, in whom Johnson's hatred
for humbug is exaggerated into a general disbelief in real as well as
sham nobleness of sentiment. As the conversation proceeded, Johnson
expressed his habitual horror of death, and caused Miss Seward's
ridicule by talking seriously of ghosts and the importance of the
question of their reality; and then followed an explosion, which seems
to have closed this characteristic evening. A young woman had become a
Quaker under the influence of Mrs. Knowles, who now proceeded to
deprecate Johnson's wrath at what he regarded as an apostasy. "Madam,"
he said, "she is an odious wench," and he proceeded to denounce her
audacity in presuming to choose a religion for herself. "She knew no
more of the points of difference," he said, "than of the difference
between the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems." When Mrs. Knowles said
that she had the New Testament before her, he said that it was the
"most difficult book in the world," and he proceeded to attack the
unlucky proselyte with a fury which shocked the two ladies. Mrs. Knowles
afterwards published a report of this conversation, and obtained another
report, with which, however, she was not satisfied, from Miss Seward.
Both of them represent the poor doctor as hopelessly confuted by the
mild dignity and calm reason of Mrs. Knowles, though the triumph is
painted in far the brightest colours by Mrs. Knowles herself. Unluckily,
there is not a trace of Johnson's manner, except in one phrase, in
either report, and they are chiefly curious as an indirect testimony to
Boswell's superior powers. The passage, in which both the ladies agree,
is that Johnson, on the expression of Mrs. Knowles's hope that he would
meet the young lady in another world, retorted that he was not fond of
meeting fools anywhere.

Poor Boswell was at this time a water-drinker by Johnson's
recommendation, though unluckily for himself he never broke off his
drinking habits for long. They had a conversation at Paoli's, in which
Boswell argued against his present practice. Johnson remarked "that wine
gave a man nothing, but only put in motion what had been locked up in
frost." It was a key, suggested some one, which opened a box, but the
box might be full or empty. "Nay, sir," said Johnson, "conversation is
the key, wine is a picklock, which forces open the box and injures it. A
man should cultivate his mind, so as to have that confidence and
readiness without wine which wine gives." Boswell chara