There is a certain truculence that must figure in the disposition of an independent spirit. He who strays from the approved paths through the forest must be prepared to swing his machete with vigor and persistence at the tangles of vegetation that obstruct his forward movement. He will seek to test the boundaries of the enclosures that surround him, and will always be probing for opportunities to detect fractures and imperfections in their constructions.
Samuel Johnson makes the following comment in his Lives of the Poets when discussing the life of the seventeenth-century poet John Gay:
We have here very frequently discussed the necessity of training in character and the virtues as a lifelong activity. This subject is the concern of moral philosophy: that is, the study of conduct and the virtues. It is through moral philosophy that a man’s passions are bridled, directed, and channeled for positive use. Without this discipline, he never learns to sublimate his ego to a higher purpose; he begins to think of himself as an emperor, a man beyond the reach of the rules and obligations that apply to everyone else. Selfishness, arrogance, and close-mindedness creep into the subconscious, eventually to dominate every waking impulse.
I recall reading somewhere that both Archimedes and the mathematician Leonhard Euler never liked to explain how they arrived at their discoveries. They took care to remove all the scaffolding before presenting their magnificent edifices to posterity; we saw the finished product, but not the arduous labor that was necessary to create it. This may be an exaggeration, at least in the case of Archimedes, whose lost Method was finally unearthed in Istanbul in 1906; but I think the point is sufficiently true, for enough famous names, to merit some reflection.
In taking the measure of a man’s cultural refinement, we must examine the degree to which he is practiced in the art of hospitality. And when I say art, I mean this in a literal sense. Arts are not inborn; they must be studied and honed with constant use. A culture that teaches its members how to treat guests is a confident one; it is a culture that has, to some degree at least, liberated itself from the oppressions of acquisitiveness and greed, and has embraced some aspects of the communitarian ethic. It is also a culture that understands the value of reciprocity: the idea that a good turn done for one today, may mean a good turn done for oneself tomorrow.
In 1773 Samuel Johnson and his friend James Boswell made a journey through some of the more remote parts of Scotland. Each of them wrote his own account of the journey, and I am currently absorbed in reading Johnson’s impressions in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. As always, he stimulates and fascinates: his eye for detail is superb, and like the best of writers he combines wit, dry observation, and philosophic pronouncements.
I didn’t really know what to call this podcast. It’s a mix of a few different things. I wanted to talk about the movies I reviewed in the last post here, but I also wanted to toss out an interesting comment made by Samuel Johnson on trade and pleasure. And finally–to relax and unwind a bit–I read a few recent tweets by the G Manifesto (@MichaelPorfirio). It’s important in life to mix things up. Idleness may be the Devil’s servant, but so is monotony.
It is right that youth should celebrate its vigor. We do it a grave injustice by shackling its natural ebullience, by attempting to douse its fires with an excess of admonitions and restrictives. Let it, as far as health and safety will permit, taste the light of the open sky, the airs of unexplored mountains, and the swift currents swirling along tropical beaches. For in our elder years we will recall these liberating sensations with an intensity that sustains life itself.
Men’s clubs used to be places where like-minded individuals could congregate and discuss topics of mutual interest. As society has changed, this is becoming an increasingly rare tradition. To see just what a gentleman’s club was like in London in 1783, we go to the original sources and read the club’s by-laws. Nothing better illustrates how different that era was from today.
It is very easy to find travel advice. It gushes in currents, like the waters of a melting glacier, carrying all before it. I have no desire here to provide an exhaustive laundry-list of action items; my goal is only to toss out a few thoughts on the subject that have come to me in recent days. I recently read the following travel recommendations which appear in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. They are taken from a letter he wrote to one Mr. Perkins in 1782, when Johnson was 73 years old:
Quintus Curtius 
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