Old maid

“ I count old maids among my most cheerful and companionable friends.
The old bachelor is a social failure, a sort of rebellious outcast, who ought to pay an income-tax of ten shillings in the pound. But the old maid who is bright, clever, cheerful, generous, charitable, hospitable, is an ornament to society and one of its most useful members. ”

“ An old maid's life must doubtless be void and vapid—her heart strained and empty. Had I been an old maid I should have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching. I should have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised and of no account, like other single women. ”

“ At best, and after all, the place You fill with such a serious grace, Hath much to try a woman's heart, And you but play a painful part. The world around, with little ruth, Still laughs at maids who have not youth, And, right or wrong, the old maid rests The victim of its paltry jests, And still is doomed to meet and bear Its pitying smile or furtive sneer. ”

“ Struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of the courtyard and its dependencies, a stranger would at once have divined that the place belonged to an old maid. The eye which presided there must have been an unoccupied, ferreting eye; minutely careful, less from nature than for want of something to do. An old maid, forced to employ her vacant days, could alone see to the grass being hoed from between the paving stones, the tops of the walls kept clean, the broom continually going, and the leather curtains of the coach-house always closed. ”

“ You will maunder and groan and sigh through the next few years, and become one of those wretched bundles of nerves and whims and conceits, a miserable old maid, whom the world holds up to ridicule, and rightly too; a faded, insipid, querulous, worn-out belle, whose past triumphs are remembered only to her disfavor. ”

“ A maid has no station in society!” said Rhoda, using a phrase which she had picked up from one of her grandfather’s books.
“My dear, your station is where God puts you. A maid has just as good a station as a wife; and a much pleasanter, to my thinking.”
“Pleasanter!” exclaimed Rhoda. “Why, Mrs Dolly, nobody thinks anything of an old maid, except to pity her.”
“They may keep their pity to themselves,” said Mrs Dorothy, with a little laugh. “We old maids can pity them back again, and with more reason.” ”

“ When I am such an old maid that my father and mother will have died, because they were too old to live longer, I will leave this house, because I could not bear to stay here with them away, and go to Aunt Camilla's. ”

“ AN OLD MAID’S DECISION. “I can bear misfortune and poverty, and all the other ills of life, but to be an old maid—to droop and wither, and wilt and die, like a single pink—I can’t endure it; and what’s more, I won’t!”
Now there’s an appeal that ought to touch some bachelor’s heart. There she is, a poor, lone spinster, in a nicely furnished room—sofa big enough for two; two arm chairs, two bureaus, two looking-glasses—everything hunting in couples except herself! ”

“ I feel quite certain that you are not a born old maid. The born old maid is one of nature’s whimsicalities that are not hard to read. Even when she is married, one may easily recognize her. What interests me is the subtle differentiation in those among the unmarried who never [33] will be old maids, which has produced their left-overness. For the life of me I can’t see why you should be left over, either subjectively or objectively. Is it a gnawing prejudice, or a sense of humor, that has made you leave yourself over? ”

“ It is rather curious, that when our poet can behold such passion in a willow-tree or in a mess of plucked fruit, he should be so blind to it in the heart of an old maid; though to be honest, the heroine of his poem is meant for an individual rather than a type. If there is one object on earth that a healthy young man cannot understand, it is an old maid. ”

“ In a conversation concerning modern marriage, the unwisdom people display in choice, and the complicated affair it has come to be from a pastoral beginning, I said lightly, “I shall write a book upon this subject some fine day, and I shall call it ‘The Love Affairs of an Old Maid,’ because popular prejudice decrees that the love affairs of an old maid necessarily are those of other people.” ”

“ Thus do we see oftenest in the single woman that perfect love to God, which manifests itself in love to all his creatures.
For our part, we venerate the very name of Old Maid—its heroism, its benevolence, its piety! Ye, who are blessed with an Aunt Fanny, an Aunt Polly, or an Aunt Betsy—names too venerable to be spelled with the modern ie, which in your own, perchance, is substituted for the old-fashioned y—do ye ever think that, though unwedded, she has a heart alive with all human sympathies? ”

“ I remember that Alice Asbury said she was hysterical just before she was married. I wonder if a woman’s feelings on the eve of being an Old Maid are unlike those of one about to become a bride.
My cat sits eying me with sleepy approval. I always liked cats. And tea. Why have I never thought of it before? It is not my fault that I am an Old Maid. I was cut out for one. All my tendencies point that [Pg 4] way. Please don’t blame me, good people. Come here, Tabby. You and Missis will grow old together. ”

“ The life of an old maid blessed with a sufficiency of this world's goods is a cheerful if rather pathetic object of contemplation. You would think they missed so much, and they seem to miss so little. ”

“ He expected that the little girl would grow indignant at this comment on her favorite, but instead of this she puckered her little brows thoughtfully.
"I don't quite know what you mean by an old maid," she replied.
"You are caught in the trap, Bert. You will have to define yourself," said Mrs. Desmond, laughingly.
"I don't know whether I can," he replied as gayly. "But I think, Ruby, that an old maid is a person who—who doesn't like men, and grows old and never marries."
"Then my nurse is an old maid. You guessed right, Uncle Bert," said the child, with perfect soberness. ”

“ Ah, young maids, you look upon me as who should say, that I am an old woman from whom such words are strange to you. They be fit only for a young lass’s lips, forsooth? Childre, you wis not yet that the hot love of youth is nought to be compared to the yearning love of age,—that the maid that loveth a man whom she first met a month since cannot bear the rushlight unto her that has shrined him in her heart for thirty years. ”

“ DISCARDING PREJUDICE.—The real old maid is like any other woman. She has faults necessarily, though not those commonly conceived of. She is often plump, pretty, amiable, interesting, intellectual, cultured, warm-hearted, benevolent, and has ardent friends of both sexes. These constantly wonder why she has not married, for they feel that she must have had many opportunities. ”

“ Mariette turned back to Penelope in a lather, and looked at Jacquelin as if she would say, "Mademoiselle has put her hand on a husband this time."
"Now, Josette," continued the old maid, "let us see where we had better put Monsieur de Troisville to sleep."
With what joy she said the words, "Put Monsieur de Troisville" (pronounced Treville) "to sleep." How many ideas in those few words! The old maid was bathed in hope.
"Will you put him in the green chamber?"
"The bishop's room? No; that's too near mine," said Mademoiselle Cormon. "All very well for monseigneur; he's a saintly man." ”

“ One must hope for good, and her poor mother is going off to Hyères with little Hilda and their faithful old maid, the only servant they had, so after the wedding you will have your bride all to yourself!"
"Perhaps the thought of that is what is making her so reluctant and icy to-day!"
The Duchesse laughed as she handed me my crutch and closed the lift door. "Time will tell, my son!" and she waved her hand as I disappeared below.
And now I am alone before the crackling fire in my sitting-room,—and I wonder how many men have spent the eve of their marriages in so quiet a manner? ”

“ Well, the love affairs of other people are the rightful inheritance of old maids. In sharing them I am only coming into my kingdom.
Alice Asbury has made shipwreck of hers. The girl is actively miserable and her husband is indifferently uncomfortable, which is the habit this married couple have of experiencing the same emotion.
Alice is a mass of contradictions to those who do not understand her—now in the clouds, now in the depths. Bad weather depresses her; so does a sad story, the death of a kitten, solemn music. ”

“ One day, when we younger ones were hanging about my golden-haired and golden-hearted sister Emilie, teasing her with wondering questions about our future, she announced to us (she had reached the mature age of fifteen years) that she intended to be an old maid, and that we might all come and live with her. Some one listening reproved her, but she said, "Why, if they fit themselves to be good, helpful, cheerful old maids, they will certainly be better wives, if they ever are married," and that maxim I laid by in my memory for future contingencies, for I believed in every word she ever uttered. ”

“ When I feel ill as I do to-night my eyes grow clear-sighted. This is no place for you, here with a soured old man and a sourer old maid; you would have grown to far healthier manhood across the sea in that merry family that I have never let you talk about just as much as you wanted. ”

“ Here Mademoiselle Cormon looked at du Bousquier as she had never yet looked at any man in the world. Thus encouraged, the purveyor cast upon the old maid a glance which reached her heart.
"I would," he said, "that that moment had given me the right to keep you as mine forever" [she listened with a delighted air] ; "as you lay fainting upon that bed, you were enchanting. I have never in my life seen a more beautiful person,—and I have seen many handsome women. Plump ladies have this advantage: they are superb to look upon; they have only to show themselves and they triumph." ”

“ The truth is old maids have nothing else to do. If I were you I wouldn't be an old maid.
I can't quite say how long it will be before I am back at Ardkill, but not a day longer than I can help. Address to Scroope, Dorsetshire,—that will be enough;—to F. Neville, Esq. Give my love to your mother.—As for yourself, dear Kate, if you care for my love, you may weigh mine for your own dear self with your own weights and measures. ”

“ There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry—the old maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her natural destiny. ”

“ And, in verity, you to be with me in all these things, if that you have had the love-days beside a dear and dainty maid, of an high and pure and natural spirit; so that if you be old these days, even but the light merriment of a passing maiden to bring a pain of wonderings and golden memories upon your heart. ”

“ Rare are such cases, and yet few as they are, they infect the general mind, so that old maid, thus considered, is a noun of multitude, including all who choose or are destined to live single lives. And how many unhappy marriages are the consequence of this opprobrium! ”

“ Possibly she loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman’s love, many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for no one but a woman can fathom a woman’s love.”
[Pg 50] I couldn’t help going on after I started, for he was thinking of the other woman, and looking at me in a way that would have made my heart turn over, if I hadn’t been an Old Maid, and known that his look was not for me. ”

“ Ah, Tabby, my dear, it is worth while being an Old Maid to be a [Pg 41] blessed comfort to anybody. But I would just like to ask you, as a cat of intelligence, what in the world I did for her!
Imagine some man making that girl care for him so much. For, of course, it is somebody. A girl does not say such things about the abstract man.
I was in an uplifted state of mind all day, as I am always after a talk with Rachel, and when Percival came in the evening, I felt that I could deluge him with my gathered sentiment, and he would be receptive. ”

“ Moreover, he feared the ridicule the world would cast upon the love of a young man of twenty-three for an old maid of forty.
And yet his passion was real; whatever may seem false about such a love elsewhere, it can be realized as a fact in the provinces, where, manners and morals being without change or chance or movement or mystery, marriage becomes a necessity of life. No family will accept a young man of dissolute habits. ”

“ After reaching the age of sixty—the period at which women allow themselves to make confessions—she said confidentially to Madame du Coudrai, that she had never been able to endure the idea of dying an old maid. ”

“ The fact is, the Modern Old Maid is as good as the Modern Young Maid, and a great deal better, to those who have outgrown bread and butter. She has sense as well as freshness, and conversation and repartee as well as dimples and curves. ”

“ I can remember when Old Maid was a term of contempt in England, but it is not so now; you have seen me and sixty old maids working together happy and content, and if I could send out a hundred women where I can now send one, I should not have too many, so constant are the demands for “old maids,” as you would call them,—for teachers, nurses, missionaries, and all sorts of good work.... India will some time feel all that her wasted women’s life can do. ”