“Another lady, whose accomplishments he never denied, came to our house one day covered with diamonds, feathers, &c., and he did not seem inclined to chat with her as usual.  I asked him why? when the company was gone.  ’Why, her head looked so like that of a woman who shows puppets,’ said he, ’and her voice so confirmed the fancy, that I could not bear her to-day; when she wears a large cap, I can talk to her.’

“When the ladies wore lace trimmings to their clothes, he expressed his contempt of the reigning fashion in these terms:  ’A Brussels trimming is like bread-sauce,’ said he, ’it takes away the glow of colour from the gown, and gives you nothing instead of it; but sauce was invented to heighten the flavour of our food, and trimming is an ornament to the manteau, or it is nothing.  Learn,’ said he, ’that there is propriety or impropriety in every thing how slight soever, and get at the general principles of dress and of behaviour; if you then transgress them, you will at least know that they are not observed.’”

Madame D’Arblay confirms this account.  He had just been finding fault with a bandeau worn by Lady Lade, a very large woman, standing six feet high without her shoes: 

“Dr. J.—­The truth is, women, take them in general, have no idea of grace.  Fashion is all they think of.  I don’t mean Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, when I talk of women!—­they are goddesses!—­and therefore I except them.

“Mrs. Thrale.—­Lady Lade never wore the bandeau, and said she never would, because it is unbecoming.

“Dr. J. (laughing.)—­Did not she? then is Lady Lade a charming woman, and I have yet hopes of entering into engagements with her!

“Mrs. T.—­Well, as to that I can’t say; but to be sure, the only similitude I have yet discovered in you, is in size:  there you agree mighty well.

“Dr. J.—­Why, if anybody could have worn the bandeau, it must have been Lady Lade; for there is enough of her to carry it off; but you are too little for anything ridiculous; that which seems nothing upon a Patagonian, will become very conspicuous upon a Lilliputian, and of you there is so little in all, that one single absurdity would swallow up half of you.”

Matrimony was one of his favourite subjects, and he was fond of laying down and refining on the duties of the married state, with the amount of happiness and comfort to be found in it.  But once when he was musing over the fire in the drawing-room at Streatham, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, “Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?” “I would advise no man to marry, Sir,” replied the Doctor in a very angry tone, “who is not likely to propagate understanding;” and so left the room.  “Our companion,” adds Mrs. Thrale, in the “Anecdotes,” “looked confounded, and I believe had scarce recovered the consciousness of his own existence, when Johnson came back, and, drawing his chair among us, with altered looks and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, insensibly led the conversation to the subject of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dissertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on the true knowledge of human life, and so adorned with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever recollected the offence, except to rejoice in its consequences.”