274 Recollections of Dr. Johnson
hand to conduct her in, leaving Dr. Johnson to perform at the Parlour Door much the same exercise over again.
But the strange positions in which he would place his feet (generally I think before he began his straddles, as if necessarily preparatory) are scarcely credible. Sometimes he would make the back part of his heels to touch, sometimes the extremity of his toes, as if endeavouring to form a triangle, or some geo metrical figure x , and as for his gestures with his hands, they were equally as strange ; sometimes he would hold them up with some of his fingers bent, as if he had been seized with the cramp, and sometimes at his Breast in motion like those of a jockey on full speed ; and often would he lift them up as high as he could stretch over his head, for some minutes. But the manoeuvre that used the most particularly to engage the attention of the company was his stretching out his arm with a full cup of tea in his hand, in every direction, often to the great annoyance of the person who sat next him, indeed to the imminent danger of their cloaths, perhaps of a Lady's Court dress ; sometimes he would twist himself round with his face close to the back of his chair, and finish his cup of tea, breathing very hard, as if making a laborious effort to accomplish it.
What could have induced him to practise such extraordinary gestures who can divine ! his head, his hands and his feet often in motion at the same time. Many people have supposed that they were the natural effects of a nervous disorder, but had that been the case he could not have sat still when he chose, which he did 2 , and so still indeed when sitting for his picture, as often to have been complimented with being a pattern for sitters 3 , no
1 In one of her manuscripts Miss duty; and what was Very extra- Reynolds wrote : ordinary, after he had quitted the
- Sometimes he would with great place, particularly at the entrance of
earnestness place his feet in a par- a door, he would return to the same
ticular position, sometimes making spot, evidently, I thought, from a
his heels to touch, sometimes his scruple of conscience, and perform it
toes, as if he was endeavouring to all over again.'
form a triangle, at least the two sides 2 Ante, ii. 222.
of one, and after having finish'd he 3 Reynolds's portrait of Johnson,
would beat his sides, or the skirts of which had belonged to Boswell, and
his coat, repeatedly with his hands, afterwards to his son James, was
as if for joy that he had done his sold on June 3, 1825, to Mr. Graves,
slight
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