I cannot help thinking, however, that feelings of quite a different nature ought to be entertained towards the old maid. If it is owing to her bad looks or her poverty that her hand has not been sought, or if she was once engaged to be married and then jilted and disgusted out of all idea of ever marrying, she should be pitied. If she has had offers of marriage and has declined them, she should be respected for not having married a man she could not love. If she was once engaged, and her lover died, she should be admired for wishing to remain faithful to his memory. If she simply wished to remain free and independent and use her fortune, as many old maids do, in philanthropic work, she should be blessed. If she refused to accept matrimony as a means of livelihood (the hardest and most thankless of all), her example should be followed. And, finally, if there do exist old maids crabby, sulky, peevish, selfish, and with all the other defects that are generally and most ungenerously attributed to old maids, they should be thanked by a grateful community for having spared men the risk of leading with them a life of wretchedness and misery.
I am of opinion that old maids and widows should inspire nothing but generous feelings of sympathy in the heart of man. Old maids are the wallflowers of that great dancing-party which is called Life. Let men who have overlooked them and women who have found partners be charitable, and let men whom they declined to associate with in the bonds of matrimony be gentlemanly, manly enough to take no mean revenge by scorning them.
No doubt there are despicable old maids—women who shirk all their duties in life, and on whom not even a dog or a parrot depends for its happiness, but they are the great exception, and for selfishness and self-indulgence I should decidedly feel inclined to give the palm to old bachelors. Some old maids are the comfort of parents in their old age, others are the devoted mothers of brothers' and sisters' children, while others are the friends of the poor and the nurses of the sick.
A great prejudice on the subject of old maids is that they are poor forlorn creatures, who spend their lives wailing and mourning over the absence of that man who never proposed. There is nothing to mourn over in that. It is no loss, nothing to regret; not more than one man out of ten is worth having. Most old maids ought to spend their lives in glee and gratitude for a narrow escape. I know very little about women, but I am afraid I do a great deal about men, and it is my firm conviction, and I will express it with all the frankness, all the brutality I am capable of, that there are very few men indeed who are good enough for women.
I know of nothing more pleasant than the company of a jolly, broad-minded, intelligent old maid, who knows that she can let herself 'go' and be a good 'pal' to you, without running the risk of hearing remarks passed of a more or less objectionable character. I know of nothing more enjoyable than the pleasure of such an old maid's company. I count old maids among my most cheerful and companionable friends.
The old bachelor is a social failure, a sort of rebellious outcast, who ought to pay an income-tax of ten shillings in the pound. But the old maid who is bright, clever, cheerful, generous, charitable, hospitable, is an ornament to society and one of its most useful members.
CHAPTER XL
SHOULD PEOPLE REMARRY?
The excuse most people give for remarrying — St. Peter's opinion of men who have been married more than once — Stepmothers.