Believe me, Caleb, I have noted your forbearance, and thank you for it." Caleb moved uneasily, but was silent.
"But my life has been too lonely for me," pursued his master wearily.
"On general grounds one would not imagine the life of a successful hermit to demand any rare qualifications.

It is humiliating, but even as a hermit I am a failure: for instance, you see, I want to talk." His hearer, though puzzled by the words, vaguely understood the smile of self-contempt with which they were closed.
"As a woman-hater, too, my performances are beneath contempt.
I _did_ think," said Mr.Fogo with something of testiness in his voice, "I should prove an adequate woman-hater, whereas it happens--" He broke off suddenly, and took a turn or two up and down the room.
Caleb could have finished the sentence for him, but refrained.
"Surely," said Mr.Fogo, pausing suddenly in his walk, "surely the conditions were favourable enough.

Listen.

It is not so very long ago since I possessed ambitions--hopes; hopes that I hugged to myself as only a silent man may.

With them I meant to move the world, so far as a writer can move the world (which I daresay may be quite an inch).