for a man,--unless to be engaged to some
lovely creature, in whom one can have perfect confidence, may be a
thought happier. One can enjoy all the ecstatic mental reflection,
all the delights of conceit which come from being loved, that feeling
of superiority to all the world around which illumines the bosom
of the favoured lover, without having to put one's hand into one's
pocket, or having one's pipe put out either morally or physically.
The next to this is matrimony itself, which is the only remedy for
that consciousness of disreputable debauchery, a savour of which
always clings, more or less strongly, to unmarried men in our rank
of life. The chimes must be heard at midnight, let a young man be
ever so well given to the proprieties, and he must have just a touch
of the swingebuckler about him, or he will seem to himself to be
deficient in virility. There is no getting out of it until a man
marry. But then--"

"Well; then?"

"Do you know the man whose long-preserved hat is always brushed
carefully, whose coat is the pattern of neatness, but still a little
threadbare when you look at it,--in the colour of whose cheek there
is still some touch of juvenility, but whose step is ever heavy and
whose brow is always sad? The seriousness of life has pressed the
smiles out of him. He has learned hardly to want anything for himself
but outward decency and the common necessaries of life. Such little
personal indulgences as are common to you and to me are as strange to
him as ortolans or diamonds."

"I do not think I do know him."

"I do;--well. I have seen him in the regiment, I have met him on
the steps of a public office, I have watched him as he entered his
parsonage house. You shall find him coming out of a lawyer's office,
where he has sat for the last nine hours, having supported nature
with two penny biscuits. He has always those few thin hairs over his
forehead, he has always that well-brushed hat, he has always that
load of care on his brow. He is generally thinking whether he shall
endeavour to extend his credit with the butcher, or resolve that the
supply of meat may be again curtailed without injury to the health of
his five daughters."

"That is an ugly picture."

"But is it true?"

"In some cases, of course, it is."

"And yet not ugly all round," said the meditative Colonel, who had
just replenished his pipe. "There are, on the other side, the five
daughters, and the partner of this load of cares. He