What do you think, Gentle Reader: Can this marriage be saved?
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From La Belle Assemblée, Vol. 3, 1807
DEFINITION OF A HUSBAND BY HIS WIFE.
THIS lady composed the following vocabulary to express the character of a husband, from her own experience, and which proves how copious our language is on that article:—He is, said she, an abhorred, abominable, acrimonious, angry, arrogant, austere, awkward, barbarous, bitter, blustering, boisterous, boorish, brawling, brutal, bullying, capricious, captious, careless, choleric, churlish, clamorous, contumelious, crabbed, cross, currish, detestable, disagreeable, discontented, disgusting, dismal, dreadful, drowsy, dry, dull, envious, execrable, fastidious, fierce, fretful, froward, frumpish, furious, grating, gross, growling, gruff, grumbling, hard-hearted, hasty, hateful, hectoring, horrid, huffish, humoursome, illiberal, ill natured, implacable, inattentive, incorrigible, inflexible, injurious, insolent, intractable, irascible, ireful, jealous, keen, loathsome, maggotty, malevolent, malicious, malignant, maundering, mischievous, morose, murmuring, nauseous, nefarious, negligent, noisy, obstinate, obstreperous, odious, offensive, opinionated, oppressive, outrageous, overbearing, passionate, peevish, pervicacious, perverse, perplexing, pettish, petulant, plaguy, quarrelsome, queasy, queer, raging, restless, rigid, rigorous, roaring, rough, rude, rugged, saucy, savage, severe, sharp, shocking, sluggish, snappish, snarling, sneaking, sour, spiteful, splenetic, squeamish, stern, stubborn, stupid, sulky, sullen, surly, suspicious, tantalizing, tart, teasing, terrible, testy, tiresome, tormenting, touchy, treacherous, troublesome, turbulent, tyrannicaI, uncomfortable, ungovernable, unpleasant, unsuitable, uppish, vexatious, violent, virulent, waspish, worrying, wrangling, wrathful, yarring, yelping dog in a manger, who neither eats himself nor will let others eat.
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Illustration: Get out, will you, she stormed, by Arthur Ignatius Keller[1922?], courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
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