By her discretion she hath children not wantons; a husband
without her is a misery to man's apparel: none but she hath an aged
husband, to whom she is both a staff and a chair. To conclude, she is
both wise and religious, which makes her all this.
A MELANCHOLY MAN
Is a strayer from the drove: one that Nature made a sociable, because
she made him man, and a crazed disposition hath altered. Unpleasing to
all, as all to him; straggling thoughts are his content, they make him
dream waking, there's his pleasure. His imagination is never idle, it
keeps his mind in a continual motion, as the poise the clock: he winds
up his thoughts often, and as often unwinds them; Penelope's web thrives
faster. He'll seldom be found without the shade of some grove, in whose
bottom a river dwells. He carries a cloud in his face, never fair
weather; his outside is framed to his inside, in that he keeps a
decorum, both unseemly. Speak to him; he hears with his eyes, ears
follow his mind, and that's not at leisure. He thinks business, but
never does any; he is all contemplation, no action. He hews and fashions
his thoughts, as if he meant them to some purpose, but they prove
unprofitable, as a piece of wrought timber to no use. His spirits and
the sun are enemies: the sun bright and warm, his humour black and cold;
variety of foolish apparitions people his head, they suffer him not to
breathe according to the necessities of nature, which makes him sup up a
draught of as much air at once as would serve at thrice.
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