f "bachelor," which,
when shorn of its accompanying adjective "old," simply means unmarried.

The word "bachelor," too, has somewhat of a jaunty sound, implying to the
sensitive ear that its owner could have been married--oh, several times
over--if he had wished. But both "spinster" and "old maid" have narrow,
restricted attributes, which, to say the least, imply doubt as to past
opportunity.

Names are covertly responsible for many overt acts. Carlyle, when he said,
"The name is the earliest garment you wrap around the earth-visiting me.
Names? Not only all common speech, but Science, Poetry itself, if thou
consider it, is no other than a right naming," sounded a wonderful note in
Moral Philosophy, which rings false many a time in real life, when to ring
true would change the whole face of affairs.

Thus I boldly affirm, that were there a proper sounding title to cover the
class of unmarried women, many a marriage which now takes place, with
either moderate success or distinct failure, would remain in pleasing
embryo.

Of the three evils among names for my book, therefore, I leave you to
determine whether I have chosen the greatest or least. The writing of it
came about in this way.

In a conversation concerning modern marriage, the unwisdom people display
in choice, and the complicated affair it has come to be from a pastoral
beginning, I said lightly, "I shall write a book upon this subject some
fine day, and I shall call it 'The Love Affairs of an Old Maid,' because
popular prejudice decrees that the love affairs of an old maid necessarily
are those of other people."

No sooner had the name suggested in broad jest taken form in my mind than
straightway every thought I possessed crystallized around it, and I found
myself impelled by a malevolent Fate to begin it.

It became a fixed intention on a Sunday morning in church during a most
excellent sermon, the text and substance of which I have forgotten.
Doubtless more of real worth and benefit to mankind was pent up in that
sermon than four books of my own writing could accomplish. But, with the
delightful candor of John Kendrick Bangs, I explain my lapse of memory
thus--

"I dote on Milton and on Robert Burns;
I love old Marryat--his tales of pelf;
I live on Byron; but my heart most yearns
Towards those sweet things that I've penned myself."

So the book has been written. The existence of the Old Maid often has been
a precarious one;