28 January 2018: "'No disease of the imagination,' answered Imlac, 'is so difficult to cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other.'" --Samuel Johnson, Rasselas
Johnson's text, written in 1759, is full of lines of wisdom, but the ones quoted above struck me with a particular poignancy as I read them over today in preparation for teaching the text on Tuesday. Johnson here shows such an astute sensitivity to the human mind--to the powers of guilt and anxiety.
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