Johnson

For some reason that I cannot now recover, Dr. Johnson came to mind when I was composing the post at reference 1.

But I have now read the one book of his that turned out to be sitting on the top shelf, Rasselas, a book which wikipedia tells me was knocked out by the good doctor in a week or so in 1759 to help pay for his mother's funeral. My own copy is a bit newer than that, perhaps from around 1900, but in any event from before the time when publishers were obliged to put dates in books, an old but otherwise handsome small book from Routledge & Sons of London, one of their new universal library, and once the property of a T. W. Beuke, possibly a German. A book of just under 300 pages arranged with some odd pages at the front and some more odd pages at the back sandwiching 18 signatures of 16 pages each. Labelled from A to S, with something odd happening around the J-K mark, clearly some secret of the printers' craft. With another secret being the business of the odd pages front and back.

Another odd feature of the book is the large amount of white space, mainly between the 49 short chapters, usually of two or three pages each, with pages being approximately 150mm by 100mm, which does not seem to fit any of the standard sizes for books offered by google, with the nearest I came being something called B6. Another secret of the trade. But in any event the book must have been produced at a time when paper was relatively cheap.

The book is the story of an Abyssinian prince, Rasselas, and his sister Nekayah, who start off sequestered in a palatial prison, ringed in by mountains and which no-one, once in, is allowed to leave. We spend the first fifteen chapters learning that being sequestered in a palace is not that great and then escaping. The next thirty five chapters learning about all the things that can go wrong with people and their lives in the wide world. Just short of 50 short tales in all, each replete with pithy observation - and a moral. For example, just because shepherds work in pretty surroundings with pretty animals, does not make them into nice or happy people. Or just because a chap can give a nicely judged talk about how to live, don't assume that his own life is particularly edifying or happy. The sort of thing that might have done quite well to power improving drawing room conversation: you get one of your number to read one of the chapters, which might take five or ten minutes, and you then build a conversation on it. Inter alia, economical on candles.

I get the impression that Johnson was very conscious of the fragility of life and its pleasures. People could very easily do bad things to you, you might very easily get ill or worse and if you managed to avoid that lot, you would certainly get old and decrepit. Sans eyes, sans teeth and so on; see Jacques on the subject in Act II, Scene VII of 'As You Like It' - and see reference 2 for a picture of same. Perhaps a sensible approach to the uncertain world of his time, uncertain even for the rich. Perhaps this is the link to reference 1 - you might think you are doing great, but you never know whether or when dementia is going to grab you.

Johnson was clearly a very able chap. Perhaps I shall see what else I can find.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/still-alice.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/rosalind.html.