we don't
know what to think of him;" to which Johnson, "rolling with joy at the
thought which beamed in his eye," replied, "True, sir, and when we see
a very foolish {163} fellow, we don't know what to think of _him_."
Conversation would be a weariness of the flesh if one might never
answer a fool according to his folly: