So it is in domestic matters: the man rages and storms when things go wrong; and his wife, if she be a woman of judgment, holds her peace until it is over, knowing well enough that he will be at her mercy, afterwards.

Then she sets to work, like those gnats that came on board at Genoa, that they call mosquitoes, and startles him with shrill buzzings in his ears, and pricketh him in the tenderest spots she can find; drawing but the smallest speck of blood, but causing an itching that makes him ready to tear his flesh.
"Your mother, Roger, was one of the best of women.

She was a good housewife, and an affectionate.

I do not know that I ever saw her greatly ruffled in temper, but there were times when I would fly from my house, and not come up from my work on board, until it was time to go straight away to bed, so did she prick and sting me with her tongue; and that not shrilly or with anger, but with little things, let slip as it were unawares, and with an air of ignorance that they in any way applied to me.
"No, Roger, if you will take my advice you will make your ship your mistress.

She will have her ways, but you will learn them, and will know just how much helm she requires, and how the sail should be trimmed; but with a woman no man attains to this knowledge, and if you take my advice, you will give them a wide berth.
"I know," he went on, in answer to Roger's merry laugh, "that this is a matter in which no man will trust to other experience than his own.