'Tomorrow I Propose to Regulate My Room'

A reader in Columbus, Ohio reports a “Samuel Johnson sighting in Ogden Nash.” In the December 21, 1968 issue of The New Yorker he found the poem “Is There a Dr. Johnson in the House.” It’s a typical irregularly lined, jokily rhymed production by Nash that begins: 

“Do you know with whom I feel a temperamental kinship? I will tell you with whom—

It is Dr. Johnson who said, ‘Tomorrow I propose to regulate my room.’

That statement has a valiant sound to it,

But, being a temperamental kinsman of his, I bet he never got around to it.

Myself in a similar situation I daily find;

Tomorrow I plan to regulate my mind.”

 

I’m unable to find the line by Johnson, though it sounds genuine. Johnson’s reputation as a messy housekeeper is established. I would be grateful for assistance in identifying the quote, assuming it’s legitimate. At a retirement lunch earlier this week I was accused of the opposite failing. My former office on campus was described as “monastic.” It’s true: I don’t like clutter in my surroundings or prose. Nash’s poem is less about messiness than procrastination, which Johnson defines in his Dictionary as “delay; dilatoriness.”

[Dave Lull to the rescue: Dave found the Johnsonism in a prayer Johnson wrote on September 7, 1764.]