Besides that, I had no talent for assisting either candidate in
case of an expected election, and saw no amusement in the duties
of a road trustee, a commissioner of supply, or even in the
magisterial functions of the bench. I had begun to take some
taste for reading; and a domiciliation in the country must remove
me from the use of books, excepting the small subscription
library, in which the very book which you want is uniformly sure
to be engaged.
I resolved, therefore, to make the Scottish metropolis my regular
resting-place, reserving to myself to take occasionally those
excursions which, spite of all I have said against mail-coaches,
Mr. Piper has rendered so easy. Friend of our life and of our
leisure, he secures by dispatch against loss of time, and by the
best of coaches, cattle, and steadiest of drivers, against hazard
of limb, and wafts us, as well as our letters, from Edinburgh to
Cape Wrath in the penning of a paragraph.
When my mind was quite made up to make Auld Reekie my
headquarters, reserving the privilege of EXPLORING in all
directions, I began to explore in good earnest for the purpose of
discovering a suitable habitation.
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