' He
thought he had already said too much. 'A passion, in short,' added
he, with an altered tone, 'that consumes me away for my pretty Fanny
here, and she 'is very cruel,' speaking of another lady (Miss Burney)
in the room."
As the high-flown language which he occasionally employed in
addressing or discussing women, has originated a theory that the
basis or essence of his character was romance, it may be as well to
contrast what he said in soberer moods on love. He remarked to Dr.
Maxwell, that "its violence and ill-effects were much exaggerated;
for who knows any real sufferings on that head, more than from the
exorbitancy of any other passion?" On Boswell asking him whether he
did not suppose that there are fifty women in the world with any of
whom a man may be as happy as with any one woman in particular, he
replied, "Ay, Sir, fifty thousand. I believe marriages would in
general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the
lord-chancellor upon a due consideration of the characters and
circumstances without the parties having any choice in the matter."
On another occasion he observed that sensible men rarely married for
love.
These peculiarities throw light on more questions than one relating
to Johnson's prolonged intimacy and alleged quarrel with Mrs. Thrale.
His gallantry, and the flattering air of deferential tenderness which
he threw into his commerce with his female favourites, may have had
little less to do with his domestication at Streatham than his
celebrity, his learning, or his wit.
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