CONFESSIONS.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 224, 5 March 1866, Page 3

CONFESSIONS.

BY A aiAS" ABOUT MELBOURNE. (From the Australian Monthly Mugazine) I wish it to be most distinctly understood that I am single : I mean uumarred, unplighted, and solitary. My hat covers my family. The May-morn of youth, the sweet pairing-time, has come and gone, and left me in bondage to myself alone — a liver in boarding-houses, and given to lonely pipes, and. perhaps, a littie whiskey and water in my bedroom. I am not a civil servant, and therefore not so genteel as you might think. When pressed as to the why and because of so sad a state, I find it answers best to hint darkly that I carry a blighted heart. Ah, Eliza! canst thou not tell why ? Can 1 ever from the table of my memory wipe out those trivial fond records? Not while that memory holds its seat in this distracted globe. You see that there is yet a vein of sentimentality within me, which ever and anon flushes with the purple tide of passion. But I am ill at these numbers ! And perhaps you will not care to hear more in this line. I am only the type of a numerous class. A very little knowledge of M elbourne society teaches me that there are ever so many of my sort. Colonial life is instinct with hardy . bachelors of my age and condition ; and what that is I am not going to tell. But we are easily known. Pair reader, whom the love of fresh air and urgent need alone bring to Collins-street, north side, at the witching hours of the afternoon, you often meet us. We vie with the young ones in the smartness of our dress and the jauntiness of our walk ; but oh ! that our cheeks were as fresh, our beards as Bilken-glossy, and that our hair (what is left) were innocent of those tell-tale wispe of grey ! Solemnly *ye stalk, with air assured \

arrogant is our talk, wandering our glances. "Watch, and you will see that we are familiar with the bje-ways leading to the back-bars of hotels. At the opera j we sit in the seats of the scornful, and take our pleasure in conversing with the " young lady " at the Cafe. There you will see Perk, the doctor ; ; Quiz, the journalist ; Didapper the sharebroker ; ' Rasper, the merchant ; Dutchmental, the squatter; and Whiffle, the lawyer. Nice boys, all ! Do not listen to them, for they are of the earth, earthy. The sweets of life are no more for them than lollipops. They cultivate literature on a little grog, discourse on politics without convictions, and leave ennobling topics to women and boys. Month after month it is the same | story — the same unvarying round of a i useless life. lam no better than neighbors. De me fabula narratur. I suppose we bachelors, who have more | years in the past than we shall ever see in the future, are pretty much alike all over the world. Melbourne has, I guess, no new species of the genius : and so let me write ever so of my life, walk, and conversation, I am but repeating old experiences. (Toung man, be warned in time, and speU .your May with twor's.) But, oh my solitary honrcs ! "Oh my lonely, lonely pillow," as Byron's girl sings. And not that we see no new faces, make no new acquaintances, mingle not in society, and have no communication with the outer world : but that, while having the form of sympathetic connection with that world; we lack most of the substance. My dear sir, most sweet miss, or madam, do you know what a boardinghouse life mostly is ? The advertisement asks you to expect a " social circle," ¥ou bite, are hooked, and too late to change easily, you begin to find out what you get for your money. Sham courtesies, which mock you with their hypocrisy ; bare comforts supplied under a sort of protest, every little convenience or relaxation of rule having its fixed price as " extras^" and above all and beyond all, the eternal wig-waggery and tittletattle of the table. Am~ 1 disposed for a quiet evening at home, I make up my mouth to smile at the ordeal through which I pass. I sit with men who can converse, but will not, and with women who cannot converse, but still talk. And such talk ! second-hand editions of diluted snobbish scandal. If I play chess, lam bored with book problems. Cards are voted • vulgar ; and if I am unusually strong minded, I am regaled with some jumble of piano forte keys that harrows my inmost soul. Shades of Outolo and Horsley, can such be borne ? After an evening of that sort, no wonder that I go to bed too early, only to wake up with a shudder, when the night is most dark and still, feeling as though the whole world but myself were dead. What can the unnatural silence mean ? A ghastly slimmer through the window curtain, an unearthly creak on the stairs, and but why should the though of death strike such terror just now ? It is then that one's sins rise up in dreadful row. It is then that — " Like a long -forgotten strain, Comes sweeping o'er the heart forlorn What summer houi*3 had taught iv vain.." Disordered, distracting ideas invade the mind. All the supposed phenomena of supernatural life rush into the iinaginal fcion. The dim shadows of the room seem I unearthly ; surely they never lookod like that before. What is that patch of lurid white light? Oh! only the glimmer of he room caught and cencentrated in the transparent reservoir of my kerosene tamp. Why, then, should my heart beat lso loud ? Can it mean sudden, present death ? Am I sure there is nobody in the room? Suppose the shadowy figure of some one I loved came before my bed — as I have heard they have done to others — to warn me of a death. But fancy will take me no further, and burying myself in my bed-clothes I get off to sleep in the middle of an abstruse arithmetical problem. • It is well that I should remember from ; how much of the world lam shut out. I I know men and women by scores, am admitted at times into their homes, but, as by a fixed rule, I can never get familiar beyond a certain point. I am not slighted in the matter ; only it is the custom of ths world to treat bachelors as though they were bereft of the domestic sympathies. My young friend, Tommy, whose fortunes I made, who took no step in his life without my advice, and whom I steered through the deep waters of forbidden courtship, actually tells me that there are some things 1 can only understand in a state of wedlock, into which he advises me to enter. Me ! For me all women wear windows in their hearts, and I see clearly through — of what twopenny materials they are made up ; what sham their modesty and piety ; how coarse their real natures, and how their sweet innocent desires shape for money. " What female heart despiseth gold, What cat's averse to fish ?" Dear, dear me, how very souriihe grapes are ! - You see, dear reader, I try to be free with you. My confessions would have no value if I did not say all I meant. I could never interest you with a pack of lies that you would find, out in a moment. As I see the wickedness of the world, so I see my own ; and half my solitary hours are spent in useless self vituperation and re veiling. Now, it is a fact, that you married man has a little or none of this. The other day I spent a night at the house of a married couple away towards Brighton. The husband had, I knew, cause to be troubled in mind, and yet all the time he seemed as calm as the beautiful waters of the Lake Colac on a still day- As he drove me into town in the morning I thought, " Here is a fellow up to his eyes in business anxieties, and family troubles, and yet hear him singing ' Spirto gentil' to his horse like a careless bird." This was the solution of the riddle — he had told his wife everything. The compressed stream had a safety-"valve, and his mind never preyed— like mme — upon itself. He never lay wakeful in bed groaning for his defeated hopes, wounded vanity, or cQHßciou.B failures, while I am left to

- ■-- - " Unpack myTieart with words, „. And fall a-cursing like a very drab. Fieon't." Oh, happy, happy life! In Darby and Joan, the heyday of the blood is taoie and humble, and waits upon the judgment. No gnawing vultures seize upon their hearts. Once in a while, perhaps, Darby gets, fierce over a draper's bill, and Joan has the tantrums ; but what of that ? \t does not last, and the sacred kiss ends all. Can such unions end in death ? — never ! But I am not so excited by my theme as to run to the nearest maid, and offer hand and heart. .1 have my consolations. In the first place, for me still " Hope enchanting smiles, aud waves her golden hair." You see, I can marry if I choose. But then, I don't want to do so. Half what I have written here is sham. I told you I > was sentimental, and that is only another ' way of saying I am open to false impressions. I have no contempt for love and passion, but the gracious time is past. The green-sickness is over, and I am cool. I am interested and pleased to watch young sweet- and-t wen ty and her lover playing the old, old game, and telling each other the old, old story. Dear me, how they keep up the allusion ; he so pressing and tender, she so delighted yet abashed — responsive, yet afraid. You cynic, with au exhausted life, look not on them! Were Cupid to levy on your heart, the return would be nulla tonal No good, indeed. You may be more than half in the right, but shall we therefore lose all the delightful hallucinations of youth ? I shall leave you now, my reader. If the editor of this magazine approves, you shall hear from me again, and, perhaps, we shall get to know each other.