Essays in Idleness

Today is the 240th anniversary of the death of Samuel Johnson, may he rest in peace. This also makes it the 40th anniversary of the foundation of The Idler, here in Canada. It seemed, at the time, a notable coincidence, for we had not intentionally chosen this date; also, allowing for the five hour time difference from London, the presses rolled (in Brampton, Ontario), at precisely the moment Dr Johnson died, albeit 200 years later.

The point was never to get the date right, however; the times are so frequently out of joint. It was to supply Canada (and the world) with something it seemed to be missing: a publication “for those who read,” of “elevated general interest,” like the better ones we had seen from the United States and Europe. It did not seem that such a thing was available, up here in the frigid, icy north, where thought processes are slow and glacial. We did not seriously expect it to last, in this climate. Yet for almost a decade, it supplied a happy experience for the Canadian literati, and excited the horror of our Left.