Boyfriend

“ When the countess asked naively, in a small and select circle of these friends, what difference there was between a lover and a husband, all those who wished evil to Felix took care to reply in a way to pique her curiosity, or fire her imagination, or touch her heart, or interest her mind.
"Oh! my dear, we vegetate with a husband, but we live with a lover," said her sister-in-law, the marquise.
"Marriage, my dear, is our purgatory; love is paradise," said Lady Dudley. ”

“ If he turns up his sleeves and by chance tangles your curls, where really is the harm? Thank Heaven if in the marriage which you have hit upon you find a laughing, joyous side; if in your husband you find the loved reader of the pretty romance you have in your pocket; if, while wearing cashmere shawls and costly jewels in your ears, you find the joys of a real intimacy—that is delicious! In short, reckon yourself happy if in your husband you find a lover. ”

“ 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? ”

“ On the manner in which you cross the threshold of married life depends your future happiness. It is not a small matter to lay the first stone of an edifice. A husband’s first kiss”—I felt a thrill run down my back—“a husband’s first kiss is like the fundamental axiom that serves as a basis for a whole volume. Be prudent, Captain. She is there beyond that wall, the fair young bride, who is awaiting you; her ear on the alert, her neck outstretched, she is listening to each of your movements. At every creak of the boards she shivers, dear little soul.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All my early friends—all my vagrant fancies—all my daydreams of the future I was now to surrender—for, what becomes of any man's bachelor friends when he is once married? Where are his rambles in high and bye-ways when he has a wife? ”

“ Well, obviously, if he cares more for you than you do for him, that instinct would still be in a state of excitement; so that you would have this very powerful factor upon your side to assist you in keeping your husband’s interest and affection. Marriages are generally much happier when this is the case, but it cannot be arranged—it is a question, one might almost say, of luck. Nothing was ever truer than the French proverb, “Between two lovers there is always one who kisses and one who holds the cheek.” And if the girl is the one who holds the cheek she is fortunate indeed. ”

“ And His will, His plan for your life and mine—it hushes my heart to say it—is a lover's plan for his only loved one.
The fifth word is this fourth word a degree finer spun, a stage farther on, and higher up, the word husband. This is the word on the man side for the most hallowed relationship of earth. This is the lover relationship in its perfection stage. With men husband is not always a finer word than lover. The more's the pity. How man does cheapen God's plan of things; leaves out the kernel, and keeps only an empty shell sometimes. In God's thought a husband is a lover plus. ”

“ I saw a poor old bachelor live all the days of his life in sight of paradise, too cowardly to put his arm around it and press it to his bosom. He shaved and primped and resolved to marry every day in the year for forty years. But when the hour for love's duel arrived, when he stood trembling in the presence of rosy cheeks and glancing eyes, and beauty shook her curls and gave the challenge, his courage always oozed out, and he fled ingloriously from the field of honor. ”

“ The case is not so socially pleasant for her accomplice; it is always an awkward thing for a man to announce his engagement. His married friends ask him prosaic questions, and “wish him joy,”—a compliment which of itself implies a doubt; or they tell him he is going to do a wise thing, and treat him in the interval as if he was naturally in a state of semi-lunacy. His bachelor friends receive the news either with a fit of laughter, an expressive, long-drawn whistle, or at best with the assurance that they “consider marriage a good thing, though they are not able to carry out their principles.” ”

“ Two months so near each other, but not one moment of sweet, unrestrained intercourse; always hemmed in by this cold, ceremonious, stupid court life; surrounded by spies and eavesdroppers; never alone, never free. Is it not terrible to have a sweetheart, and never to have refused him a kiss, because he has never had the opportunity to demand one? They say there is rapture in the first kiss of your lover—in his first embrace. ”

“ It will be consistently maintained in this book that the need of such Platonic friendships on the part of these numerous wives is a reflection on the lack of skill with which the husband handles the erotic situation. He may not be, often, indeed, is not, in the least to blame for his lack of skill, or for the discontent of his wife that causes her to give expression to the play side of love, or, even a part of it, in this taking of a playmate. ”

“ When you observe in a gentleman's behaviour these marks which I have described above, reflect seriously what you are to do. If his attachment is agreeable to you, I leave you to do as nature, good sense, and delicacy shall direct you. If you love him, let me advise you never to discover to him the full extent of your love; no, not although you marry him. That sufficiently shows your preference, which is all he is intitled to know. If he has delicacy, he will ask for no stronger proof of your affection, for your sake; if he has sense, he will not ask it for his own. ”

“ However much he may conceal it under assumed cynicism, worldliness, or self-seeking, the heart of every young man yearns with a great longing for the fulfilment of the beautiful dream of a life-long union with a mate. Each heart knows instinctively that it is only one's mate who can give full comprehension of all the potential greatness in one's soul, and have tender laughter for all the child-like wonder that lingers so enchantingly even in the white-haired. ”

“ That which may be anticipated, at length comes to pass; the lover returns—he flies to his mistress—she receives him with blushing cheek and palpitating heart. I shall not attempt to describe the scene, but throughout the day and night that succeeds that interview the lover seems like one distracted. In the city, in the fields—alone, or in company—he hears nothing but the magic words, “I LOVE YOU!” ringing in his ears, and feels that ecstatic delight which it is permitted mortals to taste but once in their lives. ”

“ Look at a young couple in the glowing morning of their union, how warm love is then; how it penetrates and beautifies everything; how it glows and speaks in glance and word, and agreeable action; how its glory changes the whole of life into poetry! 'Thou, thou!' is the one thought of the young people then. But observe the same couple a few years later—'I, I!' and 'my pleasure,' is the phrase now. The adoring all-resigning lover is then become the exacting married man, who will be waited on and obeyed. ”

“ She gets to know her husband’s every word, every mood, every gesture by heart. To call his presence companionship, or the boon that comes with friendship, would be to cast a slur on all companionship and friendship for ever. ”

“ Every time you kiss your husband"—a shriek of bitter laughter cut his words, and his staring, starting eyes half closed with hellish merriment—"or the child you love so well, my shadow will be on you. ”

“ In order to produce a favorable catastrophe at this juncture, you must act in accordance with the character of your wife, either play a pathetic scene a la Diderot, or resort to irony like Cicero, or rush to your pistols loaded with a blank charge, or even fire them off, if you think that a serious row is indispensable.
A skillful husband may often gain a great advantage from a scene of unexaggerated sentimentality. He enters, he sees the lover and transfixes him with a glance. ”

“ We rushed into each other's arms and smothered ourselves with kisses, for nothing is more an incentive to love than a short separation. What is it that renders married ties unbearable? The too-great intimacy, the sordid cares, the triviality of every-day life. The young bride must love indeed if she feels no disappointment when she sees her mate just awakened from a fit of tough snoring, seedy, unshaven, with braces and slippers, and hears him clear his throat and spit—for men actually spit, even if they do not indulge in other rumbling noises. ”

“ My young friend and a gentleman whom she met abroad fell in love with each other, and, unlike the usually uneven course of true love, all went smoothly until within a fortnight of the celebration of their marriage, when she learned that her lover had been married before, and that his divorced wife was still living. ”

“ Never yet have I seen two young beings so happy in their mutual love; and as we have broken through some cold forms, in consideration of the many services which the lover has rendered to his future bride, they are always together, and clinging to each other, as if they fancied that something would yet separate them. ”

“ You will not, of course, suppose that every bachelor among us finds his mates at the first wooing in this universal Marriage Chorus. On the contrary, the process is by most of us many times repeated. Few are the hearts whose happy lot it is at once to recognize in each other's voices the partner intended for them by Providence, and to fly into a reciprocal and perfectly harmonious embrace. With most of us the courtship is of long duration. ”

“ I have seldom met with an old bachelor that had not, at some time or other, his nonsensical moment, when he would become tender and sentimental, talk about the concerns of the heart, and have some confession of a delicate nature to make. Almost every man has some little trait of romance in his life, which he looks back to with fondness, and about which he is apt to grow garrulous occasionally. ”

“ For my own part, to you I lay open my whole heart without reserve. I divest myself of the little superiority which age may have given me. With you I can enter into conversation with all the familiarity of an intimate companion. The few hours of intercourse which we thus enjoy with each other give more relief to my wearied body and mind than any other amusement on earth. ”

“ I would open my romance with the marriage of a couple united by sentiment, taste, and inclination. Can we conceive a higher felicity, than the blending of their interests and lives in such an union? The lover has the pleasure of giving his mistress the last testimony of esteem and confidence ”

“ He can, to see the last of a friend, venture into the very jaws of the marriage ceremony itself. He can keep his head through the whirl of a ravishing waltz, and rest afterward in a dark conservatory, catching nothing more lasting than a cold. ”

“ But everything has its place, and sentiment of this kind belongs to young unmarried life—to the period when you are engaged, or when you ought to be engaged. The young man whom I have described—the crisp, perfect, insipid, dry-toast man—would only be bored by a wife who wanted to be on sentimental terms with him. I remember a case in point. A young girl, whom I knew intimately, married a man who was, as a husband, perfect. ”

“ He then told her no husband was ever able to convey a proper idea of the sweets of love, and that nothing could be more different than the passionate fondness of a lover, always tender, always affectionate, yet always respectful, and the careless indifference of a husband. ”

“ Never trust a husband too far, nor a bachelor too near. ”

“ True Love, in a bachelor, is exemplified by his willingness to marry a woman—against all his instincts, his sense of self-preservation, and his better judgment.
True Love, in a born flirt, is evidenced by his inability to think of any other woman, while he is kissing a particular one. ”

“ Why, if I must tell you, you little curiosity box, I did; you know how powerfully my husband is hung, and loving him as I do, it is impossible to undergo his powerful and lascivious embraces without feeling all one's libidinous passions stirred up within me, but even while in his possession, my dear boy, I thought of your young charms, and the fierce delights we had enjoyed together last night. ”