Helena Brett's Career

In these thin-skinned days when the words libel and traitor drift on every breeze, it may be wise (I am told at the last), to make it plain that my Author, Publisher, and Artist do not represent real people! So be it, then: the men, as also women, in this unromantic comedy of married life are all imagined; but in declaring them not to be individuals, I would not be thought to admit that they are non-existent ... or universal. Such men have been and will be—self-centred authors, unscrupulous publishers, vulgar-minded artists—nor does a paragon make the best food for fiction: but there are also Others. Logic still permits one to avoid Libel without confessing Treachery, and I am little likely to attack my own profession or two others from which I draw some of my nearest friends. We are told that there are black sheep in every fold; but it is still possible that a few among the others may be white. It pleases some of us to think so.
DESMOND COKE

Of course, said Kenneth Boyd, with the abrupt conviction of one whose argument is off the point at issue, it's absolutely obvious. You ought to marry.
The man who ought to marry was no more pleased to hear it than most of his kind. He scowled angrily: then smiled, as though contempt were a more fit reply. He was tall, broad, firm-looking, with smooth dark hair still low upon his forehead, and certainly looked in no need of drastic remedies.
He knocked his pipe out on the grate before he answered, but when the words came, they burst forth like an explosion.
You married men, he cried, turning the attack, are just like parrots. You can only say one thing. You're worse than parrots: you're gramophones—or parrots with a gramophone inside. You're always saying one thing, 'Marry!' and you say it jolly long. I honestly believe you've got a Trades Union, unless it's merely nasty feeling! That probably is it. You hate to see others as happy as you used to be!
Whereat, comforted, he stretched his long legs and lay back on the deep chair in a better humour.