A gladsome party of young folk may be instantly
wrecked by the doleful shrew's entrance; and, if she cannot attract
attention to herself amid a gathering even of sensible, cheerful
adults, she will probably break up the evening by dint of a well-timed
fit of spasms or something similar. Dickens made Mrs. Gummidge very
funny; but the Gummidge of real life is not merely a limp, "lorn"
creature--she is a woman who began by being unhealthily vain, and ends
by being venomously malignant. I do not think that many people have
passed through life very far without meeting with a specimen of the
dolorous shrew, and I hope in all charity that the creature is not in
the immediate circle of any one who reads this. In impassioned
moments, when I have reckoned up all the misery caused by this
species, I have been inclined to wish that every peculiarly malign
specimen could be secured at the public expense in a safe asylum.
The aggressive shrew is usually the wife of some phlegmatic man; she
insults him at all hours and on all subjects, and she establishes
complete domination over him until she happens to touch his conscience
fairly, and then he probably crushes her by the sudden exertion of
latent moral force.
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