Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Single
I be quite single: my relations be all dead, thank heavens more or less. I have but one poor mother left in the world, and she’s an helpless woman.
Sheridan.—St. Patrick’s Day, Act II. Scene 1.
Earthly happier is the rose distill’d,
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Shakespeare.—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I. Scene 1. (Theseus to Hermia.)