A chronick old bachelor iz invaribly ov the nuter gender, i don't care
how mutch he may offer tew bet that it ain't so.
They are like dried apples on a string, want a good deal ov soaking
before they will do to use.
I suppose thare iz sum ov them who hav a good excuse for their
nuterness; menny ov them are too stingy tew marry; this iz one ov the
best excuses i kno ov, for a stingy man ain't fit to hav a nice woman.
Sum old bachelors gits after a flirt, and kan't travel az fast az she
duz, and then konklude all the female group are hard tew ketch, and good
for nothing when they are ketched.
A flirt iz a tuff thing to overhaul, unless the right dog gits after
her, and they are the eazyest ov all tew ketch, and often make the best
ov wives.
When a flirt really falls in love, she iz az powerless az a mown daizy.
Her impudence then changes into modesty, her cunning into fear, her
spurs into a halter, and her pruning-hook into a cradle.
The best way to ketch a flirt iz to travel the other way from which they
are going, or set down on the grass and whissell sum lively tune till
the flirt cums round.
Old bachelors make the flirts, and then the flirts git more than even,
by making the old bachelors.
A majority ov the flirts get married finally, for they have a grate
quantity ov the most dainty titbits ov woman's natur, and alwus hav
shrewdness tew back up their sweetness.
Flirts don't deal in poetry and water grewel; they hav got tew hav
brains, or else sumboddy would trade them out ov their capital at the
fust swop.
Thare iz sich a thing (i hav bin told bi thoze who know sum more ov
theze things than i do,) az old bachelors being manufackterd out ov
dissapointed love.
This iz a good deal az sensible, az a man's staying put in the cold all
night, on the wrong side ov a river, bekauze he haz made up hiz mind tew
ford it, in jist sich a place whare he knows the water iz over hiz hed,
when if he would go a little further up or down the creek, he would find
the crossing easy, and a sweet little critter, with outstretched hands
to beckon him acrost.
Dissapointed luv must ov course be all on one side, and this ain't enny
more excuse for being an old bachelor than it iz for a man tew quit all
kind ov manual labor, jist out ov spite, and jine a poor house, bekauze
he kant lift a ton at one pop.
Old bachelors, others tell us, are made so bekauze they fear the
_burden_ ov a family.
This would be a good excuse if there waz enny truth in it; the fackt iz,
if such men had a family, they would be the grasshoppers themselfs that
the bible speaks ov, as weighing so mutch to the pound.
An old bachelor will brag about hiz freedum to you, hiz relief from
anxiety, hiz independance. This iz a dead beat past ressurrection, for
evryboddy knows there ain't a more anxious dupe on earth than he iz. All
hiz dreams are charcole sketches, ov boarding-school misses; he dresses,
greases hiz hair, paints hiz grizzly mustash, cultivates bunyons and
corns, tew pleese hiz captains, the wimmin, and only gits laffed at for
hiz pains.
I tried being an old bachelor till i waz about twenty years old, and cum
very near dieing a dozen times. I had more sharp pain in one year than i
have had since, put it all in a heap; i waz in a lively fever all the
time.
If a man haint got ennything in hiz natur but vanity and self-love, he
iz very apt tew want to be an old bachelor, and generally makes a good
specimen ov the critters; but what more disgusting traits can a man have
than these?--and thare iz no stronger argument in favor ov gitting
married than the fackt that thare aint nothing that will kure theze
komplaints so thoroly az a wife and fifteen or twenty babes.
There iz only one person who haz inhabited this world thus far, that i
think could hav bin an old bachelor and done the subjekt justiss, and he
waz Adam; but since Adam saw fit to open the ball, i hold it iz every
man's duty to selekt a partner, and keep the dance hot.