Note 38: — Chapter VI

'His social propensities,' says Sir J. Prior, 'were well known ... he opens his mind so freely that we discover much of what is passing there, even when the disclosure is not meant.'38 Boswell, indeed, talked very readily even upon the most serious subjects. About morals and religion he was continually questioning Dr. Johnson, and most of all about what to the other was a peculiarly sacred and awful thing, the fear of death. The topics were introduced apparently without any particular reason or fitness, but just as it occurred TACTLESSNESS to Boswell that he might elicit some response from Johnson upon questions about which it was essential to his purpose that he should hear the doctor's views: and they were introduced too not merely in private converse but when a number of people were present.