y
does not drive a man out of his house, nothing will.' This was a
horrible shock, for which there was no visible cause. I afterwards asked
him why he had said so harsh a thing. JOHNSON. Because, Sir, you made
me angry about the Americans.' BOSWELL. 'But why did you not take your
revenge directly?' JOHNSON. (smiling,) 'Because, Sir, I had nothing
ready. A man cannot strike till he has his weapons.' This was a candid
and pleasant confession.

He shewed me to-night his drawing-room, very genteelly fitted up; and
said, 'Mrs. Thrale sneered when I talked of my having asked you and your
lady to live at my house. I was obliged to tell her, that you would be
in as respectable a situation in my house as in hers. Sir, the insolence
of wealth will creep out.' BOSWELL. 'She has a little both of the
insolence of wealth, and the conceit of parts.' JOHNSON. 'The insolence
of wealth is a wretched thing; but the conceit of parts has some
foundation. To be sure it should not be. But who is without it?'
BOSWELL. 'Yourself, Sir.' JOHNSON. 'Why, I play no tricks: I lay no
traps.' BOSWELL. 'No, Sir. You are six feet high, and you only do not
stoop.'

We talked of the numbers of people that sometimes have composed the
household of great families. I mentioned that there were a hundred
in the family of the present Earl of Eglintoune's father. Dr. Johnson
seeming to doubt it, I began to enumerate. 'Let us see: my Lord and my
Lady two.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, if you are to count by twos, you may
be long enough.' BOSWELL. 'Well, but now I add two sons and seven
daughters, and a servant for each, that will make twenty; so we have
the fifth part already.' JOHNSON. 'Very true. You get at twenty pretty
readily; but you will not so easily get further on. We grow to five feet
pretty readily; but it is not so easy to grow to seven.'

On Monday, April 20, I found him at home in the morning. We talked of a
gentleman who we apprehended was gradually involving his circumstances
by bad management. JOHNSON. 'Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a
thousand imperceptible means. If it were a stream, they'd stop it. You
must speak to him. It is really miserable. Were he a gamester, it could
be said he had hopes of winning. Were he a bankrupt in trade, he might
have grown rich; but he has neither spirit to spend nor resolution to
spare. He does not spend fast enough to have pleasure from it. He has
the crime of prodigality, and the wretchedness of parsimony. If a m