Volume 37, Number 7 · April 26, 1990
Guilt-Edged Insecurity
By Derek Jarrett
THE YALE EDITIONS OF THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF JAMES BOSWELL
Boswell: The Great Biographer, 1789–1795
edited by Marlies K. Danziger, edited by Frank Brady
McGraw-Hill, 371 pp., $24.95
Boswell's London Journal, 1762–1763
by James Boswell
Boswell in Holland, 1763–1764
by James Boswell
Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany and Switzerland, 1764
by James Boswell
Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France, 1765–1766
by James Boswell
Boswell in Search of a Wife, 1766–1769
by James Boswell
Boswell for the Defence, 1769–1774
by James Boswell
Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 1773
by James Boswell
Boswell: The Ominous Years, 1774–1776
by James Boswell
Boswell in Extremes, 1776–1778
by James Boswell
Boswell, Laird of Auchinleck, 1778–1782
by James Boswell
Boswell: The Applause of the Jury, 1782–1785
by James Boswell
Boswell: The English Experiment, 1785–1789
by James Boswell
Boswell: The Great Biographer, 1789–1795
by James Boswell
Some have kept diaries to remind themselves of their deeds, others to reproach themselves for their misdeeds. On March 28, 1754, Thomas Turner, school-master of East Hoathly in Sussex and subsequently proprietor of the village shop, recorded remorsefully in his diary that he had been appallingly drunk that day. 'Oh! with what horrors does it fill my heart, to think I should be guilty of doing so, and on a Sunday too!' he wrote. 'Let me once more endeavour never, no never, to be guilty of the same again.' But his endeavors were not successful and he continued to turn to his diary as others might have turned to the priest in the confessional. Some years later, once again tipsy on a Sunday, he had dark fears of eternal damnation: 'Think how miserable must my unhappy lot speedily be, should I sleep never to open my eyes again in this world when ever I am in liquor!'
Review, 3832 words
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