“What! not get married! Oh dear me suz,” screamed Delila Ann, for truly the thought seemed to scare her nearly to death. “Oh how awful, how lonely, lonely, they must be.”
“Who said they wasn’t?” says I in pretty middlin’ short tones—for she was a beginnin’ to wear me out some—but I continued on in more mild axents:
“I have seen married folks before now, that I _knew_ was in their souls as lonesome as dogs and lonesomer,” says I, “a disagreeabler feelin’ I never felt, than to have company that haint company, stay right by you for two or three days. And then what must it be to have ’em stand by you from forty to fifty years. Good land! it would tucker anybody out. A desert haint to be compared to a crowd of strangers; woods can’t be compared to human bein’s for loneliness, for Nater is a friendly critter, and to them that love her, she has a hundred ways to chirk ’em up and comfort ’em. And solitude is sacred, when the world’s babble dies away, you hush your soul, and hear the footfalls of the Eternal. Hear His voice speakin’ to your heart in better thoughts, purer aspirations, nobler idees. No! for pure loneliness give me the presence of an alien soul, whose thoughts can never be your thoughts, whose eyes can no more see what your eyes see than if they wore leather spectacles, whose presence weighs you down like four Nite Mairs and a half. And if for any reason, fear, thoughtlessness, or wantin’ a home, you are married to such a one, there is a loneliness for you Delila Ann Spicer.” But she kep’ right on, with her former idees, for she felt ’em deeply.
“Oh Dear! I don’t see how folks git along that haint married. Nothin’ in the world looks so poverty-struck, and lonesome as a woman that haint married.”
“Yes,” says I reasonably, “they _do_ have a sort of a one sided look I’ll admit, and sort o’ curious, at certain times, such as processions, and etcetery; I always said so, and I say so still. But,” says I, “in my opinion, there haint no lonesomeness to be compared to the lonesomeness of the empty-headed and aimless, and no amount of husbands can make up to any woman for the loss of her self-respect. Them is my idees, howsumever everybody to their own mind.”
Whether I did ’em any good or not I don’t know, for my companion arrived jest that moment, and we departed onto our tower; but it is a sweet and comfortin’ thought, that whether you hit the mark you aim at or not, you have done your best and a good pile of arrers somewhere will bear witness that you have took aim, and fired nobly in the cause of Right.