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has occurred in Mrs Potter�s family, and
I have known scores of incidental cases.   It�s a
national institution!          To return.  The wretched
American child, like Tristram Shandy, is wronged
by the mother before its birth.  Then, the little beast
learns it�s A. B. C. on the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and has too high an idea of its sovereign
importance ever to become a loving
Christian creature.        Oh the ass that any kindly-
nurtured Englishman is, when he marries an
American woman, with her damned notions that
forgiveness and mercy and self-negation are mean:
� indications of a poor spirit!      How often one
hears girls cackling: �I did this!   I did that!   I
gave her a piece of my mind!  I let her know ��
(that I was an unwomanly vulgar-souled, re-
taliatory b___h!)       Why even high-souled Mrs
Church had the taint.   She made some miser-
able devil of a man in Kentucky-who had been
goaded into insulting her by his wife � she
made this poor cur give a formal and craven 
apology before a whole roomful of people assem-
bled for the purpose.    And I believe the affair
subsequently materially injured the wretch�s for-
times.        How much better to have forgiven him!
Pleasant looking little Mrs Eldredge could slap
a man�s face in a crowd.    Of course the women
admired her for it!    Well, let �em drift � I�m