The table talk of Dr Johnson Author:Samuel Johnson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: drinking comes to visit me."—J. " Sir, a man knows whom he visits; he comes to the table of a sober man."—B. " But, sir, you and I should not have been so well r... more »eceived in the Highlands and Hebrides if I had not drunk with our worthy friends.. Had I drunk water only, as you did, they would not have been so cordial."—J. " Sir William Temple mentions, that in his travels through the Netherlands, he had two or three gentlemen with him, and when a bumper was necessary, he put it on them. Were I to travel again through the islands, I would have Sir Joshua with me to take the bumpers."—B. " But, sir, let me put a case: Suppose Sir Joshua should take a jaunt into Scotland; he does me the honour to pay me a visit at my house in the country ; I am overjoyed at seeing him; we are quite by ourselves ; shall I unsociably and churlishly let him sit drinking by himself? No, no, my dear Sir Joshua, you shall not be treated so, I will take a bottle with you." MARRIAGE. To Mr. Boswell on the eve of marriage Johnson said, " Now that you are going to marry, do not expect more from life than life will afford. You may often find yourself out of humour, and you may often think your wife not studious enough to please you; and yet you may have reason to consider yourself as upon the whole very happily married." Of marriage in general he observed, "Our marriage service is too refined : it is calculated only for the best kind of marriages; whereas weshould have a form for matches of convenience, of which there are many." At General Paoli's, a question was one day started, whether the state of marriage was natural to man. Johnson. " Sir, it is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a stateof marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connexion,...« less