A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.
The continual dropping is a continual dropping of words, talk that is calculated to excite the mind and unsettle it. Such speech does not settle a person but keeps him in a confused state, with the mind stirred and unbalanced. To speak in this way is to stand directly in the way of the one affected rather than to help him. So it was when Harriet, Brother Andrews, and Brother Stevens's family spoke such words to John, placing themselves across his path instead of aiding him, when seeing themselves and frankly confessing their past wrongs would have helped him.
The continual dropping is a continual dropping of words, talk that is calculated to excite the mind and unsettle it. Such speech does not settle a person but keeps him in a confused state, with the mind stirred and unbalanced. To speak in this way is to stand directly in the way of the one affected rather than to help him. So it was when Harriet, Brother Andrews, and Brother Stevens's family spoke such words to John, placing themselves across his path instead of aiding him, when seeing themselves and frankly confessing their past wrongs would have helped him.