One thing that struck me when I read Boswell’s Life of Johnson more than twenty years ago is how strange Johnson seems to have been in person yet how strongly h

One thing that struck me when I read Boswell’s Life of Johnson more than twenty years ago is how strange Johnson seems to have been in person yet how strongly he was admired and loved—at least in Boswell’s telling—by people who knew him. Boswell mentions his “oddities of manner, and uncouth gesticulations” [0]. Macaulay goes into more detail: “His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord’s Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post in the streets through which he walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he would go back a hundred yards and repair the omission. Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name.” [1] I wonder if a person today with a similar mental illness would be accepted and respected in society as Johnson was. [0] https://archive.org/details/lifesamueljohns10boswgoog/page/n100/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/lifesamueljohns10boswgoog/page/n... [1] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42971/42971-h/42971-h.htm#Page_1 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42971/42971-h/42971-h.htm#Pa... Edit: “how strange he seems to have been” -> “how strange Johnson seems to have been”