3-052-795 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Old Bachelor, 1880. Illustration to a short story. 'Mr. Richard Wyse was a man of good family and fortune and he lived entirely for himself - a mode of dealing with the world and its belongings which seemed to him best calculated to make the most of his advantages. Indeed, he had few duties which public opinion considers binding upon inferior beings. He was not handicapped by a title, so that the beautiful ethics of hereditary legislation had no claim on his attention, and the newspapers were not concerned with either his merits or defects. He was a man of creditable birth, for he had among his papers a letter from the Duke of York addressed to his father, and beginning "Dear Tick."...Not that Mr. Wyse was a bad man. He was neither good nor bad. He was Nothing; Nothing personified'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.