“I have been tolerably well in body, but in mind
extremely languid, and full of heartaches.
“Few people have been more _repandu_, or more frequently
forced from home than myself; or more separately occupied
when there: yet the short intervals I was able to spend
with my family, ever since I had one, were the happiest
of my life. Even labour, care, and anxiety, for those we
love, have their pleasures; and those very superior to
what can be derived by working and thinking for self.”
Most anxiously, in answer to these communications, the Memorialist
pressed upon him a forced application to his Musical Dictionary; or,
preferably yet, to the last started subject of his balloon ideal
Voyages. But while this, after heavenly hopes, was what she urged for
occupation; what chiefly she brought forward to him as comfort, was the
solace which he had bestowed upon herself, during her late visit, from
witnessing his mild and exemplary resignation. She ardently begged him
to have recourse, for further self-consolation, to his own reflections
upon all that had passed with the poor sufferer during the whole of
their long intercourse; by looking back to his unabated, constant, and
indulgent kindness, through sickness, misfortunes, and time; joined to
the most grievous events, and trying circumstances.