Nor is this a mere bachelor fling against constancy. I can believe,
Heaven knows, in an unalterable and unflinching affection, which neither
desires nor admits the prospect of any other. But when one is tasking
his brain to talk for his heart,--when he is not writing positive
history, but only making mention, as it were, of the heart's
capacities,--who shall say that he has reached the fulness, that he has
exhausted the stock of its feeling, or that he has touched its highest
notes? It is true, there is but one heart in a man to be stirred; but
every stir creates a new combination of feeling, that like the turn of a
kaleidoscope will show some fresh color or form.

A bachelor, to be sure, has a marvellous advantage in this; and with the
tenderest influences once anchored in the bay of marriage, there is
little disposition to scud off under each pleasant breeze of feeling.
Nay, I can even imagine--perhaps somewhat captiously--that after
marriage, feeling would become a habit, a rich and holy habit certainly,
but yet a habit, which weakens the omnivorous grasp of the affections,
and schools one to a unity of emotion that doubts and ignores the
promptness and variety of impulse which we bachelors possess.

My aunt nodded again.

Could it be that she approved what I had been saying? I hardly knew.

Poor old lady,--she did not know herself. She was asleep!