Something--it may have been the home-looking blaze (I am a bachelor of, say, six-and-twenty), or possibly a plaintive cry of the baby in my tenant's room, had suggested to me the thought of--marriage. I piled upon the heated fire-dogs the last armful of my wood; "and now," said I, bracing myself courageously between the arms of my chair, "I'll not flinch; I'll pursue the thought wherever it leads, though it leads me to the d--(I am apt to be hasty)--at least," continued I, softening, "until my fire is out." The wood was green, and at first showed no disposition to blaze. It smoked furiously. Smoke, thought I, always goes before blaze; and so does doubt go before decision: and my reverie, from that very starting-point, slipped into this shape: I. SMOKE--SIGNIFYING DOUBT A wife? thought I. Yes, a wife. And why? And pray, my dear sir, why not--why? Why not doubt? why not hesitate; why not tremble? Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery--a poor man whose whole earnings go in to secure the ticket--without trembling, hesitating, and doubting? Can a man stake his bachelor respectability, his independence, and comfort, upon the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless marriage, without trembling at the venture? Shall a man who has been free to chase his fancies over the wide world, without let or hindrance, shut himself up to marriage-ship, within four walls called home, that are to claim him, his time, his trouble, and his tears, thenceforward forevermore, without doubts thick, and thick-coming as smoke? Shall he who has been hitherto a mere observer of other men's cares and business--moving off where they made him sick of heart, approaching whenever and wherever they made him gleeful--shall he now undertake administration of just such cares and business, without qualms? Shall he, whose whole life has been but a nimble succession of escapes from trifling difficulties, now broach without doubtings--that matrimony, where if difficulty beset him there is no escape? Shall this brain of mine, careless-working, never tired with idleness, feeding on long vagaries and high, gigantic castles, dreaming out beatitudes hour by hour--turn itself at length to such dull task-work as thinking out a livelihood for wife and children? Where thenceforward will be those sunny dreams, in which I have warmed my fancies, and my heart, and lighted my eye with crystal? This very marriage, which a brilliant working imagination has invested time and again with brightness and delight, can serve no longer as a mine for teeming fancy. All, alas! will be gone--reduced to the dull standard of the actual. No more room for intrepid forays of imagination--no more gorgeous realm-making. All will be over! Why not, I thought, go on dreaming?