--"
I hope, however, with good help, to find means of supporting a winter at
home, and to hear and tell at the Club what is doing, and what ought to
be doing in the world. I have no company here, and shall naturally come
home hungry for conversation. To wish you, dear Sir, more leisure, would
not be kind; but what leisure you have, you must bestow upon me.'
Lichfield, Sept. 29. 'On one day I had three letters about the
air-balloon: yours was far the best, and has enabled me to impart to
my friends in the country an idea of this species of amusement. In
amusement, mere amusement, I am afraid it must end, for I do not find
that its course can be directed so as that it should serve any purposes
of communication; and it can give no new intelligence of the state of
the air at different heights, till they have ascended above the height
of mountains, which they seem never likely to do. I came hither on the
27th. How long I shall stay I have not determined. My dropsy is gone,
and my asthma much remitted, but I have felt myself a little declining
these two days, or at least to-day; but such vicissitudes must be
expected.
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