He then alludes to the wrong conclusions which might be drawn by one in Boswell's mental condition from the difficulties which attend a return to a normal course of life:
He tried this scheme of life awhile; was made weary of it by his sense and his virtue; he then wished to return to his studies; and finding long habits of idleness and pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, still willing to retain his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, resolved the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable decree of destiny, and concluded that Nature had originally formed him incapable of rational employment.
And finally he gives some very solemn advice:
Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, be banished henceforward from your thoughts for ever. Resolution will sometimes relax, and diligence will sometimes be interrupted; but let no accidental surprise or deviation, whether short or long, dispose you to despondency. Consider these failings as incident to all mankind.
Boswell was too honest not to realise the truth of what Johnson said, and we cannot but think of this letter when we read a number of years later, in the London Magazine of 1778, an attack written by Boswell upon the association by Aristotle of melancholy with genius; for this essay seems to aim at undermining the same kind of affectation as that which Johnson had seen in him.
Similarly the effect of Johnson in making Boswell more respectable was produced less by example than by dislike of affectation. Johnson was pre-eminently a conformist; and Boswell desired the same happy state for himself. But Johnson was honest in his conformity, and he cared less for the conformity than for the honesty. And so he was able, when he saw Boswell affecting sentiments which he did not wholly feel, to reprove him. It was not that the sentiments in themselves were not good sentiments, for they often were, but that in Boswell they were unreal.
Boswell: 'Perhaps, Sir, I should be the less happy for being in Parliament. I never would sell my vote, and I should be vexed if things went wrong.' Johnson: 'That's cant, Sir. It would not vex you more in the House than in the Gallery: publick affairs vex no man.'
Boswell was probably annoyed at this retort; it is very annoying to be told the truth about oneself. He now tries to make Johnson admit that he has been vexed himself 'by all the turbulence of this reign.'
Johnson: 'Sir, I have never slept an hour less, nor ate an ounce less meat. I would have knocked the factious dogs on the head, to be sure; but I was not vexed.'