What sunk me very low was the sensation that I was precisely as when in wretched low spirits thirty years ago, without any addition to my character from my having had the friendship of Dr. Johnson and many eminent men, made the tour of Europe, and Corsica in particular, and written two very successful books. I was as a board on which fine figures had been painted, but which some corrosive application had reduced to its original nakedness.
ATTRIBUTION:
James Boswell (1740–1795), Scottish author. Boswell The Great Biographer, July 7, 1790, p. 86, McGraw-Hill Book Publishing Company, Inc. (1989).
