any good people have done harm by giving
severe notions of it. In the same way, as to learning: I never frighten
young people with difficulties; on the contrary, I tell them that they
may very easily get as much as will do very well. I do not indeed tell
them that they will be _Bentleys_!

The night we rode to Col's house, I said, 'Lord Elibank is probably
wondering what is become of us.' JOHNSON. 'No, no; he is not thinking of
us.' BOSWELL. 'But recollect the warmth with which he wrote[853]. Are we
not to believe a man, when he says he has a great desire to see another?
Don't you believe that I was very impatient for your coming to
Scotland?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; I believe you were; and I was impatient
to come to you. A young man feels so, but seldom an old man.' I however
convinced him that Lord Elibank, who has much of the spirit of a young
man, might feel so. He asked me if our jaunt had answered expectation. I
said it had much exceeded it. I expected much difficulty with him, and
had not found it. 'And (he added) wherever we have come, we have been
received like princes in their progress.'

He said, he would not wish not to be disgusted in the Highlands; for
that would be to lose the power of distinguishing, and a man might then
lie down in the middle of them. He wished only to conceal his disgust.

At Captain M'Lean's, I mentioned Pope's friend, Spence. JOHNSON. 'He was
a weak conceited man[854].' BOSWELL. 'A good scholar, Sir?' JOHNSON.
'Why, no, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'He was a pretty scholar.' JOHNSON. 'You have
about reached him.'

Last night at the inn, when the factor in Tyr-yi spoke of his having
heard that a roof was put on some part of the buildings at Icolmkill, I
unluckily said, 'It will be fortunate if we find a cathedral with a roof
on it.' I said this from a foolish anxiety to engage Dr. Johnson's
curiosity more. He took me short at once. 'What, Sir? how can you talk
so? If we shall _find_ a cathedral roofed! as if we were going to a
_terra incognita_; when every thing that is at Icolmkill is so well
known. You are like some New-England-men who came to the mouth of the
Thames. "Come, (say they,) let us go up and see what sort of inhabitants
there are here." They talked, Sir, as if they had been to go up the
Susquehannah, or any other American river.'

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16.

This day there was a new moon, and the weather changed for the better.
Dr. Johnson said of Miss M'Lean, 'She is the most acco