MEN AND MARRIAGE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2752, 5 March 1910, Page 3

MEN AND MARRIAGE.

TH E PER EECT BA CH E-LGR. Beyond the casual cariosity of an immediate circle cf acquaintances, and the pleasure afforded mated couples for enjoying the human passion for missionary work —1 playing the part of the poor, heknighted 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 1 hate it, and especially unnecessary trouble, which makes up by far the largest part of our ills That which I value most highly, is what I am pleased to call my liberty. I am willing to admit my conceit 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. It becomes significant only when I imagine that I may have to .encounter a demand for sacrifice when something important is involved. The trouble is that I do not want to give up a. lot of little things that have not any real meaning but have become a habit- through long years of living alone. Of women I have only the little dangerous knowledge. It may be more than skin deep; hut it does not reach the heart. I know that in the big things a good 1 woman is almost never found wanting. In her 'capacity for self-sa-crifice and devotion she rises far above the average man. But the big things do not come along very often. And in the little things she is—well, different. It is the attrition of' everyday life, the eternal duet, that is fearsome to me. I have not the matrimonial state of mind, nor have I 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 dualities and attributes should imagine that she could he content with me as a husband. I should. straightway lo c e all confidence in her intuition and be sure there was some undiscovered thing wrong. There is a -possibilitv nlwavs of endowing a woman with irresistible charms out of the iuxurianoe of one’s own imagination. Henry James, peril arris the most perfect bachelor in our language, once said that when the Hew. or 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.