2. Boswell told Mr. The same gentleman Samuel Johnson that a maintained that there was gentleman of their no distinction between acquaintance maintained virtue and vice. _Johnson_: in public company that he 'Why, Sir, if the fellow could see no distinction does not think as he between virtue and vice. speaks, he is lying; and 'Sir,' said Mr. Johnson, I see not what honour he 'does he intend that we can propose to himself should believe that he is from having the character lying, or that he is in of a liar. But if he does earnest? If we think really think that there is him a lyar, that is not no distinction between honouring him very much. virtue and vice, why, Sir, But if we think him in when he leaves our houses earnest, when he leaves let us count our spoons.' our houses let us count our spoons.'
A comparison of the two versions of No. 1 reveals at once the brevity of the final form. It is evident, as Mr. Fitzgerald remarks, that the text itself could not have represented the talk as it came from Johnson's lips. 'The whole is too deliberate, too close, too well winnowed, as it were.' Conversation is more discursive. Boswell's method as we see it here is in the first place to compress--to give not the whole of Johnson's words, but only the essence of them. In the result the story in its last state preserves the most important expressions and is more pointed for being shorter.
The second story in the table has not been cut down in the same fashion. It illustrates very well another process. It is the process, one may say, of Johnsonising. Not only has the argument, as in the former case, been made clearer and more concise, but the words themselves have been considerably altered. The result indicates the reason of these changes. The version in the 'Life' is stronger and more convincing; it has more of the energy of human tongues. The assertion 'he is lying' has more force than the corresponding question: the 'why, Sir,' introduced before the climax gives the proper snort of war before the culminating triumph of the dilemma. Boswell made these changes that he might retain the spirit of Johnson's talk and the atmosphere of the moment as the listeners felt it. He succeeded whenever he added force and directness; one may easily be convinced of this by recalling the uncouth figure with its suggestion of abnormal strength which uttered slowly in a very loud voice, occasionally shaking the head, 'as if to promote the fermentation of his wit.'