24 February 2016

A journey through Lent 2016
with Samuel Johnson (15)

‘And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death’ … The Johnson family memorial, with the inscription commissioned by Samuel Johnson commemorating his father, mother and brother (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

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.

So often, in Lent as in every other time of the year, we live in our yesterdays, rather than living in today and hoping for tomorrow.

Yesterday was defined by Johnson defined in his Dictionary in these words:

Day last past; day next before to-day.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.


Yesterday’s reflection.

Continued tomorrow.


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