Jonah: There wouldn’t be half so much sloppy thinking around if people only

did a little more arithmetic. The great Sam Johnson made this point more

than once. JOHNSON. ‘Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very

hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house.’ BOSWELL. ‘Sir Alexander

Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine

at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined

there.’ JOHNSON. ‘That, Sir, is about three a day.’ BOSWELL. ‘How your

statement lessens the idea.’ JOHNSON. ‘That, Sir, is the good of counting.

It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind

indefinitely.’