“I covet nothing,” said Mr. Skimpole in the same light way.  “Possession is nothing to me.  Here is my friend Jarndyce’s excellent house.  I feel obliged to him for possessing it.  I can sketch it and alter it.  I can set it to music.  When I am here, I have sufficient possession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility.  My steward’s name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can’t cheat me.  We have been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby.  There is a bright-eyed woman, of a strong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself into objects with surprising ardour!  I don’t regret that I have not a strong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself into objects with surprising ardour.  I can admire her without envy.  I can sympathize with the objects.  I can dream of them.  I can lie down on the grass—­in fine weather—­and float along an African river, embracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and sketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I were there.  I don’t know that it’s of any direct use my doing so, but it’s all I can do, and I do it thoroughly.  Then, for heaven’s sake, having Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the world, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to let him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other, like good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!”

It was plain enough that Mr. Jarndyce had not been neglectful of the adjuration.  Mr. Skimpole’s general position there would have rendered it so without the addition of what he presently said.

“It’s only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy,” said Mr. Skimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner.  “I envy you your power of doing what you do.  It is what I should revel in myself.  I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you.  I almost feel as if you ought to be grateful to me for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity.  I know you like it.  For anything I can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness.  I may have been born to be a benefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting me in my little perplexities.  Why should I regret my incapacity for details and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant consequences?  I don’t regret it therefore.”

Of all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what they expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce than this.  I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether it was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, who was probably the most grateful of mankind upon the least occasion, should so desire to escape the gratitude of others.