In The Life of Samuel Johnson, Boswell feels a. Awe for Samuel Johnson.
After he had met Johnson, Boswell never stopped having him in his mind, and he went over the way he thought about him many times. In his biography, he excused himself for “the imperfect manner in which I am obliged to exhibit Johnson’s conversation at this period [at the beginnings of their relationship]”. He really admired his extraordinary colloquial talents, and for that reason found it extremely difficult to recall and transcript his conversation "with its genuine vigour and vivacity". Only with the passing of the years, in his words: “when my mind was strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian aether”, Boswell could perceive the variety of Johnson's wisdom and smartness properly. He made another man's life his own life's work.