When I was a child, our family had a pet cat called Boswell, who was named after Samuel Johnson’s biographer, James Boswell. Our cat’s namesake was a brilliant writer who had a profound influence in the 18th century; he recounted amusing anecdotes from life around him and those he knew. His keen observations painted a wonderful picture of Dr Johnson, the celebrated intellectual.
Observing well, and telling the story of what is happening, can have a great influence on the world. Sherlock Holmes would be nothing without his Dr Watson, whom Arthur Conan Doyle uses as the narrator of the great detective’s cases. Historical observation is a genre for us daily, as the four Evangelists recount to us what they were blessed to witness. It is clear that without Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet Union would not have been embarrassed into its collapse as quickly as it was; merely observing what is true holds tremendous power.
