It is an instance of the vanity of the world that we are liable to the
greatest grief in those things wherein we promise ourselves the
greatest comfort. It is as it proves. What greater temporal comfort can
a man have than a good wife and good children? Yet, 1. A foolish son is
a great affliction, and may make a man wish a thousand times he had
been written childless. A son that will apply himself to no study or
business, that will take no advice, that lives a lewd, loose, rakish
life, and spends what he has extravagantly, games it away and wastes it
in the excess of riot, or that is proud, foppish, and conceited, such a
one is the grief of his father, because he is the disgrace, and is
likely to be the ruin, of his family. He hates all his labour, when he
sees to whom he must leave the fruit of it. 2. A cross peevish wife is
as great an affliction: Her contentions are continual; every day, and
every hour in the day, she finds some occasion to make herself and
those about her uneasy. Those that are accustomed to chide never want
something or other to chide at; but it is a continual dropping, that
is, a continual vexation, as it is to have a house so much out of
repair that it rains in and a man cannot lie dry in it. That man has an
uncomfortable life, and has need of a great deal of wisdom and grace to
enable him to bear his affliction and do his duty, who has a sot for
his son and a scold for his wife.