Can any man charge
God, that he hath not given him enough to make his life happy? No,
doubtless; for nature is content with a little. And yet you shall hardly
meet with a man that complains not of some want; though he, indeed,
wants nothing but his will; it may be, nothing but his will of his poor
neighbour, for not worshipping, or not flattering him: and thus, when we
might be happy and quiet, we create trouble to ourselves. I have heard
of a man that was angry with himself because he was no taller; and of a
woman that broke her looking-glass because it would not show her face to
be as young and handsome as her next neighbour's was. And I knew another
to whom God had given health and plenty; but a wife that nature had made
peevish, and her husband's riches had made purse-proud; and must,
because she was rich, and for no other virtue, sit in the highest pew in
the church; which being denied her, she engaged her husband into a
contention for it, and at last into a lawsuit with a dogged neighbour
who was as rich as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the
other: and this lawsuit begot higher oppositions, and actionable words,
and more vexations and lawsuits; for you must remember that both were
rich, and must therefore have their wills. Well! this wilful,
purse-proud lawsuit lasted during the life of the first husband; after
which his wife vext and chid, and chid and vext, till she also chid and
vext herself into her grave: and so the wealth of these poor rich people
was curst into a punishment, because they wanted meek and thankful
hearts; for those only can make us happy.
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