Note 6: — Chapter VII

Boswell had always been a self-indulgent man. Before his marriage he was, as may be seen from the letters, sexually self-indulgent. Whether he was so in later years, or in what degree, it is difficult to determine; INTOXICATION he may have been alluding to this when he talks of 'little fondnesses,' and of being 'dissipated';6 and the fact that he says on one occasion that he had no 'confessions' to make rather suggests the possibility that this may not always have been the case, though he never actually confesses.