So it is refreshing sometimes to turn away from Boswell to those passages where the good old Doctor has revealed himself with his own hand.  The letter to Chesterfield is too well known for comment.  But no less noble, and not nearly so well known, is the preface to the Dictionary.  How moving it is in its sturdy courage, its strong grasp of the tools of expression.  In every line one feels the weight and push of a mind that had behind it the full reservoir of language, particularly the Latin.  There is the same sense of urgent pressure that one feels in watching a strong stream backed up behind a dam: 

I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavored well.  That it will immediately become popular I have not promised to myself:  a few wild blunders, and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance in contempt, but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert; who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be tarried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task, which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

I know no better way of celebrating Doctor Johnson’s birthday than by quoting a few passages from his “Prayers and Meditations,” jotted down during his life in small note-books and given shortly before his death to a friend.  No one understands the dear old doctor unless he remembers that his spirit was greatly perplexed and harassed by sad and disordered broodings.  The bodily twitchings and odd gestures which attracted so much attention as he rolled about the streets were symptoms of painful twitchings and gestures within.  A great part of his intense delight in convivial gatherings, in conversation and the dinner table, was due to his eagerness to be taken out of himself.  One fears that his solitary hours were very often tragic.