next year
or two. I wanted him to try and get more into society again, but he
brushed this aside at once as the very last thing he had a fancy for. For
society indeed of all sorts, except of course that of a few intimate
friends, he had an unconquerable aversion. "I always did hate those
people," he said, "and they always have hated and always will hate me. I
am an Ishmael by instinct as much as by accident of circumstances, but if
I keep out of society I shall be less vulnerable than Ishmaels generally
are. The moment a man goes into society, he becomes vulnerable all
round."

I was very sorry to hear him talk in this way; for whatever strength a
man may have he should surely be able to make more of it if he act in
concert than alone. I said this.

"I don't care," he answered, "whether I make the most of my strength or
not; I don't know whether I have any strength, but if I have I dare say
it will find some way of exerting itself. I will live as I like living,
not as other people would like me to live; thanks to my aunt and you I
can afford the luxury of a quiet unobtrusive life of self-indulgence,"
said he laughing, "and I mean to have it. You know I like writing," he
added after a pause of some minutes, "I have been a scribbler for years.
If I am to come to the fore at all it must be by writing."

I had already long since come to that conclusion myself.

"Well," he continued, "there are a lot of things that want saying which
no one dares to say, a lot of shams which want attacking, and yet no one
attacks them. It seems to me that I can say things which not another man
in England except myself will venture to say, and yet which are crying to
be said."

I said: "But who will listen? If you say things which nobody else would
dare to say is not this much the same as saying what everyone except
yourself knows to be better left unsaid just now?"

"Perhaps," said he, "but I don't know it; I am bursting with these
things, and it is my fate to say them."

I knew there would be no stopping him, so I gave in and asked what
question he felt a special desire to burn his fingers with in the first
instance.

"Marriage," he rejoined promptly, "and the power of disposing of his
property after a man is dead. The question of Christianity is virtually
settled, or if not settled there is no lack of those engaged in settling
it. The question of the day now is marriage and the family system."

"That," said I drily,