{"id":204,"date":"2004-05-22T17:31:47","date_gmt":"2004-05-22T21:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2004\/05\/22\/echo-of-johnson\/"},"modified":"2004-05-22T17:31:47","modified_gmt":"2004-05-22T21:31:47","slug":"echo-of-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2004\/05\/22\/echo-of-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Echo of Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve noticed Patrick O’Brian doing the following a couple times. Here’s H.M.S. Surprise<\/i>, p. 258:<\/p>\n

\n   ‘Certainly. I feel much for the gentleman. But he seems to be of a sanguine humour, and Pullings tells me the captains of Indiamen become exceedingly rich — they shake the pagoda-tree like true British tars.’
\n   ‘Rich? Oh, yes, they wallow in gold. But he will never hoist his flag! No, no, poor fellow, he<\/i> will never hoist his flag.’\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This reminds me of an account which Boswell gives us of Samuel Johnson:<\/p>\n

\nNor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a
\ncat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I
\nfrequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same
\nHodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying ‘why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;’ and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’<\/p>\n

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. ‘Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.’ And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat, and said, ‘But Hodge shan’t be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.’\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve never read Boswell, but that last paragraph is employed by Nabokov as the epigraph to Pale Fire<\/i>. It hit me hard when I read that book, and has stuck in my head since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve noticed Patrick O’Brian doing the following a couple times. Here’s H.M.S. Surprise, p. 258:    ‘Certainly. I feel much for the gentleman. But he seems to be of a sanguine humour, and Pullings tells me the captains of Indiamen become exceedingly rich — they shake the pagoda-tree like true British tars.’    ‘Rich? Oh, yes, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}