Part 17 (1/2)
_Crom a boo_; I will burn. This Irish proverb, or saying, may serve in many respects as an adverse commentary on the preceding. There are people who are never at rest when they are out of hot water--nor contented when they are in. ”I will burn” is the motto of the Duke of Leinster. It would do capitally for Mr. Smith O'Brien. Perhaps, however, it should not be read as a resolution to suffer, but as a threat to inflict a burning. Still, the vagueness of this threat--a dreadful announcement with no definite object--would render it equally applicable.
_Bis dat qui cito dat_; he gives double who gives promptly. The truth of this is well ill.u.s.trated by the converse it suggests; that he who long delays and tantalizes before giving, earns less grat.i.tude than scorn. It requires more generosity and a finer mind to confer a favor in the best way, than to confer double the amount of the favor in itself.
_What I gain afore I lose ahint._ (Scotch.) To be engrossed with a fixed object, is to forget what is going on all around us. I am closely engaged with what is pa.s.sing before my eyes, while I am deceived and injured behind my back. This quaint old proverb has been ludicrously ill.u.s.trated by a characteristic story. A Highlander, in a somewhat scanty kilt, was crossing a desolate moor one winter's night, and being very cold, he hastened to a light he saw at no great distance. It turned out to be a decomposed cod's head, which sent forth phosphoric gleams.
He stooped down to try and warm his hands at it; but finding the bleak winds whistling all round his legs, he made the sage observation above, which has pa.s.sed into a proverb.
_Entfloh'nes Wort, geworf'ner Stein, die kommen nimmermehr herein_; the hasty word, and hasty stone, can never be recalled. How truthful, how home to the mark, does this proverb fly; how excellent is the warning and the self-command it inculcates!
_To-day a fire, to-morrow ashes._ (Arabic.) Violent pa.s.sions are the soonest exhausted; to-day all-powerful, to-morrow nothing, or the consequences.
_Reading the psalms to the dead._ (Arabic.) This is the original of our ”Preaching to the dead,” to express the fruitlessness of exhortations, applications, or pet.i.tions, to certain insensible people.
_Follow the owl, she will lead thee to ruin._ (Arabic.) A most picturesque proverb, giving its own scenery with it. But it strikes one as curious that this should come from the East which seems so familiar to our apprehensions. Not only are the habits of the owl the same, but the owl is equally regarded as the symbol of a purblind fool. Yet, on the other hand, the owl of cla.s.sic times was a type of wisdom.
_Two of a trade can never agree._ It is curious, and, in most instances, highly gratifying, to see how many of these sayings of our ancestors are becoming falsified by the great advances made, of late years, in social feelings and arrangements. Trades' unions, co-operative societies--in fact, all our great companies prove how well two of a trade can agree; and so do all combinations of masters or of workmen. Yes, it will be said, but they ”agree,” and co-operate for their mutual interests, and they do not agree with those opposed to them. Of course not; the sensible thing, therefore, is obvious, to enlarge the sphere of good understanding and reciprocal fair dealing in matters of business, and thus to supersede the bad feeling and injury of greedy rivalries and selfish antagonisms.
_There was a wife who always took what she had, and never wanted._ (Scotch.) A good practical advice, showing the importance of using what you possess, instead of h.o.a.rding it, or reserving it, even when most needed, for some possible contingency, which may never occur. It seems to refer chiefly to articles of dress, clothing, domestic utensils, or other household matters.
_Dat Deus immiti cornua curta bovi_; G.o.d curtails the power to do evil in those who desire to do it.
_There is honor among thieves._ This is, no doubt, quite true, though you must be a thief yourself to derive much benefit from it. They stand by their order. The suggestion is--since there is honor towards each other among the most unprincipled cla.s.ses, surely Mr. Sweepstakes, and Mr. Moses Battledore, who are both respectable members of society, and belong to clubs, would not cheat me. But this does not logically follow; for we by no means know how far the respectable individual makes his view of his own interest an excuse to himself for an occasional exception to the code of morality he professes. There's honor among thieves; and there are thieves (here and there) among honorably-connected men, ”all honorable men.” Life is a ”mingled yarn”
of good and evil; and society is a motley aggregate of all sorts of yarns.
_A rose-bud fell to the lot of a monkey._ (Arabic.) The monkey appreciated the rose-bud quite as much as swine appreciate the pearls which are said to be cast before them.
_Of what use to a fool is all the trouble he gives himself?_ (Chinese.) None whatever; but his folly may cause a vast deal of trouble to people of sense. One false move of an utterly incompetent man in office, and the force of the saying becomes very expansive.
_There are no lies so wicked as those which have some foundation._ (Chinese.) A saying which is but too true, and which ought to be universally understood in society, as some protection against slander.
_Many preparations before the sour plum sweetens._ (Chinese.) Great results do not hastily ripen; great and important changes must undergo a gradual process.
_Spare the rod and spoil the child._ This seems to be derived from the old Spanish proverb, which we find in Don Quixote, ”He loves thee well who makes thee weep.” They are unkindly and dangerous maxims, which tend to inculcate severity, and to justify harsh treatment upon the plea of future advantage. We readily admit that nothing can well be worse than a ”spoilt child,” nor can a more injurious system exist than that of pampering or spoiling--except the direct opposite, that of frequently causing tears.
_A tea-spoonful of honey is worth a pound of gall._ An indiscriminate use of the sweets of life is a stupidity and an injury; but the judicious use of them is of far more service in the production of good results, than the bitter lessons which are often considered to be of most advantage. It is better to soften the heart than to harden it. ”A soft word turneth away wrath.”
_What the ant collects in a year, the priest eats up in a night._ (Arabic.) The t.i.the-taxes, and other revenues of the state-clergy, derived from the industry of the working cla.s.ses, are not very tenderly dealt with in this proverb.
_The walls have ears._ (Arabic.) This is one of the many instances of our homeliest proverbs in every-day use, being derived from the East. No doubt the saying, that ”Little pitchers have great ears” (in allusion to the sharpness of hearing in children), is also derived from the domestic utensils of foreign countries in ancient times. The British Museum contains many such little pitchers, as well as the Foundling Hospital.
_The ox that ploughs must not be muzzled._ (Arabic.) The laborer ought to be allowed freedom of speech, or at least free breathing. We have a nautical saying akin to this--”A sailor never works well if he does not grumble.”
_Three united men will ruin a town._ (Arabic.) The power of combination was never more excellently expressed.
_He begins the quarrel who gives the second blow._ (Spanish.) There are but few who possess the requisite degree of wise and kindly forbearance and magnanimous self-command implied in this saying. To strike again, or rather (as the _blow_ is figurative) to retort an angry word, is natural to most men; to preserve a reproving silence, or administer a dignified rebuke, is in the power only of great characters, and not with them at all times. But it is quite possible, as we live in a very pugnacious world, that such forbearance should not be thrown away upon every one, or the small majority of the magnanimous would soon be beaten out of existence. The above proverb, we believe, is originally Spanish, and, coming from a people so proverbially revengeful, seems very extraordinary, and only to be accounted for as the result of an abstract thought of some lofty-minded hidalgo, speculating on friends.h.i.+p. Don Quixote might have said it.
_A st.i.tch in time saves nine._ One of the most sensible and practical of all proverbs, as every body's experience can avouch. Yet, in defiance of all their own experience, how many people we often see who constantly neglect the st.i.tch in time! They do not forget it, or overlook it; and when they do, if you point it out to them, they still neglect it.
_Chi non sa niente, non dubita di niente_; he who knows nothing, doubts of nothing. The converse is equally true. He who knows much, is careful how he doubts of any thing. This is peculiarly inculcated, at the present time, by the extraordinary discoveries and success of science.