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.'

Sept. 16. 'I have now let you alone for a long time, having indeed
little to say. You charge me somewhat unjustly with luxury. At
Chatsworth, you should remember, that I have eaten but once; and the
Doctor, with whom I live, follows a milk diet. I grow no fatter, though
my stomach, if it be not disturbed by physick, never fails me. I now
grow weary of solitude, and think of removing next week to Lichfield, a
place of more society, but otherwise of less convenience. When I am
settled, I shall write again. Of the hot weather that you mention, we
have [not] had in Derbyshire very much, and for myself I seldom feel
heat, and suppose that my frigidity is the effect of my distemper; a
supposition which naturally leads me to hope that a hotter climate may
be useful. But I hope to stand another English winter.'

Lichfield, Sept. 29. 'On one day I had three letters about the
air-balloon[1109]: 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. One day may be worse than another; but this last month is far
better than the former; if the next should be as much better than this,
I shall run about the town on my own legs.'

October 6. 'The fate of the balloon I do not much lament[1110]: to make
new balloons, is to repeat the jest again. We now know a method of
mounting into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. The
vehicles can serve no use till we can guide them; and they can gratify
no curiosity till we mount with them to greater heights than we can
reach without; till we rise above the tops of the highest mountains,
which we have yet not done. We know the state of the air in all its
regions, to the