What would such a one as he was do with a wife?
Or, seeing as he did see, that marriage itself was quite out of the question, how could it be good either for him or her that they should be tied together by a long engagement?
Such a future would not at all suit the purpose of his life.

In his life absolute freedom would be needed;--freedom from unnecessary ties, freedom from unnecessary burdens.

His income was most precarious, and he certainly would not make it less so by submission to any closer literary thraldom.

And he believed himself to be a Bohemian,--too much of a Bohemian to enjoy a domestic fireside with children and slippers.

To be free to go where he liked, and when he liked; to think as he pleased; to be driven nowhere by conventional rules; to use his days, Sundays as well as Mondays, as he pleased to use them; to turn Republican, if his mind should take him that way,--or Quaker, or Mormon, or Red Indian, if he wished it, and in so turning to do no damage to any one but himself;--that was the life which he had planned for himself.