The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04Johnson, Samuel
Philosophy
The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04
Johnson, Samuel
Essays
This prognostication she was ordered to keep
secret; and Norngsuk depending upon his artifice,
renewed his addresses with greater confidence; but
finding his suit still unsuccessful, applied himself to
her parents with gifts and promises. The wealth of
Greenland is too powerful for the virtue of a
Greenlander; they forgot the merit and the presents of
Anningait, and decreed Ajut to the embraces of
Norngsuk. She entreated; she remonstrated; she
wept, and raved; but finding riches irresistible, fled
away into the uplands, and lived in a cave upon
such berries as she could gather, and the birds or
hares which she had the fortune to ensnare, taking
care, at an hour when she was not likely to be
found, to view the sea every day, that her lover
might not miss her at his return.
At last she saw the great boat in which Anningait
had departed, stealing slow and heavy laden
along the coast. She ran with all the impatience of
affection to catch her lover in her arms, and relate
her constancy and sufferings. When the company
reached the land, they informed her that Anningait,
after the fishery was ended, being unable to
support the slow passage of the vessel of carriage,
had set out before them in his fishing-boat, and
they expected at their arrival to have found him
on shore.
Ajut, distracted at this intelligence, was about to
fly into the hills, without knowing why, though
she was now in the hands of her parents, who forced
her back to their own hut, and endeavoured to
comfort her; but when at last they retired to rest,
Ajut went down to the beach; where, finding a
fishing-boat, she entered it without hesitation, and
telling those who wondered at her rashness, that
she was going in search of Anningait, rowed away
with great swiftness, and was seen no more.
The fate of these lovers gave occasion to various
fictions and conjectures. Some are of opinion, that
they were changed into stars; others imagine, that
Anningait was seized in his passage by the genius
of the rocks, and that Ajut was transformed into a
mermaid, and still continues to seek her lover in
the deserts of the sea. But the general persuasion
is, that they are both in that part of the land of
souls where the sun never sets, where oil is always
fresh, and provisions always warm. The virgins
sometimes throw a thimble and a needle into the
bay, from which the hapless maid departed; and
when a Greenlander would praise any couple for
virtuous affection, he declares that they love like
Anningait and Ajut.
No. 188. SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1751
----Si te colo, Sexte, non amabo.
MART. Lib. ii. Ep. iv. 33.
The more I honour thee, the less I love.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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