Part 3

What is innate is not to be eradicated by force of education or self-discipline: these may modify the outward manifestations of a man's nature, but not transmute that nature itself. What belongs to it "lasts to the grave" (Italian).[136] The ancients had several proverbs to the same purpose, such as this one, which is found in Aristophanes--"You will never make a crab walk straight forwards"--and this Latin one, which is repeated in several modern languages: "The wolf changes his coat, but not his disposition;"[137]--he turns grey with age. The Spaniards say he "loses his teeth, but not his inclinations."[138] "What is sucked in with the mother's milk runs out in the shroud" (Spanish).[139] Horace's well-known line,--

"Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret"--

"Though you cast out nature with a fork, it will still return"--has very much the air of a proverb versified. The same thought is better expressed in a French line which has acquired proverbial currency:--

"Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop."

"Drive away nature, and back it comes at a gallop." This line is very commonly attributed to Boileau, but erroneously. The author of it is Chaulieu (?). The Orientals ascribe to Mahomet the saying, "Believe, if thou wilt, that mountains change their places, but believe not that men change their dispositions."

=Cat after kind.=

"What is born of a hen will scrape" (Italian).[140] "What is born of a cat will catch mice" (French, Italian).[141] This proverb is taken from the fable of a cat transformed into a woman, who scandalised her friends by jumping from her seat to catch a mouse. "A good hound hunts by kind" (French).[142] "It is kind father to him," as the Scotch say. "Good blood cannot lie" (French);[143] its generous instincts are sure to display themselves on fit occasions. On the other hand, "The son of an ass brays twice a day."[144] We need not say what people that stroke of grave humour belongs to.

=Drive a cow to the ha' and she'll run to the byre.=--_Scotch._

She will be more at home there than in the drawing-room. "A sow prefers bran to roses" (French).[145] "Set a frog on a golden stool, and off it hops again into the pool" (German).[146]

=There's no making a silk purse of a sow's ear=;

or, "A good arrow of a pig's tail" (Spanish);[147] or, "A sieve of an ass's tail" (Greek).

=A carrion kite will never make a good hawk.=[148]

=An inch o' a nag is worth a span o' an aver.=--_Scotch._

=A kindly aver will never make a good nag.=--_Scotch._

An aver is a cart horse.

=One leg of a lark is worth the whole body of a kite.=

=A piece of a kid is worth two of a cat.=

=Bray a fool in a mortar, he'll be never the wiser.=

"To wash an ass's head is loss of suds" (French).[149] "The malady that is incurable is folly" (Spanish).[150]

=There's no washing a blackamoor white.=

"Wash a dog, comb a dog, still a dog is but a dog" (French).[151]

=A hog in armour is still but a hog.=

=An ape is an ape, a varlet's a varlet,= =Though he be clad in silk and scarlet.=

=There's no getting white flour out of a coal-sack.=

"Whatever the bee sucks turns to honey, and whatever the wasp sucks turns to venom" (Portuguese).[152]

=Eagles catch no flies.=

Literally translated from a Latin adage[153] much used by Queen Christina, of Sweden, who affected a superb disdain for petty details. The Romans had another proverbial expression for the same idea:--"The prætor takes no heed of very small matters,"[154] for his was a superior court, and did not try cases of minor importance. Our modern lawyers have retained the classical adage, only substituting the word "law" for "prætor." They say, "De minimis non curat lex," which might, perhaps, be freely translated, "Lawyers don't stick at trifles."

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Chi l'ha per natura, fin alla fossa dura.

[137] Lupus pilum mutat non mentem.

[138] El lobo pierde los dientes, mas no los mientes.

[139] Lo que en la leche se mama, en la mortaja so derrama.

[140] Chi nasce di gallina, convien che rozzuola.

[141] Chi naquit chat, court après les souris. Chi nasce di gatta sorice piglia.

[142] Bon chien chasse de race.

[143] Bon sang ne peut mentir.

[144] El hijo del asino dos veces rozna al dia.

[145] Truie aime mieux bran que roses.

[146]

Setz einen Frosch auf goldnen Stuhl. Er hupft doch wieder in den Pfuhl.

[147] De rabo de puerco nunca buen virote.

[148] On ne saurait faire d'une buse un épervier.

[149] À laver la tête d'un âne, on perd sa lessive.

[150] El mal que no se puede sañar, es locura.

[151] Lavez chien, peignez chien, toujours n'est chien que chien.

[152] Quanto chupa a abelha, mel torna, e quanto a aranha, peçonha.

[153] Aquila non capit muscas.

[154] De minimis non curat prætor.

HOME.

=Home is home, be it ever so homely.=

=Hame is a hamely word.=--_Scotch._

"Homely" and "hamely" are not synonymous, but imply different ideas associated with home. The one means plain, unadorned, fit for every-day use; the other means familiar, pleasant, dear to the affections. "To every bird its nest is fair" (French, Italian).[155] "East and west, at home the best" (German).[156] "The reek of my own house," says the Spaniard, "is better than the fire of another's."[157] The same feeling is expressed with less energy, but far more tenderly, in a beautiful Italian proverb, which loses greatly by translation: "Home, my own home, tiny though thou be, to me thou seemest an abbey."[158] Two others in the same language are exquisitely tender: "My home, my mother's breast."[159] How touching this simple juxtaposition of two loveliest things! Again, "Tie me hand and foot, and throw me among my own."[160]

=Every cock is proud on his own dunghill.=

=A cock is crouse on his ain midden.=--_Scotch._

This proverb has descended to us from the Romans: it is quoted by Seneca.[161] Its medieval equivalent, _Gallus cantat in suo sterquilinio_, was probably present to the mind of the first Napoleon when, in reply to those who advised him to adopt the Gallic cock as the imperial cognizance, he said, "No, it is a bird that crows on a dunghill." The French have altered the old proverb without improving it, thus: "A dog is stout on his own dunghill."[162] The Italian is better: "Every dog is a lion at home."[163] The Portuguese give us the counterpart of this adage, saying, "The fierce ox grows tame on strange ground."[164]

=An Englishman's house is his castle.=

But sanitary reformers tell him truly that he has no right to shoot poisoned arrows from it at his neighbours. The French say, "The collier (or charcoal burner) is master in his own house,"[165] and refer the origin of the proverb to a hunting adventure of Francis I., which is related by Blaise de Montluc. Having outridden all his followers, the king took shelter at nightfall in the cabin of a charcoal burner, whose wife he found sitting alone on the floor before the fire. She told him, when he asked for hospitality, that he must wait her husband's return, which he did, seating himself on the only chair the cabin contained. Presently the man came in, and, after a brief greeting, made the king give him up the chair, saying he was used to sit in it, and it was but right that a man should be master in his own house. Francis expressed his entire concurrence in this doctrine, and he and his host supped together very amicably on game poached from the royal forest.

"Man," said Ferdinand VII. to the Duke of Medina Celi, the premier nobleman of Spain, who was helping him on with his great coat, "man, how little you are!"--"At home I am great," replied the dwarfish _grande_ (grandee). "When I am in my own house I am a king" (Spanish).[166]

FOOTNOTES:

[155] À tout oiseau son nid est beau. A ogni uccello suo nido è bello.

[156] Ost und West, daheim das Best.

[157] Mas vale humo de mi casa que fuego de la agena.

[158] Casa mia, casa mia, per piccina che tu sia, tu mi sembri una badia.

[159] Casa mia, mamma mia.

[160] Legami mani e piei, e gettami tra' miei.

[161] Gallus in suo sterquilinio plurimum potest.

[162] Chien sur son fumier est hardi.

[163] Ogni cane è leone a casa sua.

[164] O boi bravo na terra alheia se faz manso.

[165] Charbonnier est maître chez soi.

[166] Mientras en mi casa estoy, rey me soy.

PRESENCE. ABSENCE. SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

=Long absent, soon forgotten.=

=Out of sight, out of mind.=

"Friends living far away are no friends" (Greek). "He that is absent will not be the heir" (Latin).[167] "Absence is love's foe: far from the eyes, far from the heart" (Spanish).[168] "The dead and the absent have no friends" (Spanish).[169] "The absent are always in the wrong" (French).[170] "Absent, none without fault; present, none without excuse" (French).[171]

Against this string of proverbs, all running in one direction, we may set off the Scotch saying,--

=They are aye gude that are far awa'=;

and this French one: "A little absence does much good."[172] Without affirming too absolutely that--

=Friends agree best at a distance--=

which was a proverb before Rochefoucauld wrote it down among his maxims--we may admit that "To preserve friendship a wall must be put between" (French);[173] and that "A hedge between keeps friendship green" (German).[174] "Love your neighbour, but do not pull down the hedge" (German).[175] "There are certain limits of sociality, and prudent reserve and absence may find a place in the management of the tenderest relations."--(_Friends in Council._) This lesson the Spaniards embody in two proverbs, bidding you "Go to your aunt's (or your brother's) house, but not every day."[176] Friends meet with more pleasure after a short separation. "The imagination," says Montaigne, "embraces more fervently and constantly what it goes in search of than what one has at hand. Count up your daily thoughts, and you will find that you are most absent from your friend when you have him with you. His presence relaxes your attention, and gives your thoughts liberty to absent themselves at every turn and upon every occasion."

=Better be unmannerly than troublesome.=

=I wad rather my friend should think me framet than fashious.=--_Scotch._

That is, I would rather my friend should think me strange (_fremd_, German) than troublesome (_fâcheux_, French).

=Too much familiarity breeds contempt.=

=Ower-meikle hameliness spoils gude courtesy.=

Hameliness means familiarity. See "Hame is a hamely word," page 36.

=Leave welcome ahint you.=--_Scotch._

Do not outstay your welcome. "A guest and a fish stink on the third day" (Spanish).[177]

=Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.=

"Aweel, kinsman," says Rob Boy to the baillie, "ye ken our fashion--foster the guest that comes, further him that maun gang." "Let the guest go before the storm bursts" (German).[178]

=If the badger leaves his hole the tod will creep into it.=--_Scotch._

"He that quits his place loses it" (French).[179] "Whoso absents himself, his share absents itself" (Arab).

FOOTNOTES:

[167] Absens hæres non erit.

[168] Ausencia enemiga de amor: quan lejos de ojo tan lejos de corazon.

[169] A muertos y a idos no hay mas amigos.

[170] Les absents ont toujours tort.

[171] Absent n'est point sans coulpe, ni présent sans excuse.

[172] Un peu d'absence fait grand bien.

[173] Pour amitié garder il faut parois entreposer.

[174] Ein Zaun dazwischen mag die Liebe erfrischen.

[175] Liebe deinen Nachbar, reiss aber den Zaun nicht ein.

[176] A case de tu tia, mas no cada dia. A casa de tu hermano, mas no cada serano.

[177] El huesped y el pece á tres dias hiede.

[178] Lass den Gast ziehen eh das Gewitter ausbricht.

[179] Qui quitte sa place la perd.

FRIENDSHIP.

=He is my friend who grinds at my mill.=

That is, who is serviceable to me--a vile sentiment if understood too absolutely; but the proverb is rather to be interpreted as offering a test by which genuine friendship may be distinguished from its counterfeit. "Deeds are love, and not fine speeches" (Spanish).[180] "If you love me, John, your acts will tell me so" (Spanish).[181] "In the world you have three sorts of friends," says Chamfort; "your friends who love you, your friends who do not care about you, and your friends who hate you."

=Kindness will creep where it canna gang.=--_Scotch._

It will find some way to manifest itself, in spite of all hinderances. As Burns sings,--

"A man may hae an honest heart, Though poortith hourly stare him; A man may tak a neebor's part, Yet no hae cash to spare him."

=Friendship canna stand aye on one side.=--_Scotch._

It demands reciprocity. "Little presents keep up friendship" (French);[182] and so do mutual good offices. Note that the French proverb speaks of _little_ presents--such things as are valued between friends, not for their intrinsic value, but as tokens of good-will.

=Before you make a friend, eat a peck of salt with him.=

Take time to know him thoroughly.

=Sudden friendship, sure repentance.=

=Never trust much to a new friend or an old enemy.=

Nor even to an old friend, if you and he have once been at enmity. "Patched-up friendship seldom becomes whole again" (German).[183] "Broken friendship may be soldered, but never made sound" (Spanish).[184] "A reconciled friend, a double foe" (Spanish).[185] "Beware of a reconciled friend as of the devil" (Spanish).[186] Asmodeus, speaking of his quarrel with Paillardoc, says, "They reconciled us, we embraced, and ever since we have been mortal enemies."

=Old friends and old wine are best.=

"Old tunes are sweetest, and old friends are surest," says Claud Halcro. "Old be your fish, your oil, your friend" (Italian).[187]

=One enemy is too many, and a hundred friends are too few.=

Enmity is unhappily a much more active principle than friendship.

=Save me from my friends!=

An ejaculation often called forth by the indiscreet zeal which damages a man's cause whilst professing to serve it. The full form of the proverb--"God save me from my friends, I will save myself from my enemies"--is almost obsolete amongst us, but is found in most languages of the continent, and is applied to false friends. Bacon tells us that "Cosmos, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends that we read we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read we ought to forgive our friends."

=A full purse never lacked friends.=

An empty purse does not easily find one. To say that "The best friends are in the purse" (German),[188] is, perhaps, putting the matter a little too strongly; but, at all events, "Let us have florins, and we shall find cousins" (Italian).[189] "The rich man does not know who is his friend."[190] This Gascon proverb may be taken in a double sense: the rich man's friends are more than he can number; he cannot be sure of the sincerity of any of them. "He who is everybody's friend is either very poor or very rich" (Spanish).[191] "Now that I have a ewe and a lamb everybody says to me, 'Good day, Peter'" (Spanish).[192] Everybody looks kindly on the thriving man.

=A friend in need is a friend indeed.=

But, as such friends are rare, the Scotch proverb counsels not amiss,--

=Try your friend afore ye need him.=

On the other hand, "He that would have many friends should try few of them" (Italian).[193] "Let him that is wretched and beggared try everybody, and then his friend" (Italian).[194]

=A friend is never known till one have need.=

"A friend cannot be known in prosperity, and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity" (Ecclesiasticus). "A sure friend is known in a doubtful case" (Ennius)[195]

=When good cheer is lacking, friends will be packing.=

"The bread eaten, the company departed" (Spanish).[196] "While the pot boils, friendship blooms" (German).[197]

"In time of prosperity friends will be plenty; In time of adversity not one in twenty."

=No longer foster, no longer friend.=

=Help yourself, and your friends will like you.=

"Give out that you have many friends, and believe that you have few" (French).[198] By that means you will not expose yourself to be bitterly disappointed, and you will secure the favours which the world is ready to bestow on those who seem to have least need of them.

=A friend at court is better than a penny in the purse.=

=Kissing goes by favour.=

Every one makes it his business to "Take care of Dowb." "They are rich," therefore, "who have friends" (Portuguese, Latin).[199] "It is better to have friends on the market than money in one's coffer" (Spanish).[200] "Every one dances as he has friends in the ball-room" (Portuguese).[201] "There's no living without friends" (Portuguese).[202]

FOOTNOTES:

[180] Obras son amores, que no buenas razones.

[181] Se bien me quieres, Juan, tus obras me lo diran.

[182] Les petits cadeaux entretiennent l'amitié.

[183] Geflickte Freundschaft wird selten wieder ganz.

[184] Amigo quebrado soldado, mas nunca sano.

[185] Amigo reconciliado, amigo doblado.

[186] De amigo reconciliado, guarte del como del diablo. Cum inimico nemo in gratiam tuto redit.--_Pub. Syrus._

[187] Pesce, oglio, e amico vecchio.

[188] Die beste Freunde stecken im Beutel.

[189] Abbiamo pur fiorini, che trovaremo cugini.

[190] Riché homé non sap qui ly es amyg.

[191] Quien te todos es amigo, ó es muy pobre, ó es muy rico.

[192] Ahora que tengo oveja y borrego, todos me dicen: En hora buena estais, Pedro.

[193] Chi vuol aver amici assai, ne provi pochi.

[194] Chi è misero e senza denari, provi tutti, e poi l'amico.

[195] Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur.

[196] El pan comido, la compañia deshecha.

[197] Siedet der Topf, so blühet die Freundschaft.

[198] Il faut se dire beaucoup d'amis, et s'en croire peu.

[199] Aquellos saō ricos que tem amigos. Ubi amici, ibi opes.

[200] Mas valen amigos en la plaça que dineros en el arca.

[201] Cada hum dança como tem os amigos na sala.

[202] Naō se pode viver sem amigos.

CO-OPERATION. RECIPROCITY. SUBORDINATION.

=One beats the bush and another catches the birds.=

_Sic vos non vobis._ The proverb is derived from an old way of fowling by torchlight in the winter nights. A man walks along a lane, carrying a bush smeared with birdlime and a lighted torch. He is preceded by another, who beats the hedges on both sides and starts the birds, which, flying towards the light, are caught by the limed twigs. An imprudent use of this proverb by the Duke of Bedford, regent of France during the minority of our Henry VI., has given it historical celebrity. When the English were besieging Orleans, the Duke of Burgundy, their ally, intimated his desire that the town, when taken, should be given over to him. The regent replied, "Shall I beat the bush and another take the bird? No such thing." These words so offended the duke that he deserted the English at a time when they had the greatest need of his help to resist the efforts of Charles VII.

Here the proverb was used to imply an unfair division of spoil, or what was called, in the duchy of Bretagne, "A Montgomery distribution--all on one side, and nothing on the other."[203] (The powerful family of Montgomery were in the habit of taking the lion's share.) It may also be applied to the manner in which confederates play into each other's hands. "The dog that starts the hare is as good as the one that catches it" (German).[204]

=The receiver is as bad as the thief.=

"He sins as much who holds the sack as he who puts into it" (French).[205] "He who holds the ladder is as bad as the burglar" (German).[206]

=Lie for him and he'll swear for you.=

=Speir at Jock Thief if I be a leal man.=--_Scotch._

"Ask my comrade, who is as great a liar as myself" (French).[207]

=The lion had need of the mouse.=

The grateful mouse in the fable rescued her benefactor from the toils by gnawing the cords. "Soon or late the strong needs the help of the weak" (French).[208] "Every ten years one man has need of another" (Italian).[209]

=Two to one are odds at football.=

"Not Hercules himself could resist such odds" (Latin).[210] "Three helping each other are as good as six" (Spanish).[211] "Three brothers, three castles" (Italian).[212] "Three, if they unite against a town, will ruin it" (Arab).

=When two ride the same horse one must ride behind.=

And, furthermore, he must be content to journey as the foremost man pleases. "He who rides behind does not saddle when he will" (Spanish).[213] The question of precedence is settled in this case by another English proverb:--

=He that hires the horse must ride before.=

The man who hires or owns the horse is Capital, and Labour must ride behind him. In other cases the question will often have to be decided by force.

=You stout and I stout, who shall carry the dirt out?=

"You a lady, I a lady, who is to drive out the sow?" (Gallegan).[214]

=Tarry breeks pays no fraught.=--_Scotch._

=Pipers don't pay fiddlers.=

"One barber shaves another" (French).[215] "One hand washes the other" (Greek).[216] "One ass scratches another" (Latin).[217]

=Ka me, ka thee.=--_Scotch._

=Turn about is fair play.=

=Giff-gaff is good fellowship.=

=Like master like man.=

"The beadle of the parish is always of the opinion of his reverence the vicar" (French).[218]

FOOTNOTES:

[203] Partage de Montgomery--tout d'un coté, rien de l'autre; like "Irish reciprocity, all on one side."

[204] Der Hund, der den Hasen ausspürt, ist so gut wie der ihn fängt.

[205] Autant pèche celui qui tient le sac que celui qui met dedans.

[206] Wer die Leiter hält, ist so schuldig wie der Dieb.

[207] Demandez-le à mon compagnon, qui est aussi menteur que moi.

[208]

Ou tôt ou tard, ou près ou loin, Le fort du faible a besoin.

[209] Ogni dieci anni un uomo ha bisogno dell' altro.

[210] Ne Hercules contra duos.

[211] Ayudándose tres, para peso de seis.

[212] Tre fratelli, tre castelli.

[213] Quien tras otro cabalga, no ensella quando quiere.

[214] Vos dona, yo dona, quen botará a porca foro?

[215] Un barbier rase l'autre.

[216] Χειρ χειρα νιπτει.

[217] Asinus asinum fricat.

[218] Le bedeau de la paroisse est toujours de l'avis de monsieur le curé.

LUCK. FORTUNE. MISFORTUNE.

=Luck is all.=

A desperate doctrine, based on that one-sided view of human affairs which is expressed in Byron's parody of a famous passage in Addison's _Cato_:--

"'Tis not in mortals to command success; But do you more, Sempronius--_don't_ deserve it; And take my word you'll have no jot the less."

"The worst pig gets the best acorn" (Spanish).[219] "A good bone never falls to a good dog" (French);[220] and "The horses eat oats that don't earn them" (German).[221] But this last proverb has also another application. "Other rules may vary," says Sydney Smith, "but this is the only one you will find without exception--that in this world the salary or reward is always in the inverse ratio of the duties performed."

=The more rogue the more luck.=

=The devil's children have the devil's luck.=

But their prosperity is false and fleeting. "The devil's meal runs half to bran" (French).[222]

=God sends fools fortune.=

It is to this version of the Latin adage, _Fortuna favet fatuis_ ("Fortune favours fools"), that _Touchstone_ alludes in his reply to _Jacques_:--

"'No, sir,' quoth he; 'Call me not fool till Heaven hath sent me fortune.'"