Before breakfast, Dr. Johnson came up to my room to forbid me to mention
that this was his birthday; but I told him I had done it already; at
which he was displeased[616]; I suppose from wishing to have nothing
particular done on his account. Lady M'Leod and I got into a warm
dispute. She wanted to build a house upon a farm which she has taken,
about five miles from the castle, and to make gardens and other
ornaments there; all of which I approved of; but insisted that the seat
of the family should always be upon the rock of Dunvegan. JOHNSON. 'Ay,
in time we'll build all round this rock. You may make a very good house
at the farm; but it must not be such as to tempt the Laird of M'Leod to
go thither to reside. Most of the great families in England have a
secondary residence, which is called a jointure-house: let the new house
be of that kind.' The lady insisted that the rock was very inconvenient;
that there was no place near it where a good garden could be made; that
it must always be a rude place; that it was a _Herculean_ labour to make
a dinner here. I was vexed to find the alloy of modern refinement in a
lady who had so much old family spirit. 'Madam, (said I,) if once you
quit this rock, there is no knowing where you may settle. You move five
miles first;--then to St. Andrews, as the late Laird did;--then to
Edinburgh;--and so on till you end at Hampstead, or in France.
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