He must support his wife's relations, and endure no end
of feminine abuse, which is not always so feminine. The world is divided
into two classes: Those who are unmarried, but wish they were, and
those who are married, but wish they were not."
THIS IS A FAIR SPECIMEN
of the argument by which the bachelor convinces himself that he is
happy. If it _does_ contribute to his peace of mind, why should the
world care? And the world really does not care. When he comes to have
his gruel stewed for him in a hospital, or, worse yet, a boarding-house,
he finds out, all of a sudden, that he is really in the way, and that,
in his life of perfect selfishness, he has never secured that thing
which cannot be bought, yet which he so yearns for now in the hour of
his feebleness, a woman's love. A good long sickness has greatly
enlarged many a man's philosophy!
Still, it is not in the destiny of every man to have a wife, or to keep
her if he get one. It is not unwise, therefore to consider that state as
one of the phases of life, and to contemplate its various aspects, good
and bad, as we have the other conditions of existence.
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