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Quotation from The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
“Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?”
The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1754 (Aetat. 45): letter to Lord Chesterfield, February 1755 (Project Gutenberg #1564 (Osgood abridgment, 1917))
Johnson rebukes Chesterfield for praising the Dictionary only when it was finished, after years of unassisted labour.
Citation: "Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?" — James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1754 (Aetat. 45): letter to Lord Chesterfield, February 1755 (Project Gutenberg #1564 (Osgood abridgment, 1917)). (id boswell-life-of-johnson-q1)
Virtues: Magnanimity, Industry
Portrait: James Boswell of Auchinleck, Joshua Reynolds, Public domain.
