"I am unaffectedly sorry for having been apparently so dilatory in complying with your request for hymns and tunes. I use the word _apparently_, because to any charge of suffering any opportunity of executing the commission to pass by unimproved, I may boldly plead not guilty. There never, surely, was such a place as this for the frittering away of time. Two visits before breakfast to the Pump Room, and two again from 2 to 3 1/4 o'clock in the afternoon, make such a chasm in the day, that little before dinner (about 4 3/4) is left for any rational occupation. Then not being able, for many reasons, to receive company at dinner, we often invite friends to breakfast, and as we cannot begin the meal till 10 1/2 at the soonest, we seldom have a clear room till after 12. Sometimes morning callers come in before the breakfasters are gone (as has been the case this morning, when my old friend Bankes has entered, taking Bath in his way from his son in North Wales into Dorsetshire). You owe this account of expenditure of my time to my feeling quite uncomfortable, from the idea of neglecting a commission you wished to consign to me for prompt execution. I will put down in any letter I may write to you any hymns and hymn tunes which I like ('Happy the heart where graces reign,' Lock tune), and you may add together the _disjecta membra_ into one list. But I have not hymn-books here except G. Noel's. At Highwood I have a considerable number. Your poor mother is worried to pieces by company and business. I am fully persuaded, my dear Samuel, that you wish to lighten the pressure on me as much as possible, and on the other hand I doubt not you give me full credit for wishing to make you as comfortable as I can, and I really hope I shall be able to go on allowing my children what is necessary for their comfort." "_January 19, 1832._