then a low humming sound, backed up by a vacant non-compos-mentis smile.

Another odd whim of Johnson's was, that he would never pass a lamp-post
without touching it, and would go back miles upon his way to repair an
omission. Surely great wit to madness is near allied.

This most strange young man was a boarder in the home of Mrs. Porter, when
her husband was alive, and the husband and boarder had been fast
friends--drawn together by a bookish bias.

Very naturally, when the husband passed away, the boarder sought to
console the bereaved landlady, and the result was as usual. And when, long
years after, Johnson would solemnly explain that it was a pure love-match
on both sides, the statement never failed to excite much needless and
ill-suppressed merriment on the part of the listeners. In mimicking the
endearments of Johnson and his "pretty creature"--so the admiring husband
called her--Garrick many years later added to his artistic reputation.

Unlike most literary men, Johnson was domestic, and his marriage was one
of the most happy events of his career. But to show that the philosophy of
Montaigne is not infallible, and that all signs fail in dry weather, it
may be stated that the bride proved by her conduct on her wedding-day that
she had some relish of the saltness of time in her cosmos, despite her
fifty summers and as many hard winters.

Said Johnson to Boswell, referring to the horseback-ride home after the
wedding-ceremony: "Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into
her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her
lover like a dog. So, sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and
she could not keep up with me; and when I rode a little slower, she passed
me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of
caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on
briskly, till I was fairly out of sight. The road lay between two hedges,
so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon
come up with me. When she did I observed her to be in tears."

* * * * *

Shortly after his marriage, Johnson opened a private school for boys. To
operate a private school successfully implies a certain amount of skill in
the management of parents; but Johnson's uncouth manners and needlessly
blunt speech were appalling to those who had children who might possibly
be given to imitation.

Only