He disapproved of parentheses; and I believe in all his
voluminous writings, not half a dozen of them will be found. He never
used the phrases _the former_ and _the latter_, having observed, that
they often occasioned obscurity; he therefore contrived to construct his
sentences so as not to have occasion for them, and would even rather
repeat the same words, in order to avoid them[596]. Nothing is more
common than to mistake surnames when we hear them carelessly uttered for
the first time. To prevent this, he used not only to pronounce them
slowly and distinctly, but to take the trouble of spelling them; a
practice which I have often followed; and which I wish were general.
Such was the heat and irritability of his blood, that not only did he
pare his nails to the quick; but scraped the joints of his fingers with
a pen-knife, till they seemed quite red and raw.
The heterogeneous composition of human nature was remarkably
exemplified in Johnson. His liberality in giving his money to persons in
distress was extraordinary. Yet there lurked about him a propensity to
paultry saving.
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