JOHNSON. 'Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a man is spending his
own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less
beef to-day, because you have written down what it cost yesterday.' I
mentioned another lady who thought as he did, so that her husband could
not get her to keep an account of the expence of the family, as she
thought it enough that she never exceeded the sum allowed her. JOHNSON.
'Sir, it is fit she should keep an account, because her husband wishes
it; but I do not see its use[552].' I maintained that keeping an account
has this advantage, that it satisfies a man that his money has not been
lost or stolen, which he might sometimes be apt to imagine, were there
no written state of his expence; and beside, a calculation of oeconomy
so as not to exceed one's income, cannot be made without a view of the
different articles in figures, that one may see how to retrench in some
particulars less necessary than others. This he did not attempt
to answer.
Talking of an acquaintance of ours[553], whose narratives, which
abounded in curious and interesting topicks, were unhappily found to be
very fabulous; I mentioned Lord Mansfield's having said to me, 'Suppose
we believe one _half_ of what he tells.
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