ian a stripe with a switch; while the howling
shrew who spends a man's money in drink, empties his house, screeches
at him by the hour together, is not censured at all--nay, the ordinary
"gusher" would say that "the agonised woman vents the feelings of her
overcharged heart."

Now let us glance at the various sorts of these awful scourges who
dwell in our midst. It may be well to classify them at once, because,
unless I mistake many symptoms, the stubborn English may shortly snuff
out the sentimentalists who have raised up a plague among us. I may
say as a preliminary that in my opinion a shrew may be fairly defined
as "a female who takes advantage of the noblest impulses of men and
the kindliest laws of nations in order that she may claim the social
privileges of both sexes and vent her most wicked temper with
freedom." First, consider the doleful shrew. This is a person not
usually found among the classes which lack leisure; she is an
exasperating and most entirely selfish woman, and she cannot very well
invent her refinements of whining cruelty unless she has a little time
on hand; her speciality is to moan incessantly over the ingratitude of
people for whom she has done some trivial service; and, as she always
moans by choice in presence of the person whom she has afflicted by
her generosity, the result is merely distracting. If the victim says,
"I allow that you have been very kind, and I am grateful," he commits
an error in tactics, for the torturer is upon him at once. "Oh, you do
own it then, and yet see how you behave!"--and then the torrent flows
on with swift persistence. If, on the contrary, the sufferer cries,
"Why on earth do you go on repeating what you have done? I owned your
kindness once, and I do not intend to talk any more about it!" he is
still more clearly delivered into the enemy's hands. He lays himself
open to a charge of ingratitude, and the charge is pressed home with
relentless fluency. Then, as to the doleful one's influence on
children--the general modern tendency is towards making children
happy, but the doleful one is a survival from some bad type, and takes
a secret malign delight in wantonly inflicting pain on the minds or
bodies of the young. Some dense people perhaps imagine that children
cannot suffer mental agony; yet the merest mite may carry a whole
tragedy in its innocent soul. We all know the wheedling ways of
children; we know how they will coax little luxuries and privileges