THE PERFECT BACHELOR.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9409, 1 April 1909, Page 3

THE PERFECT BACHELOR.

(By H. S. Wood.)

HE EXPLAINS WHY HE, DOBS NOT MARRY.

Beyond the casual curiosity of an immediate circle of acquaintances, and tne pleasure afforded mated couples for enjoying the human passion for missionary work—l playing the part of the poor, benighted heathen—there can be no particular interest to the world at large in knowing why I or any other individual has never married. But-if I represent a type, then what I shall say has a certain significance. When you get right down to it, there is only one reason—it can be summed up in a single word — “selfishness ” I hate trouble. No words_ could exaggerate how much I hate it. and especially unnecessary trouble, which makes up by far the largest part of our ills. That which I valne most highly is what I am pleased to call my liberty. I am willing to admit my concept is not very exalted; that “it’s a poor thing, but mine own.” I don’t mean license, but freedom in thought and action so long as it doesn’t interfere with others. This fear of having my liberty of thought and action curtailed usually becomes dominant over a mere irritating trifle, tflt becomes significant only when I imagipe that I may have 'to encounter a demand for sacrifice when something _ important is involved. The trouble is that Ido not want to give up a lot of little things that have not any real meaning bat have become a habit through long years of living alone. I have not the matrimonial state of mind, nor have 1 ever been anxious to cultivate it. Of course, I can imagine a combination in a single woman that would make marriage the fine thing that many people find it. . But if a woman possessing all these qualities and attributes should imagine that she conld be content with me as a husband, I should straightway lose all confidence in her intuition and be sure there was some undiscovered thing wrong. There is a possibility always of endowing a woman with irresistible charms out of the luxuriance of one’s own Imagination. Henry James, perhaps the most perfect bachelor in onr language, once said that when the flower of love blossomed in his heart he forthwith plucked it forth to analyse and dissect it, and so.it was always destroyed. That is a common method of bachelors to safeguard themselves, though no one else has ever expressed the idea so charmingly. I and most of my kind are fond of taking an altruistic stand, by declaring that one reason why we do not marry is because we do not want to make some good woman unhappy; which is another way of saying that I am thinking chiefly of myself. If I changed my ways to meet the matrimonial conditions, I should be uncomfortable all the time. It is not the big sacrifices that are difficult, bnt the constant succession of the small, everyday ones. In the formative days of the baohel or habit, financial considerations are likely to play an important part. For my single self wealth, or even a competence, has never seemed worth the price it commands in the open market-place. Certain comforts I require are easily purchased with a very moderate income. But when others suffer through your inability or disinclination to earn for them what you feel they should have, it is likely to grind one’s soul. It is selfish weakness, again, I know that; bnt one cannot dismiss a problem with a phrase. At the hack of it all is the desire to avoid trouble, to go along evenly, consoling oneself over the loss of great possible happiness wdth the certainty of escape from the greatest sorrows. As a bachelor, alone in the world, I know the worst that can happen to me; and it r oannot possibly he very bad, because it can affect only myself. It I oannct bask in the brilliant sunlight of happiness, neither can I be plunged into the profound shadow of sorrow. I exist in the penumbra, Where the glare does not blind me.