Part 21 (1/2)
BACHELORS.
I would not my unhoused free condition Put into circ.u.mspection and confine, For the sea's worth.--Shakspeare.
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.--Shakspeare.
Nothing is further from the single man's thoughts than that he will continue in the single state all his life. He expects, when the young woman meets his gaze who satisfies either his esthetic or pecuniary ideas, generally the latter, or both, to take that young woman to his bosom and begin married life. This is a natural state of mind, and there is no harm in indulging it. It shall be the object of a few of these pages to present such aspects of the unmarried state of man as have princ.i.p.ally commended themselves to general attention. The bachelor has plenty of arguments to keep him single while he is not in love. He thinks the arguments keep him single, good fellow. He says, as I heard one of them say: ”I would ask the unbiased observer what there is in the world, after all, to induce a man to commit matrimony. Some one will say: 'To have some one to care for him when sick.' This is complimentary to woman--indicating that she marries to become a nurser of the sick and old. And must a man endure all the pains and throes of years of matrimonial cyclones that he may have some one to stew his gruel during the brief s.p.a.ce of his last illness? If a bachelor have money, he will have friends to care for him, no fear, and if he be poor, a wife is the last thing in the world he needs. She divides his pleasures and doubles his sorrows.
HE MUST DANCE TO FAs.h.i.+ON'S TUNE--
a palatial residence, a corps of servants, a livery, and dresses from Paris--for the sake of having some one to receive and entertain his friends' wives. He must support his wife's relations, and endure no end of feminine abuse, which is not always so feminine. The world is divided into two cla.s.ses: Those who are unmarried, but wish they were, and those who are married, but wish they were not.”
THIS IS A FAIR SPECIMEN
of the argument by which the bachelor convinces himself that he is happy. If it _does_ contribute to his peace of mind, why should the world care? And the world really does not care. When he comes to have his gruel stewed for him in a hospital, or, worse yet, a boarding-house, he finds out, all of a sudden, that he is really in the way, and that, in his life of perfect selfishness, he has never secured that thing which cannot be bought, yet which he so yearns for now in the hour of his feebleness, a woman's love. A good long sickness has greatly enlarged many a man's philosophy!
Still, it is not in the destiny of every man to have a wife, or to keep her if he get one. It is not unwise, therefore to consider that state as one of the phases of life, and to contemplate its various aspects, good and bad, as we have the other conditions of existence. ”A man unattached and without wife,” says Bruyere, ”if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fas.h.i.+on, and hold himself on a level with the highest; this is less easy for him who is engaged; it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.” ”I have” says Burton, the melancholy, ”no wife or children, good or bad, to provide for, and am a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures.”
THE ONE GRAND RESULT OF SINGLE LIFE,
so far as is generally noticeable, is selfishness. The chief lesson of marriage is self-denial. Which is the more pleasing of the two traits?
When the bachelor views life, he sees nothing good in it, for it all looks selfish. Being so deeply jaundiced, the eye tints everything with yellow. At forty he is heartily sick of it all. Why? Because he has learned that he has squeezed the orange dry. The faculties which G.o.d gave him to be pleased with when a recipient have been worked to death.
HE HAS BEEN A RECIPIENT WITHOUT CEASE.
He has chewed on one side of his mouth all his life. The teeth on the other side have loosened and are ready to fall out, while the overworked molars on the other are about to run into decay. The faculties whereby he was expected to please other people have become rudimentary, and he can now no more fascinate other people than he can sing soprano. He makes an effort to engage the interest of a young lady. The hollowness of his attack at once arrests her attention. The ease with which he speaks long sentences of admiration proclaims his long practice in the art, and the utter lack of real meaning in them. He knows that the girl will
LAUGH BEHIND HIS BACK,
and it irritates him, and disposes him to attribute her act to ”the falseness of her s.e.x,” when it is merely her keen intelligence in such matters. The fact of the matter is, that though an old bachelor is seemingly greatly smitten with nearly every young girl he sees, he does not succeed in marrying because he is a hard man to catch. The young woman takes his measurement. His devotion is overpowering, but she easily sees that it is a sham. The bachelor looks at her glove, and, instead of admiring the hand, as the ”marrying young man” does, he says ”Dollar and a half!”
HE LOOKS INTO HER EYES AND FIGURES
on the probable cost of board for two. The time of mating is past with him, and that young woman can see it ”as quick as a flash of lightning.”
He may be the man she could love if she ”let go of herself,” but his slippery words do not mean ”marry,” and she ”pa.s.ses him around.” He loves to go to picnics and church sociables, for he must be amused, and he hopes to find that pleasure in next Tuesday's donation party which he did not get at last Friday's rehearsal.
THE TROUBLE ALL LIES
in his intense love of self. Society in general regards him as useful, and pities him. The older women generally suppose he would marry the first girl who would have him, and he himself hopes to sooner or later to come across a lady who is superior to all others, and who has money enough to pay her share of the expense of living. I wish him success, for