On her first settlement in our
neighbourhood, I made it my own particular business (for at that time I
was not employed in writing, having published my first volume and not
begun my second) to pay my _devoirs_ to her ladyship every morning at
eleven. Customs very soon became laws. I began _The Task_, for she
was the lady who gave me the _Sofa_ for a subject. Being once engaged
in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience of my morning
attendance. We had seldom breakfasted ourselves till ten; and the
intervening hour was all the time I could find in the whole day for
writing, and occasionally it would happen that the half of that hour
was all that I could secure for the purpose. But there was no remedy.
Long usage had made that which was at first optional a point of good
manners, and consequently of necessity, and I was forced to neglect
_The Task_ to attend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject. But
she had ill-health, and before I had quite finished the work was
obliged to repair to Bristol.
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