Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1881 — Veteran Beaux. [ARTICLE]

Veteran Beaux.

I beg leave here to give notice that bv the following I mean no reflection on old bachelors ; on the contrary, I hold that, next to a fine lady, the ne plus ultra, an old bachelor to be the most charming being on earth. Inasmuch as by living in “ single blessedness ” he of course does just as he pleases, and, if he has any genius, must acquire a plentiful stock of -whims, and oddities, and whalebone habits, without which I esteem a man to be mere beef without mustard, good for nothing at all but to run on errands for ladies, take boxes at the theater, and act the part of a screen at tea parties, or a walkingstick in the streets. I merely Rpeak of these old boys who infest public walks, pounce upon ladies from every corner of the street, and worry, and frisk, and ramble, and caper before, behind and round about the fashionable belles, like o’d ponies in a pasture, striving to supply the absence of youthful whim and hilarity by grimaces and grins, and artificial vivacity. I have sometiines seen

one of these “ reverend youths ” endeavoring to elevate his wintry passions into something like love, by basking in the sunshine of beauty ; and it did remind me of an old moth, attempting to fly through a pane of glass toward a light, without ever approaching near enough to warm itself, or scorch its wings.— Washington Irving.