JOHN JENKINS;
A SKETCH, FROM AN UNPUBLISHED VOLUME.
John Jenkins was near forty, and consequently an old bachelor; a lawyer, and a very clever fellow. Some men are gray-haired with wisdom, some grow gray-headed in the service of the state, but Mr. Jenkins was gray because of over-much thought. He worshipped the sex with an intense devotion, and had thought about matrimony in the abstract, until the auburn shades of his hair gradually faded into the hue of twilight. Every brown study increased the very respectable minority of silvery streaks, and by the time he had attained the complement of five-and-thirty years, the auburn hairs were out-numbered on a division, and gray was the hair apparent to the crown. Every one knows how unfortunate is the predicament of a gentleman, who finds himself gray-headed and unmarried. He is shy and suspicious of the girls, and they have so much veneration for his age, that no room is left in their minds for the idea of love.
Mr. Jenkins had signalized himself by numerous gallantries. When quite a youth, he had the misfortune to get that crotchet in his head, which has played the mischief with the happiness of many a fine fellow- that is, he fancied that Mrs. Jenkins that was to be, would be in all respects just such as Mrs. Jenkins should be-that is, a specimen of a perfect woman, with a touch of heaven in her composition. This crotchet had so refined his perceptions of what was truly lovely, that he had grown to be most outrageously particular-in other words, he had lost the faculty of discriminating qualities which were genuine and good. At length, he concluded that there was but one perfect woman on earth; that her being was mysteriously approximating to his own, and that the dictate of destiny to him was, to find her out. He forthwith commenced the search; but to his horror he found that every one of his female acquaintances was deformed by some imperfection, and a blemish was his utter abhorrence. It is very silly in a man to suppose that while the sun and every other luminary that twinkles in the universe is spotted, there should be one "bright particular star" in the depths of space dwelling apart, which is an exception, without spot or blemish.
The ardency of Mr. Jenkins' passion kept the hue fresh on his cheek; and at thirty he would have passed for twenty-five, but for some impudent scattering gray hairs, which were everlastingly sticking themselves up, as if there were nothing in the
G
JAN. 1839.
