but I endeavoured to arrive at the principles that supported such a
verdict. I gathered that Egeria considered that every one owed a
certain duty to society; that people had no business to pick and
choose, to cultivate the society of those who happened to please
and interest them, and to eschew the society of those who bored and
wearied them; that such a course was not fair to the uninteresting
people, and so forth. But the point was that there was a duty
involved, and that some sacrifice was required of virtuous people
in the matter.

Egeria herself is certainly blameless in the matter: she diffuses
sweetness and light in many tedious assemblies; she is true to her
principles; but for all that I cannot agree with her on this point.

In the first place I cannot agree that sociability is a duty at
all, and to conceive of it as such seems to me to misunderstand the
whole situation. I think that a man loses a great deal by being
unsociable, and that for his own happiness he had better make an
effort to see something of his fellows. All kinds of grumpinesses
and morbidities arise from solitude; and a shy man ought to take
occasional dips into society from a medicinal point of view, as 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