Bachelorhood

“ But while this husband of ours does not give up his old friends of his own sex, nor abjure all the manly pursuits and recreations so dear to his soul in his state of bachelorhood, he will take care that they do not absorb an undue share of his leisure, but will prefer home and wife to them all, and let her know it. ”

“ Felix (you must pardon me if I show no affection for my brother—he was a very strange man) was notified of my marriage, but did not choose to witness it, neither did he choose to prohibit it; so it was conducted quietly, with strangers for witnesses, in a hotel parlor. Then, with vague hopes, as well as certain vague fears, I prepared to take my young bride into the presence of my brother, who, hardened as he was by years of bachelorhood, could not be so entirely impervious to feminine charms as not to recognize my wife as a woman deserving of every consideration. ”

“ Your friend, who has a wife that he loves, and that loves him, writes back kindly—“hoping you may be happy;” and hoping so yourself, you light your cigar—one of your last bachelor cigars—with the margin of his letter.
The match goes off with a brilliant marriage; at which you receive a very elegant welcome from your wife’s spinster cousins—and drink a great deal of champagne with her bachelor uncles. And as you take the dainty hand of your bride—very magnificent under that bridal wreath, and with her face lit up by a brilliant glow—your eye, and your soul, for the first time, grow full. ”

“ Bachelor, you can make your own happiness; you enjoy some to-day, you do without it to-morrow; married, you must take it as it comes; and the day you want it you will have to go without it. Marry, and you’ll grow a blockhead; you’ll calculate dowries; you’ll talk morality, public and religious; you’ll think young men immoral and dangerous; in short, you’ll become a social academician. It’s pitiable! The old bachelor whose property the heirs are waiting for, who fights to his last breath with his nurse for a spoonful of drink, is blest in comparison with a married man. ”

“ Although my first marriage was a silly love match and a failure, I have always admitted to myself that I should marry again. A bachelor is a man who shirks responsibilities and duties; I seek them, and consider it my duty, with my monstrous superfluity of means, not to let the individualists outbreed me. Still, I was in no hurry, having other things to occupy me, and being fond of my bachelor freedom, and doubtful sometimes whether I had any right to bring more idlers into the world for the workers to feed. ”

“ I was born a bachelor. I should have said, 'Miss Dixon, if you love me, let me remain a bachelor.’ She would have said, 'As a bachelor you first loved me; be always my own bachelor.’ It is, alas! my single talent. I was made for singleness.”
“Rubbish! You know you like Millicent.”
“Dear madam, I like all ladies—as a garden of flowers, yet I cannot bring myself to pluck one.”
“Then why do you sigh for ten years back?”
That is the worst of women—they have a way of being suddenly logical when no one expects it of them. Mrs. Loring is a charming woman, but I must be careful. ”

“ Can a man stake his bachelor respectability, his independence, and comfort, upon the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless marriage, without trembling at the venture?
Shall a man who has been free to chase his fancies over the wide world, without let or hindrance, shut himself up to marriageship, within four walls called home, that are to claim him, his time, his trouble, and his tears, thenceforward forever more, without doubts thick and thick-coming as smoke? ”

“ I'm going away now. I'm off directly. I mean to go and live wherever the fancy seizes me--at the wharf--at the counting-house--and be a jolly bachelor. You were a widow in anticipation. Damme,' screamed the dwarf, 'I'll be a bachelor in earnest.'
'You can't be serious, Quilp,' sobbed his wife.
'I tell you,' said the dwarf, exulting in his project, 'that I'll be a bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I'll have my bachelor's hall at the counting-house, and at such times come near it if you dare. ”

“ Well, this model of mine is married, of course,
For how could a bachelor be one?
So I gauge him by marital morals and force;
As a husband, he merits a crown for a cross,
For he acts as a beau instead of a boss—
I’d go to the moon to see one. ”

“ Now a bachelor, like all superior beings, has his responsibilities. Your mere single man may be content with a furnished room and a continual round of the restaurants; but it is incumbent upon the bachelor to make a more conspicuous success of the life to which he thus stands pledged. He must justify himself in the eyes of society. ”

“ The elegant young bachelor, such a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of society, hunting for a fine match in the mazes of the German, until he finds some wealthy heiress to whom he can pay his court with melting glances and tenderly modulated tones, who puts off his creditors until the day after the wedding and portions off-his mistress from his bride's dowry—is not his degradation as deep as that of any low wretch whom he would not touch without gloves? ”

“ Now, there are few men breathing, who have their sympathies so keenly alive--who show and who look for, such warmth of heart---who are so chilled and hurt by indifference--as your bachelor East Indian.
The married one may solace himself for coldness abroad, by sunny smiles at home;--but the friendless bachelor is sick at heart, unless he encounter a hearty pressure of the hand--an eye that sparkles, as it catches his--an interested listener to his thousand and one tales of Oriental scenes, and of Oriental good fellowship. ”

“ MARRIAGE.—A Bachelor, an Officer of the Queen's, of considerable personal attractions, and in the flower of his age, is desirous of meeting a young lady of beauty, accomplishments, and good family, who, feeling as he does the want of a kindred heart and sympathetic soul, will accord him the favor either of a letter or an interview, as a preliminary to the greatest step in life. ”

“ A bachelor, to be sure, has a marvellous advantage in this; and with the tenderest influences once anchored in the bay of marriage, there is little disposition to scud off under each pleasant breeze of feeling. Nay, I can even imagine—perhaps somewhat captiously—that after marriage, feeling would become a habit, a rich and holy habit certainly, but yet a habit, which weakens the omnivorous grasp of the affections, and schools one to a unity of emotion that doubts and ignores the promptness and variety of impulse which we bachelors possess. ”

“ THE ATTENTIONS OF A WIFE. Among the keenest pleasures of bachelor life, every man reckons the independence of his getting up. The fancies of the morning compensate for the glooms of evening. A bachelor turns over and over in his bed: he is free to gape loud enough to justify apprehensions of murder, and to scream at a pitch authorizing the suspicion of joys untold. ”

“ In fact I felt immensely relieved after an hour or two; for there's nothing like being a bachelor, Doctor—it's so jolly being a bachelor; no man in his senses can be sad and melancholy because he's got to remain a bachelor. ”

“ It is only to marry a wife and to raise a family. You may imitate me in everything but in being an idler, and an old bachelor.”
“Why, everybody thinks you, sir, the happiest, most independent, most contented old bachelor in the world. Quite an enviable person.”
“I am not at all to be envied, Julius. As to being happy,—that’s all a sham. I have never been contented since they called me an old bachelor. No, no,—you must have a wife. I have picked one out for you.”
“Indeed! pray who is she, uncle?”
“One of the loveliest girls in the city,—your cousin Henrietta Attwood.”
“Etty Attwood! ”

“ It is certainly cheerful to think—for a contemplative bachelor—that the pretty ermine which so sets off the transparent hue of your imaginary wife, or the lace which lies so bewitchingly upon the superb roundness of her form—or the graceful bodice, trimmed to a line, which is of such exquisite adaptation to her lithe figure, will be always at her command—nay, that these are only units among the chameleon hues, under which you shall feed upon her beauty! ”

“ Life is calling for earnestness, and not for regrets. So the months and the years slip by; your bachelor habit grows easy and light with wearing; you have mourned enough to smile at the violent mourning of others, and you have enjoyed enough to sigh over their little eddies of delight. Dark shades and delicious streaks of crimson and gold color lie upon your life. Your heart, with all its weight of ashes, can yet sparkle at the sound of a fairy step, and your face can yet open into a round of joyous smiles that are almost hopes—in the presence of some bright-eyed girl. ”

“ When a bachelor decides on marriage, by running over a few pages of our work, he will, in half an hour, be able to select a desirable match; by applying at our office, and giving testimonials of his respectability, he will receive the lady's name and address ”

“ I am a bachelor by choice—you need have no western fears of polygamy. I am rich, young and powerful. And I hope that you will find out that, though of another civilization, I can fulfil your idea of a gentleman. For the present your jailer and lover bids you farewell.'
"He left me in a state of stupefaction. For some days after this I saw nothing of him. I was treated with the utmost respect, as if I were mistress of the household, but I was a prisoner. ”

“ As a bachelor, I can go about freely, make acquaintances, dine at people’s houses, perhaps entertain a useful friend now and then—and so on. It is not merit that succeeds in my line; it is merit plus opportunity. ”

“ He is a model of a husband, the ladies will say. I dare not contradict them; but I should like to know whether he is also a model of a friend?
No. Bachelor as I am, I have a higher idea of Marriage than this. The social advantages which it is fitted to produce ought to extend beyond one man and one woman, to the circle of society amid which they move. ”

“ The bachelor can go into restaurants and saloons, pass his leisure hours in his clubs, which are becoming more and more a substitute for family life, he can travel alone, go to walk alone, and has a hundred ways of deluding himself into oblivion of the coldness and barrenness of his home, unblessed by the love of wife and child. ”

“ A bachelor in England is worse off than a family cat. According to English ideas, the worst room in the house is too good for a bachelor. They say—“Oh, he’ll do very well!” What does a bachelor care for a three-legged chair, a broken window, a ricketty table, and a couple or so of sportive currents? It is exactly as if a man took a special delight in rheumatism, tooth-ache, hard beds, smoking chimneys, and the society of rats, until he has entered the holy state of matrimony. ”

“ Why, he is not married, so he must be a bachelor; and I say again it is monstrous for a young bachelor to come between old married folk, and hear all their secrets, and have a finger in every pie, and set up to be master of my house, and order my wife to turn away my servants for going to church behind me. ”

“ It does very well in bantering songs, to say that the bachelor's life is 'devoid of care.' My observation tells me the contrary, and reason concurs, in this regard, with experience. The bachelor has no one on whom he can in all cases rely. When he quits his home, he carries with him cares that are unknown to the married man. ”

“ The curves of her neck
Man's vow often wreck,—
She has the whole world at her call and her beck.
So how can a bachelor be at his ease
With such variant emotions at afternoon teas?
Behind sheltering palms, safe from gossips' sharp gaze,
Is acted in mime one of life's dearest plays,—
Sweet Bessie's brown eyes raised beseechingly up,
Her lips just released from the kiss of her cup,
And Fred, I much fear,
From small sounds that I hear,
Is as bold as the rim of her cup,—and as near,—
And how can a bachelor be at his ease
With such sights and such sounds at our afternoon teas? ”

“ As soon as a bachelor begins to branch out a little and to have an apartment or a house or a country establishment, though the latter be only a fishing or a hunting box, he must hire servants. The general servant is perhaps the one most universally employed. ”

“ Then she consoled herself a little. “He is sweet, but he is not quite human. It is very easy to talk about duties and self-effacement and all that, but what can a bachelor—he is not married, I am sure—what can a hermit, a recluse, know of the stress of life? How can a bachelor possibly enter into the agonies of the married? How can Alastor sympathize with the miseries of Incompatibles?” ”

“ He may tell me that he don't intend to "link his destiny with woman," but instead, to be a gay bachelor, and have a latch-key, and one towel a week at some boarding-house, and whistle "Hail Columbia" at midnight, at his own sweet will, with variations, without the fear of waking some wretched baby. That's nothing to do with it. I insist that even then, he, being obliged to wear breeches, should know how many yards of different width cloth it takes to make them. I insist that, without this knowledge, he is not even prepared to be a bachelor. ”

“ Because, if he found that a girl as lovely as she undeniably was palled on him after three months, it was evident that he would never live through life with any other one. Yes, he would always be a bachelor. ”

“ if you wish the pick of men and women, take a good bachelor and a good wife. ”