Other related topics at: Careers 16. Soldiers and Sailors "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." Boswell: Life Link 132. Soldiers and Sailors "A ship is worse than a gaol. There is, in a gaol, better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger." Boswell: Life Link 133. Career Choices; Soldiers and Sailors "Men go to sea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life." Boswell: Life Link 200. Public servants; Soldiers and Sailors "The character of a soldier is high. They who stand forth the foremost in danger, for the community, have the respect of mankind. An officer is much more respected than any other man who has as little money. In a commercial country, money will always purchase respect. But you find, an officer, who has, properly speaking, no money, is every where well received and treated with attention. The character of a soldier always stands him in good stead." Boswell: Life Link 201. Soldiers and Sailors; Supply and Value The peculiar respect paid to the military character in France was mentioned. Boswell: "I should think that where military men are so numerous, they would be less valued as not being rare." Johnson: "Nay, Sir, wherever a particular character or profession is high in the estimation of a people, those who are of it will be valued above other men. We value an Englishman highly in this country, and yet Englishman are not rare in it." Boswell: Life Link 266. Soldiers and Sailors "A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption." Boswell: Life Link 267. Soldiers and Sailors We talked of war. Johnson: "Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea." Boswell: "Lord Mansfield does not." Johnson: "Sir, if Lord Mansfield were in a company of General Officers and Admirals who have been in service, he would shrink; he'd wish to creep under the table." Boswell: ""No; he'd think he could try them all." Johnson: "Yes, if he could catch them: but they'd try him much sooner. No, Sir; were Socrates and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden both present in any company, and Socrates to say, 'Follow me, and hear a lecture on philosophy;' and Charles, laying his hand on his sword, to say, 'Follow me, and dethrone the Czar;' a man would be ashamed to follow Socrates. Sir, the impression is universal; yet it is strange. As to the sailor, when you look down from the quarter deck to the space below, you see the utmost extremity of human misery; such crouding, such filth, such stench!" Boswell: "Yet sailors are happy." Johnson: "They are happy as brutes are happy, with a piece of fresh meat, --with the grossest sensuality. But, Sir, the profession of soldiers and sailors has the dignity of danger. Mankind reverence those who have got over fear, which is so general a weakness." Scott: "But is not courage mechanical, and to be acquired?" Johnson: "Why yes, Sir, in a collective sense. Soldiers consider themselves only as parts of a great machine." Scott: "We find people fond of being sailors." Johnson: "I cannot account for that, any more than I can account for other strange perversions of imagination." Boswell: Life Link 629. Soldiers/Sailors; Sorrow "The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. It is commonly observed, that among soldiers and seamen, though there is much kindness, there is little grief; they see their friend fall without any of that lamentation which is indulged in security and idleness, because they have no leisure to spare from the care of themselves; and whoever shall keep his thoughts equally busy will find himself equally unaffected with irretrievable losses." Johnson: Rambler #47 (August 28, 1750) Link 801. Boredom; Soldiers and Sailors; War "I suppose every man is shocked when he hears how frequently soldiers are wishing for war. The wish is not always sincere; the greater part are content with sleep and lace, and counterfeit an ardour which they do not feel; but those who desire it most are neither prompted by malevolence nor patriotism; they neither pant for laurels, nor delight in blood; but long to be delivered from the tyranny of idleness, and restored to the dignity of active beings." Johnson: Idler #21 (September 2, 1758) Link 1,398. Patriotism; Soldiers and Sailors; War It affords a generous and manly pleasure to conceive a little nation gathering its fruits and tending its herds with fearless confidence, though it lies open on every side to invasion, where, in contempt of walls and trenches, every man sleeps securely with his sword beside him; where all on the first approach of hostility come together at the call to battle, as at a summons to a festal show; and committing their cattle to the care of those whom age or nature has disabled, engage the enemy with that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that fight under the eye of those, whose dislike or kindness they have always considered as the greatest evil or the greatest good. This was, in the beginning of the present century, the state of the Highlands. Every man was a soldier, who partook of national confidence, and interested himself in national honour. To lose this spirit, is to lose what no small advantage will compensate. Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Link 1,495. Soldiers and Sailors; War "It is not the desire of new acquisitions, but the glory of conquests, that fires the soldier's breast; as indeed the town is seldom worth much, when it has suffered the devastations of a siege." Johnson: Adventurer #34 (March 3, 1753), from a fictional correspondent named Misargyrus Link