ondon the reader can learn from his "Life." He bedded and boarded for
fourpence-halfpenny a day, and when too poor to pay for a bed, he
wandered with Savage whole nights in the streets.[1] He struggled on
manfully, never whining at his lot, but trying to make the best of it.

[Footnote 1: "He said a man might live in a garret at eighteen-pence a
week; few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was
easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending
threepence in a coffee house, he might be for some hours every day in
very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and
milk for a penny, and do without supper. On _clean-shirt day_ he went
abroad and paid visits." BOSWELL--_Life of Johnson_.]

These early sorrows and struggles of Johnson left their scars upon his
nature; but they also enlarged and enriched his experience, as well as
widened his range of human sympathy. Even when in his greatest distress
he had room in his heart for others whose necessities were greater than
his own; and he was never wanting in his help to those who needed it, or
were poorer than himself.

From his sad experience, no one could speak with greater authority on
the subject of debt than Johnson. "Do not accustom yourself," he wrote
to Boswell, "to consider debt only an inconvenience; you will find it a
calamity. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt.
Whatever you have, spend less. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet,
but of beneficence." To Simpson, the barrister, he wrote, "Small debts
are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely
be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon, of loud noise,
but little danger. You must therefore be enabled to discharge petty
debts, that you may have leisure, with security to struggle with the
rest." "Sir," said he to the patient and receptive Boswell, "get as much
peace of mind as you can, and keep within your income, and you won't go
far wrong."

Men who live by their wits, their talents, or their genius, have,
somehow or other, acquired the character of being improvident. Charles
Nodier, writing about a distinguished genius, said of him--"In the life
of intelligence and art, he was an angel; in the common practical life
of every day, he was a child." The same might be said of many great
writers and artists. The greatest of them have been so devoted--heart
and soul--to their special work, that they ha