Dr. Sam Johnson's heart was, it seems, as "approaching to the gigantick" as every other part of him.Even before the death of his wife, he opened his doors to a great variety of needy friends - a reformed prostitute, an alcoholic doctor of the poor, his wife's former companion, a blind poetess, and a young black boy who he treated as an adopted son.
Like the 'Big Brother' house, this random assortment of beings failed to find social cohesion, and rather than providing their benefactor with a harmonious household spent all their time bickering and quarreling. As Johnson laments in a letter of 1778:
We have tolerable Concord at Home, but no Love. Williams hates Everybody; Levet hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of these.
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