I applaud the celibacy of a multitude of women who, rather than make
unfit selection, have made none at all. It has not been a lack of
opportunity for marital contract on their part, but their own culture
and refinement, and their exalted idea as to what a husband ought to
be, have caused their declinature. They have seen so many women marry
imbeciles, or ruffians, or incipient sots, or life-time incapables, or
magnificent nothings, or men who before marriage were angelic and
afterward diabolic, that they have been alarmed and stood back. They
saw so many boats go into the maelstrom that they steered into other
waters. Better for a woman to live alone, though she live a thousand
years, than to be annexed to one of these masculine failures with
which society is surfeited. The patron saint of almost every family
circle is some such unmarried woman, and among all the families of
cousins she moves around, and her coming in each house is the morning,
and her going away is the night.