antry a few years before the siege. He was then
forty-seven years of age, and up to that time had remained one of the
most determined old bachelors that ever existed. Not that he ever
declaimed against matrimony in the style of some of our young moderns,
who fancy themselves too strong-minded to marry; the truth being that
they remain single, either because they have not been gifted by nature
with tastes sufficiently strong to like one woman better than another,
or else, because no woman ever took the trouble to lay siege to them.
My grandfather had never married, simply, I believe, because matrimony
had never entered his head. He seldom ventured, of his own choice,
into ladies' society, but, when he did, no man was more emphatically
gallant to the sex. One after one, he saw his old friends abandoning
the irresponsible ease of bachelorhood for the cares of wedded life;
but while he duly congratulated them on their felicity, and officiated
as godfather to their progeny, he never seemed to anticipate a
similar destiny for himself. All his habits showed that he had been
too long accustomed to single harness to go cleverly as one of a pair.
He had particular hours of rising and going to bed; of riding out and
returning; of settling himself down for the evening to a book and
pipe, which the presence of a helpmate would have materially deranged.
And therefore, without holding any Malthusian tenets, without pitying
his Benedick acquaintances, or entertaining a thought of the sex which
would have been in the least degree derogatory to the character of a
De Coverley, his castles in the air were never tenanted by any of his
own posterity.

It was fortunate for my grandfather that in his time people did
not suffer so much as now from that chronic inflammation of the
conscience, which renders them perfectly miserable unless they are
engaged in some tangible pursuit--"improving their minds," or "adding
to the general stock of information." A more useless, contented person
never existed. He never made even a show of employing himself
profitably, and never complained of weariness in maintaining the
monotonous jog-trot of his simple daily life. He read a good deal,
certainly, but it was not to improve his mind, only to amuse himself.
Strong-minded books, to stimulate his thinking faculties, would have
had no charms for him; he would as soon have thought of getting
galvanised for the pleasure of looking at his muscles. And I don't
know