s a man should take a cold
bath; even if he confers no pleasure on others by so doing, the mere
sense, to a timid man, of having steered a moderately straight course
through a social entertainment is in itself enlivening and
invigorating, and gives the pleasing feeling of having escaped from a
great peril. But the accusation of unsociability does not apply to
Perry, whose doors are open day and night, and whose welcome is always
perfectly sincere. Moreover, the frame of mind in which a man goes to a
party, determined to confer pleasure and exercise influence, is a
dangerously self-satisfied one. Society is, after all, a recreation and
a delight, and ought to be sought for with pleasurable motives, not
with a consciousness of rectitude and justice.

My own belief is that every one has a perfect right to choose his own
circle, and to make it large or small as he desires. It is a monstrous
thing to hold that, if an agreeable or desirable person comes to a
place, one has but to leave a piece of pasteboard at his door to entail
upon him the duty of coming round till he finds one at home, and of
disporting himself gingerly, like a dancing bear among the teacups. A
card ought to be a species of charity, left on solitary strangers, to
give them the chance of coming, if they like, to see the leaver of it,
or as a preliminary to a real invitation. It ought to be a ticket of
admission, which a man may use or not as he likes, not a legal summons.
That any one should return a call should be a compliment and an honour,
not regarded as the mere discharging of a compulsory duty.

I have heard fair ladies complain of the boredom they endured at
tea-parties; they speak of themselves as the martyrs and victims of a
sense of duty. If such people talked of the duty of visiting the sick
and afflicted as a thing which their conception of Christian love
entailed upon them, which they performed, reluctantly and unwillingly,
from a sense of obligation, I should respect them deeply and
profoundly. But I have not often found that the people who complain
most of their social duties, and who discharge them most sedulously,
complain because such duties interrupt a course of Christian
beneficence. It is, indeed, rather the other way; it is generally true
that those who see a good deal of society (from a sense of duty) and
find it dull, are the people who have no particular interests or
pursuits of their own.

There is less excuse in a University to