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 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.