CONFIRMED BACHELORS,

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1761, 25 June 1886, Page 6

CONFIRMED BACHELORS,

The first great cause, according to a belief current, we believe, among young ladies, ia an early disappointment in love. This Is a plausible, sentimental explanations ; but perhaps few men, or women either, oub of the story books, are found remaining single for ever through taking to heart any mishap. It is a better reason to say that a man is terrified at the expense. A certain amount of money ia essential to marriage, and the opinion that two can live as cheaply as one will not bear being reduced to practice. Many a bachelor makes estimates of a married life, shudders, and remains Bingle. He first makes a condition with himself that, if ever he marries, his wife must have enough to keep herself, and after a while he raises the termp, and decides that she must have not only that but something over. It is a resolution, we confess, not to be applauded. We agree with a writer of large experience, who says that, of all the marriages he has witnessed, the happiest have been those in which the bride brought to the altar what ehe stood in and nothiog more. Often men do not

marry because they are too busy. They want to make the moat of life, and marriage does not seem to them essential to that result. Most of them are workers who have fallen in love with their work. They are not cut out for the married state, and no one can imagine them partaking of the domestic joys without a feeling of incongruity. Bub perhaps the unmarried man is only so because he has never coiae across one who, in his opinion, would make a good wife. This often happens, and especially wich people of sense. The unthinking plunge into love at first sight. The experienced man, howeTer, says, "I would be a fool to become attached to that girl before I know more about her;" and when he does know more he often decides to let well alone. In a few cases bachalors remain single because they have a low opinion of women. Ignoring their tenderness and their deep-rooted self-Bacrifieing affection, they exaggerate what an old writer calls "their "variable humours and unsearchable deceits." These are the people who encourage the belief that there are just two good women in the world, of whom one is dead whilst the other has not yet been found, and applaud the statement tfiat when women were created Adam was taken sleeping, for had he been awake he would never have consentad. — Leisure Hour.