Note 3: — Chapter VII
Reading edition
A further reason depressed Boswell's spirits at this time: in the summer of 1789 he lost his wife.3 It is greatly to the credit of Boswell that he was very deeply affected by her death—to his credit, not because as a husband he was able to retain affection for his wife (for affections are not completely under our control), but because he was able to appreciate a woman who from his own accounts must have been a sensible, kind woman, and one who treated him with a patient consideration.