Both marriage and celibacy have their respective drawbacks: we shall be wise if we make choice of that which is not irremediable.
For thirty years a certain man went to spend every evening with Mme. ——. When his wife died his friends believed he would marry the other, and urged him to do so. “No, no,” he said, “if I did, where should I have to spend my evenings?”
I was sitting at dinner beside a man who asked me if the lady opposite him was the wife of the gentleman at her side. I had noticed that the latter had not exchanged a word with his neighbour, so I replied: “He either does not know her or else she is his wife.”
Lord Bolingbroke gave Louis XIV. a thousand proofs of affectionate attention during a very dangerous illness. The king with some astonishment remarked: “I am the more touched by it because you English do not love kings.” “Sire,” replied Bolingbroke, “we are like those husbands who, having no love for their own wives, are only the more eager to please those of their neighbours.”
To turn a widow from the idea of marrying again, one of her friends remarked to her: “Don’t you see that it is a very fine thing to bear the name of a man who can no longer make a fool of himself?”