Boswell did not shrink from admitting the reader to a sight of
Johnson's hypochondria, his melancholy fears, his dreary miseries,
his dread of illness, his terror of death. Johnson's horror of
annihilation was insupportable. He so revelled in life, in the
contact and company of other human beings, that he once said that
the idea of an infinity of torment was preferable to the thought of
annihilation. He wrote, in his last illness, to his old friend Dr.
Taylor:
"Oh! my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid
to think on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look
round and round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and
hope, and fancy that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow.
But let us learn to derive our hope only from God.
"In the meantime, let us be kind to one another. I have no friend
now living but you and Mr. Hector that was the friend of my youth.--
Do not neglect, sir, yours affectionately, SAM. JOHNSON."
Was ever the last fear put into such simple and poignant words as
in the above letter? It is like that other saying of Johnson's,
when all sorts of good reasons had been given why men should wish
to be released from their troubles by death, "After all, it is a
sad thing for a man to lie down and die.
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