'She is better employed at her toilet, than using
her pen. It is better she should be reddening her own cheeks, than
blackening other people's characters.'
He would not allow me to praise a lady then at Bath; observing, 'She
does not gain upon me, Sir; I think her empty-headed.' He was, indeed,
a stern critick upon characters and manners. Even Mrs. Thrale did not
escape his friendly animadversion at times. When he and I were one day
endeavouring to ascertain, article by article, how one of our friends
could possibly spend as much money in his family as he told us he did,
she interrupted us by a lively extravagant sally, on the expence of
clothing his children, describing it in a very ludicrous and fanciful
manner. Johnson looked a little angry, and said, 'Nay, Madam, when you
are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.' At
another time, when she said, perhaps affectedly, 'I don't like to fly.'
JOHNSON. 'With YOUR wings, Madam, you MUST fly: but have a care, there
are CLIPPERS abroad.
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