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78
BOSWELL'S LETTERS
cost me a great deal of money, and it is too
like marriage, or too much a settled plan of
licentiousness ; but what can I do ?
" Besides, she is ill-bred, quite a rompish
girl. She debases my dignity ; she has no
refinement, but she is very handsome and
very lively."
What he did was to break with her ;
weeks later he writes :
four
"
My life is one of the most romantic that
I believe either you or I
really know of and
;
yet I am a very sensible, good sort of man.
What is the meaning of this, ? Temple You
may depend upon it that very soon my follies
will be at an end, and I shall turn out an
admirable member of
society. Now that I
have given my mind the turn, I am totally
emancipated from my charmer, as much as
from the gardener's daughter who now puts
on my fire and performs menial offices like
any other wench ; and yet just this time
twelvemonth I was so madly in love as to
think of marrying her."
The frequency and solemnity of Boswell's
resolutions to amend are extraordinary, though
the fact that his correspondent was a curate
suggests an explanation ; in carrying them
out he was perfectly normal.