DISAGKREEABLE WOMEN.

Press, Volume XI, Issue 1409, 15 May 1867, Page 3

DISAGKREEABLE WOMEN.

[From the "London Keview."] It is a mistaken kindness to proclaim all women beautiful and virtuous, and a young gentleman starting in life with such a faith would soon find of what clay his idols were made. We are not now going over the old cynical ground, well nigh worn out by this time, but we propose to glance at what appears to us to be an almost unknown district. What part in the world has the disagreeable woman to play ? Is it to punish some masculine sinner by acquiring him in marriage ? Is it to set off her fairer and worthier sisters ? Is it to be a talking and a standing protest against the angelic theory of womanhood ? The disagreeable woman haunts every sphere of society. She is not necessarily ugly. Up to a certain period she may, not examine the traits of her disposition. She may resemble the tigerkin whose claws are not grown and whose habits are attractive and playful. But her nature soon breaks out. If she marries, the victim soon gets a foretaste of his misery. If the husband is well off, the disagreeable woman can utterly destroy his domestic comforts. She studies how to do it, and brings a born capacity to the task. She dislikes what he likes. She won't visit the friends he wishes her to visit, or if she does she manages to insult them. She is never ready to go out when he wants her, but she is off with a cheerful readiness when he would prefer her to remain at home. She dismisses his favorite servants, and will almost bully any well-behaved parlormaid to whom he says " Grood morning." She throws her pa or her ma in his face if she claims to be of better family. If he ventures on selecting a dress or a shawl for her she never wears it. For all this the sort of woman of which we are writing may not have a single reason which she could put into words. The more comfortable she is made, the worse she becomes. It is simply her mission to be disagreeable, and disagreeable she will be until perhaps her spouse has the melancholy satisfaction of following her mortal remains to the grave. But in nine cases out of ten the disagreeable woman manages to disappoint him in this respect, and enjoys the mournful pleasure of erecting a tablet sacred to his memory. In that walk of life where a carriage is not kept, the disagreeable woman is indeed a scourge. If her husband is a gentleman and suffers her to follow her wicked bent, his days and his nights are a burden to him She talks aside at him in the presence of company. At breakfast she seldom appears, for your truly disagreeable woman is addicted to lying in bed. If he is poor, she is extravagant, and yet always deploring the want of money. She is generally impeccable, after the rigid fashion of a proper British wife and a mother, and —if we may be pardoned for saying so • —this makes her worse. On the

strength of her fidelity she piles mountains of aggravation. She is so satisfied with the possession of one virtue that she can never see the necessity for practising another. As a rule, she grows thin as she grows old. The aristocratic species often degenerates into angularity and spectacles. Those who have been taken down to dinner by a disagreeable woman (for to talk of taking her down would be a very insufficient description of the procedure), and who have been compelled to sit next her, and to hear her talk, will not easily forget the sufferings they have endured. But those who have had her for supper —and we all have had at one time or another —will remember the occasion with something akin to horror. The disagreeable woman always goes in for supper, and eats as a rule more than is good for her, being reckless in the way of mixtures. Stout ladies of this description become plenty of pheasant, tongue, jelly, lobster salad, almonds, and pates, but the spare personages do not. The disagreeable woman if she dances puts you wrong, but plainly indicates that the fault was altogether on your side. She misses the step in a waltz, and rocks against you, and then stops abruptly, and sails over to an ottoman with an indiguant and mortified air; or if she is able to keep up, she will insist on wheeling with you round and round long after you have left your senses on an unknown part of the wall, and seem to yourself to be looking for them in a reeling and uncertain manner. She can oppress you with silence—a " tingling silence " —or set you wild with chat. If she is well acquainted with you, she innocently asks the most embarrassing questions. If you have been jilted by a girl, she entertains you with an account of the approaching nuptials with your successful rival. The disagreeable woman is never happier than when rendering others unhappy, especially those who are among her friends. In the croquet season she is sure to spoil sport, and what she does on the green lawn she will do years afterwards, perhaps, on the dry arid desert into which she has converted some unfortunate man's home. . . If a leal virtuous wife is a crown of glory to her husband what sort of crown is the wife who has if not a depraved, a peevish sense, which she cultivates until she can use it with the skill of a vivisecting operator ? . . The disagreeable woman never flirts. To flirt she should deny herself, for a while at least, the delight of being unpleasant, and such a sacrifice she is never prepared to make. In the bosom of her family, as it is called, she is a sore thorn ; when she leaves the parent nest she is not improved.