22 February 2016

A journey through Lent 2016
with Samuel Johnson (13)

Wise words from Samuel Johnson on a chalkboard in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on words from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield lexicographer and writer who compiled the first authoritative English-language dictionary.

During my visits to Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare, last weekend, I met many old friends and made some new friends. I was reminded of words from Samuel Johnson that I saw on a chalkboard in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield, and that are ascribed to Johnson by his biographer James Boswell in his Life:

I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Continued tomorrow.

Yesterday’s reflection.

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