'I did not tell you that when I left Edinr for Dumfries, I put your paper in my pocket - and whilst my right worthy compagnons de voyage (for I came in the Mail from Moffat) were sunk in politics, post-horses, farming &c &c. I took out my friend's theorem, and leaving the base clod-hoppers to welter on among drains and dunghills and bullocks and balances of power -I entered Dumfries wholly disengaged from sublunary things; and well nigh perswaded that an angle [underscored twice]might [end underscore] be trisected'