a duty to be present at social or religious functions, in
order that my sociable or liturgical friends should have a suitable
background for their pleasures, I think it a solemn duty to resist to
the uttermost this false and vexatious theory of society and religion!

I suppose, too, that inveterate talkers and discoursers require an
audience who should listen meekly and admiringly, and not interrupt. I
have friends who are afflicted with this taste to such an extent, who
are so determined to hold the talk in their own hands, that I declare
they might as well have a company of stuffed seals to sit down to
dinner with, as a circle of living and breathing men. But I do not
think it right, or at all events necessary, in the interests of human
kindliness, that I should victimize myself so for a man's pleasure.
Neither do I think it necessary that I should attend a ceremony where I
neither get nor give anything of the nature of pleasure, simply in
order to conform to a social rule, invented and propagated by those who
happen to enjoy such gatherings.

I remember being much struck by an artless reminiscence of an
undergraduate, quoted in the Memoirs of a certain distinguished
academical personage, who was fond of inviting young men to share his
hospitality for experimental reasons. I cannot recollect the exact
words, but the undergraduate wrote of his celebrated entertainer
somewhat to the following effect: "He asked me to sit down, so I sate
down; he asked me to eat an apple, so I ate it. He asked me to take a
glass of wine, so I poured one out, and drank it. I am told that he
tries to get you to talk so that he may see the kind of fellow you are;
but I didn't want him to know the kind of fellow I was, so I didn't
talk; and presently I went away." I think that this species of
retaliation is perfectly fair in the case of experimental
entertainments. Social gatherings must be conducted on a basis of
perfect equality, and the idea of duty in connection with them is a
bugbear invented in the interests of those who are greedy of society,
and not in a position to contribute any pleasure to a social gathering.

It might be inferred from the above considerations that I am an
inveterately unsociable person; but such is not the case. I am
extremely gregarious at the right time and place. I love to spend a
large part of the day alone; I think that a perfect day consists in a
solitary breakfast and a solitary morning; a single companio