‘Since I left Oxford, little has happened to me, and still less have I done. I have indeed written two sermons, and they lasted near twenty minutes, so that I may hope to get on. But the time that they took me is quite absurd, and that which they gave me an excuse for wasting, under the plea of thought, grotesque indeed. Also, the paper that I wasted on things that turned out to have no reference to the subject would form a distinct object of contemplation; and after all, when I came to preach them, they seemed so rambling and incomplete that I could not fancy, while I was reading them, how anyone could possibly follow me. Besides this, I have done nothing except getting my equatorial put up and adjusted in our garden, and trying provoking experiments on the insensibility of my hearing organs. I find the summit of perception to which I can attain is to observe that a note harmonises better with its octave, twelfth, and fifth, than with their next-door neighbours. I also can acknowledge a discord in a deuce[67] and a seventh; but as for knowing one from the other, unless they come very close on each other, it passes my comprehension how man can do it…. I am quite ashamed of the length of time this has been on the stocks, and of the shabby performance which it turns out. Alas, it is a sad reflection that I am condemned to retrograde in all respects: to find no resting-place for my self-complacency either in my intellectual, moral, or corporeal prowess, and notwithstanding to be as conceited as ever!’ This was a note of needless dissatisfaction only too sincere, repeated in Keble’s ear. ‘As for me, I despair of ever becoming a scholar or mathematician either, beyond just enough to amuse myself when I am a solitary country Curate….’ 1829 is a silent year with Hurrell, on the whole. He had lost his beloved brother, and he was preparing for his own Ordination. In the late summer he paid his first visit to his cousins at Keswick. To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Sept. 17, 1829.