Welcome to Historical Thesaurus Week on the OUPblog! Every day this week we will be looking at the first historical thesaurus to be written for any of the world’s languages, the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. Conceived and complied by the English Language Department of the University of Glasgow, and based on the Oxford English Dictionary, it is the result of over 40 years of scholarly labor. To kickoff our celebration I have posted the timeline of the HTOED below, it is a good way to understand what a true labor of love this project has been.  Be sure to check back all week to learn more about the HTOED.

Timeline for the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary

Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. In the post below Ammon looks find inspiration on the spines of books.

I like to reread my books. Usually, but not always, I’ll do this by actually reading them. There are a number of books that I’ve enjoyed repeatedly enough that I can pick one up and open it to any spot to begin reading, comfortably slipping into text I’d not seen for years as though there has been but a brief conversational pause.

But sometimes I’ll reread my books without actually taking them down from the shelf. I can easily while away an hour or more simply sitting in front of a row of books and allowing my eyes to flit from title to title. The spines, names, and content of these works have resonance enough in my head that the words contained within the covers almost feel superfluous. As I gaze at these books I remember not only their stories, but also my experiences of how old I was when I first read it, what I was doing and feeling at the time, and all the other hazy peripherals that such memories hold.

Given that I can find myself so engaged in experiencing books I’ve read without opening them I find that I’m curious as to whether this will work with books that I haven’t yet read. And so today I’m in the stacks of a library, wandering slowly through and not reading the books, only their spines. For the most part this is a frustrating endeavor – the books I don’t yet know fail to speak to me in any substantial way, except to tempt me to stop walking about and to sit down for a read.

But then I happen across the section of the library where all the multi-volume reference sets are kept, and suddenly it is once again possible to enjoy the books without reading them. The abbreviated information on the spines of these encyclopedias and compendiums serves not only to give necessary information about what is in them, but also sparks my imagination about many other things that doubtless are not.

When looking across the rows and rows of books in these sets I feel as though they are telling me some unintentional story, one that doubtless exists only in my own imagination. The truncated titles of the Encyclopedia Americana suggest to me the plot of some mildly racy old Western page-turner, one in which Franco-Goethals (the writing on volume 12) is a 19th century railroad magnate who is trying to break up the romance between two doughty and rugged pioneers on the frontier, Indian-Jeffers (vol. 15) and Pumps-Russell (vol. 23).

Looking next to the Encyclopedia Britannica I find a fairly standard cloak and dagger tale of wartime espionage, in which a pair of mismatched agents in Britain’s spy service of WWII, Garrison-Halibut and Edward-Extract (vols. 10 and match their wits against the nefarious Razor-Schurz (vol. 19), a German counter-espionage agent of unparalleled cunning.

I ended my peregrinations through the stacks of the library standing in front of the American National Biography, and the story on the spines of that august work seemed to tell a rather more tawdry story, with some tale of unrequited love between Jeremiah-Kurtz (vol. 12) and Gilbert-Hand (vol. 8 ), foiled by the machinations of the evil doctor, Kurtzman-Lovejoy (vol.13).

I have no interest in writing fiction, but should I ever find myself with such a yen I think that this is where I would go to find inspiration for a story. And until that day I will take comfort in the fact that there is yet one more way in which a book can tell a story, even if it’s not intending to.

Hinche, Haiti

Coordinates: 19 9 N 72 1 W

Population: 23,599 (2003 est.)

People travel for many reasons, but a chance to sample local or “authentic” cuisine often weighs heavily in the decision-making process. In my own peregrinations I’ve sampled stir-fried insects in Thailand, whale carpaccio in Norway, and stink tofu in Taiwan: all things that are harder to come by in the U. S. of A. An uncommon foodstuff that I haven’t tried however, can be purchased for next to nothing in the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti. Struggling to survive on as little as two dollars a day, many people in urban slums consume cookies made of salt, water, vegetable shortening, and dirt trucked in from the town of Hinche. Located on a fertile central plain northeast of the capital and close to the Dominican border, Hinche is also surrounded by farms that produce coffee, sugar cane, sisal, cotton, and tropical fruit. The practice of eating dirt is called geophagy.

Today we have posted part 4 in the series we are co-posting with Moreover. Diane and Michael Ravitch are the authors of “The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs To Know“. Diane is Professor of Education at the Steinhardt School of Education, New York University. Her books include “The American Reader”, “The Language Police”, “Left Back” and “The Troubled Crusade”. Michael Ravitch is a freelance critic and writer, his work has appeared in the New Republic, Yale Review and other publications. Be sure to check out parts one, two and three also.

A few years ago I read a story about an industrious high-school teacher in the Midwest who had taken it upon herself to revise the Declaration of Independence. The original version, she claimed, was too challenging for her students, the language too inaccessible. She hoped that her newly simplified version would sweep the nation’s schools, and after that success, she planned to move onto the Constitution and beyond.

It’s amazing how cavalier we are about language. If we were to wake up one day and discover that an alien force had pillaged and emptied the world’s art museums, there would certainly be an indignant public outcry and a huge sense of loss. But the vanishing of our literary classics has hardly been noticed, or if noticed at all, greeted with a certain smug contempt.

What counts as a “classic” has always been in dispute. Literary reputations rise and fall; individual tastes vary. What is new, however, is the idea that these books shouldn’t be studied at all, that the transmission of culture from one generation to the next is a waste of time.

After all, goes the argument, in a world in which entertainment has the highest value, how can we dare allow education to be less than entertaining for even a moment? And accustomed as they are to the passive stupefication of pop culture, how can students be expected to rise to the challenge of mastering something difficult? So why not translate our most sacred documents into the most rudimentary language?

While we may think we are liberating ourselves from the artificial and the old-fashioned, we are in fact impoverishing ourselves. We are whittling down our language to the lowest common denominator and, along with it, our possibilities.

The authors of the Declaration of Independence had the cadences and structure of great poetry ringing in their ears. The nobility of the document’s ideas are inseparable from the grandeur of its language.

Of course language evolves, a fact that we understand as natural and right. But that does not mean we have to sacrifice the ideal of literature. Our greatest writers know that language can shock and inspire and soar; this is the true meaning of poetry, and it is a meaning we still need today.

By Michael Ravitch

Have an itch for prank calls? Have Nancy Drew call your friends. (Yes, someone did have Nancy Drew call me. Was it you?)

A firefox tip to simplify your life.

Scott Karp questions his increased traffic and finds The Wall Street Journal as the source. Which makes him wonder how, “creators of original content… maximize the value of linking to other people’s original content.”

Elizabeth Lopatto has turned over the reigns at The Kenyon Review.

Congratulations to John Evans of Lemuria Books in Jackson, MS who won the OED giveaway from BEA!

Marion Rodgers, author of Menken: The American Iconoclast, and Donald Ritchie, author of Reporting From Washington: A History of the Washington Press Corps discuss their books, journalist Henry Louis Mencken, and the state of journalism today. Read yesterday’s post here

Donald Ritchie:

Yes, as king of the print generation H.L. Mencken would surely have shuddered over the ephemeral nature of cyberspace, but I can’t help thinking that he would have admired the bloggers’ linguistic creativity and their penchant for poking holes in the establishment’s pretensions.

As for wartime journalism, Mencken also experienced that first-hand during the First World War when he was perceived as being too sympathetic to Germany, even for an iconoclast, and had to withdraw from news commentary until after the war. I ended Reporting from Washington in the aftermath of September 11th 2001, when the terrorist attacks both revived public interest in news from Washington and put pressure on the press corps for more overt patriotism. Public attitudes limited the reporters’ usual skepticism about the government’s actions and motives. Earlier in the study of twentieth-century news reporting, I found instances where there isolationist Chicago Tribune published classified information about the government’s contingency war plans–just days before the Pearl Harbor attack–and midway through the war revealed that the U.S. had broken the Japanese naval codes. The Navy wanted to sue the Tribune for its breach of national security, until it realized that the Japanese had not changed their codes, suggesting that they had not read the Chicago newspaper. To avoid attracting their attention, no suit was filed. The Tribune came in for considerable criticism at the time, although its ace Washington correspondent Walter Trohan noted that some of the harshest critics later published the Pentagon Papers.

These instances show that the tension between national security and the public’s right to know isn’t a new phenomenon. Reporters have to balance the demand to provide relevant information for their readers with the concern not to hinder the nation’s war effort. The usual practice is for reporters to rally ‘round the flag at the beginning of a war, and then slowly regain their professional detachment as the war progresses, especially if news from the battlefield contradicts what the government is saying. And today it’s even harder for the mainstream media to censor themselves. whatever they try to suppress will find an abundance of alternative outlets online.

Mencken was a man of such strong opinions, who rarely hesitated to write what he thought. Are there any examples of him admitting that he got something wrong and changing his position?

Marion Rodgers:

There are not many instances of this. But here is one that comes to mind: when Mencken married. Until the age of 50, Mencken was called “America’s Foremost Bachelor,” praised for being the patron saint of single men. When H. L. Mencken married Sara Powell Haardt in 1930, the press concluded that the author of “In Defense of Women” was probably in the most embarassing position of any fiancee in recent years. They were bent in trotting out the old quotes. How, reporters insisted with glee, will Mencken explain that he had once said “A man may be a fool and not know it –but not if he’s married.” Long before, he had defined love as “the delusion that one woman differs from another.” To these queries Mencken replied; “I formerly was not as wise as I am now….the wise man frequently revises his opinions. The fool, never.”

My question to you, Don is twofold:

1) Is there any modern journalist that you have written about that comes close to being another H. L. Mencken?

2) You have such a busy schedule, as Senate historian, as author of many books, not to mention your other activities, speech giving included. Tell us about how you do you your work, so you are able to achieve a balance at work and at home, how you find time to produce so many fine books. They are packed with information, yet always readable, with impeccable scholarship.

Donald Ritchie:

I should have realized that the laws of matrimony applied even to H.L. Mencken. Only his wife Sara could have gotten him to eat his words.

I don’t see any single journalist or media personality standing as the modern day equivalent of H.L, Mencken. Perhaps a Dr. Frankenstein could assemble one from various parts: a little of Tom Wolfe’s wordplay, Maureen Dowd’s humor, Frank Rich’s criticism, Helen Thomas’ questioning, George Will’s analysis, William Safire’s lexicon, and Rush Limbaugh’s invective. The result would surely shock and awe readers as much as Mencken used to by himself.

As for writing books, for me it is a labor that occupies some part almost every evening and weekend. A subject has to be compelling enough to consume so much free time, but one hopes that interest will transfer to the readers as well. Public historians are not awarded sabbaticals or summers off between semesters, but those of us who work in Washington are compensated by access to the enormous research resources of the Library of Congress and National Archives.

While writing about Washington news reporters, I had the added advantage of having them call and visit the Senate Historical Office in search of historical background for their own news stories. Almost daily contact with reporters made me curious about the accuracy of their “first rough draft” of history, and how they went about collecting it. I set out to write their history and did much of my research by reading their memoirs, oral histories, and news stories, but got a lot of other insights by interviewing them after they had finished interviewing me. One of my functions at the Senate is to conduct an oral history program, and one of my books is a manual on Doing Oral History (Oxford, 2003). My research–and writing–is always improved when I have the chance to talk with those who participated in the events of the past, and record their often colorful descriptions and candid assessments. I wish that I could have had the opportunity to interview H.L. Mencken, but reading your biography was almost like meeting him personally.

Rodgers
• Save the Mencken House!
• Mencken is an LATimes Book Prize Finalist
• Why is H.L. Mencken relevant today?

Ritchie
• Congressional Lobbying Scandals: A Top Ten List
• Bob Woodward and the Perils of Anonymous Sources
• The CIA Leak Case: A Historical Object Lesson

Johnson: Edinburgh

We now returned to Edinburgh, where I passed some days with men of learning, whose names want no advancement
from my commemoration, or with women of elegance, which perhaps disclaims a
pedant’s praise.

The
conversation of the Scots grows every day less unpleasing to the English; their
peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to become in half a
century provincial and rustic, even to themselves. The great, the learned, the
ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the English phrase, and the English pronunciation,
and in splendid companies Scotch is not much heard, except now and then from an
old lady.

There
is one subject of philosophical curiosity to be found in Edinburgh, which no
other city has to show; a college of the deaf and dumb, who are taught to
speak, to read, to write, and to practise arithmetic, by a gentleman whose name
is Braidwood.* The number which attends him is, I think, about twelve, which he
brings together into a little school, and instructs according to their several
degrees of proficiency.

I
do not mean to mention the instruction of the deaf as new. Having been first
practised upon the son of a Constable of Spain, it was afterwards cultivated
with much emulation in England, by Wallis and Holder, and was lately professed
by Mr Baker,* who once flattered me with hopes of seeing his method published.
How far any former teachers have succeeded, it is not easy to know; the
improvement of Mr Braidwood’s pupils is wonderful. They not only speak, write,
and understand what is written, but if he that speaks looks towards them, and
modifies his organs by distinct and full utterance, they know so well what is
spoken, that it is an expression scarcely figurative to say, they hear with the
eye. That any have attained to the power mentioned by Burnet,* of feeling
sounds, by laying a hand on the speaker’s mouth, I know not; but I have seen so
much that I can believe more; a single word, or a short sentence, I think, may
possibly be so distinguished.

It
will readily be supposed by those that consider this subject, that Mr
Braidwood’s scholars spell accurately. Orthography is vitiated among such as
learn first to speak, and then to write, by imperfect notions of the relation
between letters and vocal utterance; but to those students every character is
of equal importance; for letters are to them not symbols of names, but of
things; when they write they do not represent a sound, but delineate a form.

This
school I visited, and found some of the scholars waiting for their master, whom
they are said to receive at his entrance with smiling countenances and
sparkling eyes, delighted with the hope of new ideas. One of the young ladies
had her slate before her, on which I wrote a question consisting of three figures,
to be multiplied by two figures. She looked upon it, and quivering her fingers in
a manner which I thought very pretty, but of which I know not whether it was
art or play, multiplied the sum regularly in two lines, observing the decimal
place; but did not add the two lines together, probably disdaining so easy an
operation. I pointed at the place where the sum total should stand, and she
noted it with such expedition as seemed to show that she had it only to write.

It
was pleasing to see one of the most desperate of human calamities capable of so
much help: whatever enlarges hope will exalt courage; after having seen the
deaf taught arithmetic, who would be afraid to cultivate the Hebrides?

Such are the things which this journey has given me an
opportunity of seeing, and such are the reflections which that sight has raised.
Having passed my time almost wholly in cities, I may have been surprised by
modes of life and appearances of nature that are familiar to men of wider
survey and more varied conversation. Novelty and ignorance must always be
reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners
are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.

Boswell: Thursday, 2 September.

I
had slept ill. Mr Johnson’s anger had affected me much. I considered that, without any bad intention,
I might suddenly forfeit his friendship. I was impatient to see him this
morning. I told him how uneasy he had made me by what he had said. He owned it
was said in passion; that he would not have done it; that if he had done it, he
would have been ten times worse than me. That it would indeed, as I said, be
‘limning in water’, should such sudden breaks happen (or something to that effect); and said he, ‘Let’s think no
more on’t.’ BOSWELL. ‘Well then, sir, I shall be easy. Remember, I am to have
fair warning in case of any quarrel. You are never to spring a mine upon me. It
was absurd in me to believe you.’ JOHNSON. ‘You deserved about as much as to
believe it from night to morning.’ Mr MacLeod of Drynoch, to whom we had a
letter from Kenneth Macaulay, breakfasted with us.

A
quarter before nine we got into a boat for Skye. It rained much when we set off, but cleared up as we advanced. One
of the boatmen who spoke English said that a mile at land was two miles at sea.
I then said to him that from Glenelg to Armadale in Skye, which was our sail
this morning and is called twelve, was only six miles. But this he could not
understand. ‘Well,’ said Mr Johnson, ‘never talk to me of the native good sense
of the Highlanders. Here is a fellow who calls one mile two, and yet cannot
comprehend that twelve such miles make but six.’ It was curious to think that
now at last Mr Johnson and I had left the mainland of Scotland and were sailing to the Hebrides, one of which was close in our view; and I had besides a
number of youthful ideas, that is to say, ideas which I have had from my youth
about the Isle of Skye. We were shown the land of Moidart where Prince Charles first
landed.* That stirred my mind.

As we sat at Sir
Alexander’s table, we were entertained, according to the ancient usage of the
North, with the melody of the bagpipe. Everything in those countries has its
history. As the bagpiper was playing, an elderly gentleman informed us that in
some remote time, the Macdonalds of Glengary having been injured, or offended by the inhabitants of
Culloden, and resolving to have justice or vengeance, came to Culloden on a
Sunday where, finding their enemies at worship, they shut them up in the church,
which they set on fire; and this, said he, is the tune that the piper played
while they were burning.

Narrations
like this, however uncertain, deserve the notice of a traveller, because they
are the only records of a nation that has no historians, and afford the most genuine representation
of the life and character of the ancient Highlanders.

Under
the denomination of ‘Highlander’ are comprehended in Scotland all that now
speak the Erse language, or retain the primitive manners, whether they live
among the mountains or in the islands; and in that sense I use the name, when
there is not some apparent reason for making a distinction.

In
Skye I first observed the use of brogues, a kind of artless shoes, stitched with
thongs so loosely, that though they defend the foot from stones, they do not
exclude water. Brogues were formerly made of raw hides, with the hair inwards,
and such are perhaps still used in rude and remote parts; but they are said not
to last above two days. Where life is somewhat improved, they are now made of
leather tanned with oak bark, as in other places, or with the bark of birch, or
roots of tormentil, a substance recommended in defect of bark, about forty
years ago, to the Irish tanners, by one to whom the parliament of that kingdom
voted a reward. The leather of Sky is not completely penetrated by vegetable matter,
and therefore cannot be very durable.

My
inquiries about brogues gave me an early specimen of Highland information. One
day I was told that to make brogues was a domestic art, which every man
practised for himself, and that a pair of brogues was the work of an hour. I
supposed that the husband made brogues as the wife made an apron, till next day
it was told me that a brogue-maker was a trade, and that a pair would cost half
a crown. It will easily occur that these representations may both be true, and
that, in some places, men may buy them, and in others, make them for
themselves; but I had both the accounts in the same house within two days.

Many
of my subsequent inquiries upon more interesting topics ended in the like
uncertainty. He that travels in the Highlands may easily saturate his soul with
intelligence, if he will acquiesce in the first account. The Highlander gives to
every question an answer so prompt and peremptory, that scepticism itself is
dared into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting
credulity; but, if a second question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment;
for it is immediately discovered, that what was told so confidently was told at
hazard, and that such fearlessness of assertion was either the sport of
negligence, or the refuge of ignorance.

If individuals are thus at variance with themselves, it can
be no wonder that the accounts of different men are contradictory. The traditions of an ignorant
and savage people have been for ages negligently heard, and unskilfully
related. Distant events must have been mingled together, and the actions of one
man given to another. These, however, are deficiencies in story, for which no
man is now to be censured. It were enough, if what there is yet opportunity of
examining were accurately inspected, and justly represented; but such is the
laxity of Highland conversation that the inquirer is kept in continual
suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears
more.

Next week: Johnson: Edinburgh

Boswell: Wednesday, 1 September

We came to a rich green valley, comparatively speaking, and stopped at
Auchnashiel, a kind of rural village, a number of cottages being built
together, as we saw all along in the Highlands. We passed many many miles today
without seeing a house, but only little summer-huts or shielings. Ewan
Campbell, servant to Mr Murchison, factor to the Laird of MacLeod in Glenelg,
ran along with us today. He was a fine obliging little fellow. At this
Auchnashiel, we sat down on a green turf seat at the end of a house, and they
brought us out two wooden dishes of milk. One of them was frothed like a
syllabub. I saw a woman preparing it with such a stick as is used for
chocolate, and in the same manner. That dish fell to my share; but I put by the
froth and took the cream with some wheat-bread which Joseph had brought for us
from Fort Augustus. Mr Johnson imagined my dish was better than his, and
desired to taste it. He did so, and was convinced that I had no advantage over
him. We had there in a circle all about us, men, women and children, all
Macraes, Lord Seaforth’s people. Not one of them could speak English. I said to
Mr Johnson ’twas the same as being with a tribe of Indians. ‘Yes,’ said he,
‘but not so terrifying.’ I gave all who chose it snuff and tobacco. Governor Trapaud had
made us buy a quantity at Fort Augustus* and put them up in small parcels. I
also gave each person a bit of wheat-bread, which they had never tasted. I then
gave a penny apiece to each child. I told Mr Johnson of this, upon which he
called for change for a shilling, and declared that he would distribute among
the children. Upon this there was a great stir: not only did some children come
running down from neighbouring huts, but I observed one blackheaded man, who
had been among us all along, coming carrying a very young child. Mr Johnson
then ordered the children to be drawn up in a row, and he distributed his
copper and made them and their parents all happy. The poor Macraes, whatever
may be their present state, were much thought of in the year 1715, when there
was a line in a song,

And aw’ the brave McCraas is coming.

There was great diversity in the faces of the circle around us. Some were as black and wild in their appearance as any American savages whatever. One woman was as comely as the figure of Sappho, as we see it painted. We asked the old woman, the mistress of the house where we had the milk (which, by the by, Mr Johnson told me, for I did not observe it myself, was built not of turf but of stone), what we should pay. She said, what we pleased. One of our guides asked her in Erse if a shilling was enough. She said, ‘Yes.’ But some of the men bid her ask more. This vexed me, because it showed a desire to impose upon strangers, as they knew that even a shilling was high payment. The woman, however, honestly persisted in her first price. So I gave her half-a-crown. Thus we had one good scene of uncommon life to us. The people were very much pleased, gave us many blessings, and said they had not had such a day since the old Laird of MacLeod’s time.

Mr
Johnson was much refreshed by this repast. He was pleased when I told him he
would make a good chief. He said if he were one, he would dress his servants
better than himself, and knock a fellow down if he looked saucy to a Macdonald
in rags.* But he would not treat men as brutes. He would let them know why all
of his clan were to have attention paid to them. He would tell his upper
servants why, and make them tell the others.

We
rode on well till we came to the high mountain called the Rattachan, by which
time both Mr Johnson and the horses were a good deal fatigued. It is a terrible
steep to climb, notwithstanding the road is made slanting along. However, we
made it out. On the top of it we met Captain MacLeod of Balmeanach (a Dutch officer come from Skye) riding with his
sword slung about him. He asked, ‘Is this Mr Boswell?’ which was a proof that
we were expected. Going down the hill on the other side was no easy task. As Mr
Johnson was a great weight, the two guides agreed that he should ride the
horses alternately. Hay’s were the two best, and Mr Johnson would not ride but
upon one or other of them, a black or a brown. But as Hay complained much after
ascending the Rattachan, Mr Johnson was prevailed with to mount one of Vass’s
greys. As he rode upon it downhill, it did not go well, and he grumbled. I
walked on a little before, but was excessively entertained with the method
taken to keep him in good humour. Hay led the horse’s head, talking to Mr
Johnson as much as he could; and just when Mr Johnson was uttering his
displeasure, the fellow says, ‘See such pretty goats.’ Then whu! he whistled,
and made them jump. Little did he conceive what Mr Johnson was. Here was now a
common ignorant horse-hirer imagining that he could divert, as one does a
child, Mr Samuel Johnson! The ludicrousness, absurdity, and
extraordinary contrast between what the fellow fancied and the reality was as
highly comic as anything that I ever witnessed. I laughed immoderately, and
must laugh as often as I recollect it.

It
grew dusky; and we had a very tedious ride for what was called five miles, but I
am sure would measure ten. We spoke none. I was riding forward to the inn at
Glenelg;* that I might make some kind of preparation, or take some proper
measures, before Mr Johnson got up, who was now advancing in silence, with Hay
leading his horse. Mr Johnson called me back with a tremendous shout, and was
really in a passion with me for leaving him. I told him my intentions. But he
was not satisfied, and said, ‘Do you know, I should as soon have thought of
picking a pocket as doing so.’ ‘I’m diverted with you,’ said I. Said he, ‘I could never be diverted
with incivility.’ He said doing such a thing made one lose confidence in him who
did it, as one could not tell what he would do next. I justified myself but
lamely to him. But my intentions were not improper. I wished to be forward to
see if Sir A. Macdonald* had sent his boat; and if not, how we were to sail,
and how we were to lodge, all which I thought I could best settle myself,
without his having any trouble. To apply his great mind to minute particulars
is wrong. It is like taking an immense balance, such as you see on a quay for
weighing cargoes of ships, to weigh a guinea. I knew I had neat little scales
which would do better. That his attention to everything in his way, and his
uncommon desire to be always in the right, would make him weigh if he knew of
the particulars; and therefore it was right for me to weigh them and let him
have them only in effect. I kept by him, since he thought I should.

As
we passed the barracks at Bernera, I would fain have put up there; at least I
looked at them wishfully, as soldiers have always everything in the best order.
But there was only a sergeant and a few men there. We came on to the inn at
Glenelg. There was nothing to give the horses, so they were sent to grass with
a man to watch them. We found that Sir Alexander had sent his boat to a point
which we had passed, at Kintail, or more properly at the King’s house––that it
had waited several days till their provisions ran short, and had returned only
this day. So we had nothing to say against that Knight. A lass showed us
upstairs into a room raw and dirty; bare walls, a variety of bad smells, a
coarse black fir greasy table, forms of the same kind, and from a wretched bed
started a fellow from his sleep like Edgar in King Lear: ‘Poor Tom’s
a-cold.’ *

The
landlord was one Munro from Fort Augustus. He pays £ to MacLeod for the shell
of the house, and has not a bit of land in lease. They had no bread, no eggs,
no wine, no spirits but whisky, no sugar but brown grown black. They prepared
some mutton-chops, but we would not have them. They killed two hens. I made
Joseph broil me a bit of one till it was black, and I tasted it. Mr Johnson
would take nothing but a bit of bread, which we had luckily remaining, and some
lemonade which he made with a lemon which Joseph had for him, and he got some
good sugar; for Mr Murchison, factor to MacLeod in Glenelg, sent us some, with
a bottle of excellent rum, letting us know he was very sorry that his servant
had not come and informed him before we passed his house; that we might have
been there all night, and that if he were not obliged to set out early next day
for Inverness, he would come down and wait upon us.

I
took some rum and water and sugar, and grew better; for after my last bad night
I hoped much to be well this, and being disappointed, I was uneasy and almost
fretful. Mr Johnson was calm. I said he was so from vanity. ‘No,’ said he,
”tis from philosophy.’ It was a considerable satisfaction to me to see that
the Rambler could practise what he nobly teaches.

I
resumed my riding forward, and wanted to defend it. Mr Johnson was still
violent upon that subject, and said, ‘Sir, had you gone on, I was thinking that
I should have returned with you to Edinburgh and then parted, and never spoke
to you more.’

I sent for fresh hay, with which we made beds to ourselves,
each in a room equally miserable. As Wolfe said in his letter from Quebec, we had ‘choice of difficulties’.* Mr. Johnson made things
better by comparison. At Macqueen’s last night he observed that few were so
well lodged in a ship. Tonight he said we were better than if we had been upon
the hill. He lay down buttoned up in his greatcoat. I had my sheets spread on
the hay, and having stripped, I had my clothes and greatcoat and Joseph’s
greatcoat laid upon me, by way of blankets. Joseph lay in the room by me, upon
a bed laid on the floor.

Next week: Boswell: Thursday, 2 September.

Boswell: Monday, 30 August 1773

This day we were to begin our equitation, as I said, for I would
needs make a word too. We might have taken a chaise to Fort Augustus. But we could not find horses after Inverness, so we resolved to begin here to ride. We
should have set out at seven. But one of the horses needed shoeing; the smith
had got drunk the night before at a wedding and could not rise early; so we did
not get off till nine. We had three horses for
Mr Johnson, myself, and Joseph,* and one which carried our portmanteaus; and
two Highlanders who walked with us, John Hay and Lauchlan Vass. Mr Johnson rode
very well.

A little above Inverness, I fancy
about three miles, we saw just by the road a very complete Druid’s temple; at
least we took it to be so. There was a double circle of stones, one of very
large ones and one of smaller ones. Mr Johnson justly observed that to go and
see one is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power
in it, and seeing one is as much as one would wish.

It was a delightful day. Loch Ness,
and the road upon the side of it, between birch trees, with the hills above,
pleased us much. The scene was as remote and agreeably wild as could be
desired. It was full enough to occupy our minds for the time.

To see Mr Johnson in any new
situation is an object of attention to me. As I saw him now for the first time
ride along just like Lord Alemoor,* I thought of London, a Poem,
of the Rambler, of The False Alarm,* and I cannot express the
ideas which went across my imagination.

A
good way up the Loch, I perceived a little hut with an oldish woman at the door
of it. I knew it would be a scene for Mr Johnson. So I spoke of it. ‘Let’s go
in,’ said he. So we dismounted, and we and our guides went in. It was a
wretched little hovel, of earth only, I think; and for a window had just a hole
which was stopped with a piece of turf which could be taken out to let in
light. In the middle of the room (or space which we entered) was a fire of peat,
the smoke going out at a hole in the roof. She had a pot upon it with goat’s flesh
boiling. She had at one end, under the same roof but divided with a kind of
partition made of wands, a pen or fold in which we saw a good many kids.

Mr
Johnson asked me where she slept. I asked one of the guides, who asked her in
Erse. She spoke with a kind of high tone. He told us she was afraid we wanted
to go to bed to her. This coquetry, or whatever it may be called, of so
wretched a like being was truly ludicrous. Mr Johnson and I afterwards made
merry upon it. I said it was he who alarmed the poor woman’s virtue. ‘No, sir,’
said he. ‘She’ll say, “There came a wicked young fellow, a wild young dog, who
I believe would have ravished me had there not been with him a grave old
gentleman who repressed him. But when he gets out of the sight of his tutor,
I’ll warrant you he’ll spare no woman he meets, young or old.”‘ ‘No,’ said I. ‘She’ll say, “There was a terrible ruffian
who would have forced me, had it not been for a gentle, mild-looking youth,
who, I take it, was an angel.”‘

Mr
Johnson would not hurt her delicacy by insisting to ’see her bedchamber’, like
Archer in The Beaux’ Stratagem.* But I was of a more ardent curiosity,
so I lighted a piece of paper and went into the place where the bed was. There
was a little partition of wicker, rather more neatly done than the one for the
fold, and close by the wall was a kind of bedstead of wood with heath upon it
for a bed; and at the foot of it I saw some sort of blankets or covering rolled
up in a heap. The woman’s name was Fraser. So was her husband’s. He was a man
of eighty. Mr Fraser of Balnain allows him to live in this hut and to keep
sixty goats for taking care of his wood. He was then in the wood. They had five
children, the oldest only thirteen. Two were gone to Inverness to buy meal. The
rest were looking after the goats. She had four stacks of barley, twenty-four
sheaves in each. They had a few fowls. They will live all the spring without
meal upon milk and curd, etc., alone. What they get for their goats, kids, and
hens maintains them. I did not observe how the children lay.

She asked us to sit down and take a dram. I saw one chair.
She said she was as happy as any woman in Scotland. She could hardly speak any
English, just detached words. Mr Johnson was pleased at seeing for the first
time such a state of human life. She asked for snuff. It is her luxury. She uses a great
deal. We had none, but gave her sixpence apiece. She then brought out her
whisky bottle. I tasted it, and Joseph and our guides had some. So I gave her
sixpence more. She sent us away with many prayers in Erse.

Next week: Boswell: Wednesday, 1 September