Shall I talk of the drunken shrew? No--not that!
My task is unlovely enough already, and I cannot inflict that last
horror on those who will read this. Thus much will I say--if ever you
know a man tied to a creature whose cheeks are livid purple in the
morning and flushed at night, a creature who speaks thick at night and
is ready with a villainous word for the most courteous and gentle of
all whom she may meet, pray for that man.
The blue-blooded shrew is by no means uncommon. Watch one of this kind
yelling on a racecourse in tearful and foul-mouthed rage and you will
have a few queer thoughts about human nature. Then there is the
ladylike shrew. Ah, that being! What has she to answer for? She is
neat, low-spoken, precise; she can purr like a cat, and she has the
feline scratch always ready too. Pity the governess, the servant, the
poor flunkey whom she has at her mercy, for their bread is earned in
bitterness. "My lady" does not raise her voice; she can give orders
for the perpetration of the meanest of deeds without varying the
silken flow of her acrid tongue; but she is bad--very bad; and I think
that, if Dante and Swedenborg were at all near being true prophets,
there would be a special quarter in regions dire for the lady-like
shrew.
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