in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded, I saw little
of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerable part
of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chiefly
occupied my mind. JOHNSON. 'I do not see, Sir, that fighting is
absolutely forbidden in Scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but not
self-defence.' BOSWELL. 'The Quakers say it is; "Unto him that smiteth
thee on one cheek, offer him also the other."' JOHNSON. 'But stay, Sir;
the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; it is
plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense. We see this from
the context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant you
the Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, "From him that
would borrow of thee, turn thou not away." Let a man whose credit is
bad, come to a Quaker, and say, "Well, Sir, lend me a hundred pounds;"
he'll find him as unwilling as any other man. No, Sir, a man may shoot
the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who attempts to
break into his house.* So in 1745, my friend, Tom Gumming, the Quaker,
said, he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart; and we
know that the Quakers have sent flannel waistcoats to our soldiers, to
enable them to fight better.' BOSWELL. 'When a man is the aggressor, and
by ill-usage forces on a duel in which he is killed, have we not little
ground to hope that he is gone into a state of happiness?' JOHNSON.
'Sir, we are not to judge determinately of the state in which a man
leaves this life. He may in a moment have repented effectually, and it
is possible may have been accepted by GOD.'

* I think it necessary to caution my readers against
concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr.
Johnson, they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the
subject of duelling. In my Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. 24], it appears
that he made this frank confession:--'Nobody at times, talks
more laxly than I do;' and, ib., p. 231 [Sept. 19, 1773],
'He fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of
duelling.' We may, therefore, infer, that he could not
think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the
spirit of the Gospel.--BOSWELL.

Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the neglect of his
oratorical plans, had threatened to go to America; JOHNSON. 'I hope
he will go