Andrew Erskine.
P.S.—I hope you'll write to me soon.
LETTER XXIII.
Edinburgh, March 9, 1762.
Dear Erskine,—Can a man walk up the Cowgate after a heavy rain without dirtying his shoes? I might have said the soles of his shoes:—and, indeed, to put the matter beyond dispute, I would yet have you to understand me so; for although nothing is so common as to use a part for the whole; yet if you should be out of humour with a bad dinner, a bad lodging, an ill-dressed shirt, or an ill-printed book, you might be disposed to cavil, and object, that in critical precision of language, (supposing a man to walk slow) he could not be said to have dirtied his shoes, no more than a boarding-school girl, who has cut her finger in paring an apple, could be said to have mangled her carcase.
But to proceed; can a man make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from the Island of Great Britain, without the aid of navigation? Can a man walk in the Mall at noon, carrying his breeches upon an enormous long pole, without being laughed at? Can a man of acknowledged ignorance and stupidity, write a tragedy superior to Hamlet? or a genteel comedy superior to the Careless Husband?[40] I need not wait for an answer. No word but no, will do: it is self-evident. No more, my friend, can he who is lost in dissipation, write a letter. I am at present so circumstanced; accept this short line in answer to your last, and write very soon to
Your affectionate Friend,
James Boswell.