A sentence from Samuel Johnson’s The Life of Savage

I’ve been reading Francine Prose’s Reading like a Writer recently. The subtitle of the book, A guide for people who love books and those who want to write them, gives an indication about why it’s not a book one can read cover to cover without a break. After reading a few chapters, one begins to feel that perhaps Francine Prose has read every notable book ever written, some multiple times. Several amazing excerpts in her collection and I bring to you the first – the sentence that begins Samuel Johnson’s brief biography The Life of Savage.

It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe.

Here’s what Prose has to say about this sentence. The quality that this sentence shares in common with all good sentences is first and most obviously clarity. Between its initial capital letter and its final period are 134 words, ten commas, and three semicolons, and yet the average reader, or at least the reader who has the patience to read and consider every word, will have no trouble understanding what Doctor Johnson is saying.

And what do I have to say? Wow!