In the early part of my acquaintance with him, I was so wrapt in admiration of his extraordinary colloquial talents, and so little accustomed to this peculiar mode of expression, that I found it extremely difficult to recollect and record his conversation with its genuine vigor and vivacity. In progress of time, when my mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether, I could with much more facility and exactness, carry in my memory and commit to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom and wit.
–James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
