That is the use of a diary, or
journal[642].' LORD TRIMLESTOWN. 'True, Sir. As the ladies love to see
themselves in a glass; so a man likes to see himself in his journal.'
BOSWELL. 'A very pretty allusion.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, indeed.' BOSWELL. 'And
as a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character
by looking at his journal.' I next year found the very same thought in
Atterbury's _Funeral Sermon on Lady Cutts_; where, having mentioned her
_Diary_, he says, 'In this glass she every day dressed her mind.' This
is a proof of coincidence, and not of plagiarism; for I had never read
that sermon before.
Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very earnest
recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost
conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth, even in the most
minute particulars. 'Accustom your children (said he) constantly to
this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say
that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check
them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.' BOSWELL. 'It
may come to the door: and when once an account is at all varied in one
circumstance, it may by degrees be varied so as to be totally different
from what really happened.
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