His friend Dr. Lawrence having now suffered the greatest affliction to
which a man is liable, and which Johnson himself had felt in the most
severe manner; Johnson wrote to him in an admirable strain of sympathy
and pious consolation.
'To DR. LAWRENCE.
'DEAR SIR,
'At a time when all your friends ought to shew their kindness, and with
a character which ought to make all that know you your friends, you may
wonder that you have yet heard nothing from me.
'I have been hindered by a vexatious and incessant cough, for which
within these ten days I have been bled once, fasted four or five times,
taken physick five times, and opiates, I think, six. This day it seems
to remit.
'The loss, dear Sir, which you have lately suffered, I felt many years
ago, and know therefore how much has been taken from you, and how little
help can be had from consolation. He that outlives a wife whom he has
long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same
hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has
shared much good or evil; and with whom he could set his mind at
liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future.
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