Proverb Lore Part 19

To hold that thine is lawfullie For stoutness or for flatterie.

To suffer none live idlelie For feare of idle knaverie.

To answere stranger ciuilie, But show him not thy secresie.

To vse no friend deceitfully, To offer no man villeny.

To learne how foe to pacifie, But trust him not too trustilie.

To meddle not with vsurie Nor lend thy monie foolishlie.

To loue thy neighbor neighborly And shew him no discurtesy.

To learne to eschew ill company And such as liue dishonestlie."

Though quaintly put--and their quaintness is accentuated by spelling such as would not at all pa.s.s muster in these iron-bound days of examinations for high and low, rich and poor--these halting couplets contain a full modic.u.m of excellent common-sense.

It is not really the man whose possessions are few who is poor as he whose desires are great, and it has been well said that if we help some one who is worse off than ourselves we soon realise that we are more affluent than we thought. The helping to bear another's burden does not add to our own, but lightens it.

The French say, "Vent au visage rend un homme sage," a proverb fairly paralleled in an English adage, "Adversity makes a man wise, not rich."

A quaint and serviceable proverb, quoted by Ray and others, though it has now pa.s.sed quite out of use, is the a.s.sertion that "A bad bush is better than the open field," whether in sultry suns.h.i.+ne, piercing gale, or heavy downpour. It is better to have some friends, even though they can do little or nothing for us, than to be thrown quite dest.i.tute on a pitiless world; and it is wiser to make the best of what is than to scorn the small amount of help that it is able to give.

Wealth has its store of proverb-wisdom even in more abundance than poverty has, and it is only reasonable that this should be so, for it is a position of great responsibility, and its proper use requires all the wisdom that a man possesses, and sometimes, as we see, more than he possesses. Let us turn, then, to the precepts of the past and see what of value we can find in them for the present and the future. The following are a few of these:--"If a good man thrive, all will thrive with him";[229:A] "Riches rather enlarge than satisfy appet.i.te"; "Possess your money, but do not let it possess you"; "Reputation is often measured by the acre"; "Great spenders are bad lenders"; "Liberality is not giving largely, but giving wisely"; "One may buy gold too dearly"; "He gives but little who gives only from a sense of duty"; "No estate can make him rich that hath a poor heart"; "Lavishness is not generosity"; "Great receipt renders us liable to great account"; "Wealth is not his that gets it, but his that enjoys it";[229:B] "Worth has been under-rated ever since wealth was over-rated"; "Covetous people always think themselves in want"; "He is alone rich who has contentment"; "G.o.d reaches us good things by our own hands"; "Slow help is very little help at all"; "Bounty is more commended than imitated";[229:C] "Spare well that you may spend well"; "The liberal hand gathers."[230:A] It has been said that "Some men give of their means and others of their meanness," and the statement has copious experience either way to fully justify it.

Plutarch declared "E tribus optimis rebus tres pessimae oriuntur,"--that from three things excellent three very bad things were produced; truth begetting hatred, familiarity contempt, and success envy. Another old Roman saying is, "An dives sit, omnes quaerunt, nemo an bonus"--all want to know if a man be rich, but no one troubles to inquire if he be good; yet "Great possession is not necessarily great enjoyment," and the moralist warns us--

"Put not in this world too much trust, The riches whereof will turne to dust."[230:B]

"As a means of grace prosperity has never been much of a success." The Spaniards say, "Honor y provecho no capen en un saco": "Honour and profit cannot be contained in the same bag," rather too sweeping a statement. Another Spanish adage is, "El que trabaja y madra, hila oro": "He who labours and strives spins gold," reaps the reward of his industry. The French say, in praise of the thriftiness that is so characteristic of them, that "Le pet.i.t gain remplit la bourse": "Light gains make a full purse." Those who sell dearly sell little, and the small margin of profit oft repeated is the more advantageous. The Spanish proverb affirms that "He who would be rich in a year gets hanged in half a year," the pace being too great for honesty to keep up with.

Another maxim of thrift is that "If you make not much of threepence you will never be worth a groat." The moral atmosphere, however, is getting a little stifling, and we are reminded of the lines of Gower on the over-frugal man:

"For he was grutchende euermore, There was wyth hym none other fare But for to pinche and for to spare Of worldes mucke to gette encres."

Let us "Take care of the pence that the pounds may take care of themselves,"[231:A] but having got the pounds let us remember that "Judicious saving affords the means of judicious giving," and that "The best way to expand the chest is to have a large heart in it." "Money is a good servant but an ill master," and "He is not fit for riches who is afraid to use them"; "To a good spender G.o.d is treasurer."

Woman's influence on mankind is the subject of many proverbs, some of them kindly enough in tone, but the greater number of them characterised by satire and bitter feeling. As a sample of the first method of treating the subject may be instanced the testimony borne by this old rhyming adage: "Two things do prolong thy life--a quiet heart and a loving wife." It has been truly said that "A man's best fortune, or his worst, is a wife," and another excellent saying is this: "Men make houses--women make homes."[231:B]

Another wise old saw tells us that a man should "Choose a wife rather by ear than eye," judging her, not by personal charms, that are at best evanescent,[232:A] but by the kindliness of her nature and by the testimony of her worth that others declare. "Beauty," we are warned, "is but skin-deep," a truth that the old moralists and painters sometimes made more of with their paraphernalia of skulls and other symbols of mortality than was altogether seemly. St Chrysostom writes: "When thou seest a fair and beautiful person, a comely woman, having bright eyes and merry countenance, a pleasant grace, bethink with thyself that it is but earth that thou seest."[232:B]

Another piece of sound proverbial teaching is this: "Choose your wife on a Sat.u.r.day, not Sunday," that is to say, be drawn to her rather by what you see of her industry and power of management than be merely fascinated by a triumph of the milliner's art; choose her rather when her sweetness of temper carries her smoothly through turmoil and worry than when the Sunday rest gives no test of her power to stand this strain. Sat.u.r.day manners may be very different to Sunday manners.

"Good husewife good fame hath of best in the towne, Ill husewife ill name hath of euerie clowne."

Amongst popular proverbs we find the cautious--"Marry in haste and repent at leisure,"[233:A] and "Love and lords.h.i.+p like not fellows.h.i.+p,"

and the advice--"Marry for love, but only love that which is lovely." It is very gracefully true, too, that "When the good-man's from home the good-wife's table is soon spread," while there is quaint sarcasm in this: "Next to no wife a good wife is best";[233:B] and the value of influence is brought before us in the adage, "A good Jack makes a good Jill."

In Torrington churchyard we find the following high testimony to a wife:--

"She was--my words are wanting to say what-- Think what a woman should be--she was that";

while in Chaucer's "s.h.i.+pmanne's Tale" we find the following quaint appeal:--

"For which, my dere wife, I thee beseke, As be to every wight buxom and meke, And for to kepe our good be curious, And honestly governe wel our hous."

The following Italian proverb is a very happy one, and accords entirely with general experience:--"La donna savia e all' impensata, alla pensata e matta": "Women are wise offhand and fools on reflection"; while the advice of the Spaniard, though ungracious enough in its utterance, is valuable--"El consejo de la muger es poco, y quieu no le toma es loco": "A woman's counsel is no great thing, but he who does not take it is a fool." An old English proverb goes so far as to declare that "A man must ask his wife's leave to thrive," and there is not a little wisdom in the counsel. A very ungracious proverb, indeed, is the German--"Es giebt nur zwei gute Weiber auf der Welt: die Eine ist ges...o...b..n, die Andere nicht zu finden": "There are only two good women in the world; one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found."

Some would tell us that marriages are made in heaven,[234:A] but a sapient saw reminds us that "There is no marriage in heaven, neither is there always heaven in marriage."

Gossip, and the mischief-making that may too often accrue from imprudent loquacity, have at all times been so commonly attributed to the fair s.e.x that we naturally find many such proverbs as these: "Silence is not the greatest vice of a woman"; "A woman conceals what she does not know"; "He that tells his wife news is but newly married." The words of Hotspur will be recalled:

"Constant you are, But yet a woman, and for secrecy No lady closer; for I well believe Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know."

The writer of Ecclesiasticus declares that "As the climbing up a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet man"; while in a MS. of the time of Henry V. we find the following quaint statement:--

"Two wymen in one howse, Two cattes and one mowse, Two dogges and one bone Maye never accorde in one."

Udall writes that "As the kynde of women is naturally geuen to the vyce of muche bablynge there is nothyng wherein theyr womanlynesse is more honestlie garnyshed than with sylence"; but a Welsh proverb declares that "A woman's strength is in her tongue,"[235:A] and we can scarcely be surprised that she is at times reluctant to forego the use of this weapon.

The Spaniards sarcastically a.s.sert that "He who is tired of a quiet life gets him a wife"; and Solomon, we recall, declares that "It is better to dwell in a corner of the house-top than with a brawling woman"; while another proverb bitterly, but truly, declares that "He fasts enough whose wife scolds all dinner-time"; and yet another hath it that "He that can abide a curst wife need not fear any"; so that an old writer breaks out:

"Why then I see to take a shrew (As seldome other there be few) Is not the way to thriue: So hard a thing I spie it is, The good to chuse, the shrew to mis, That feareth me to wiue."

This bitter feeling against womankind is seen not only in our proverbs, but very largely also in epitaphs, as for example:

"Here lies my wife, a sad slattern and shrew, If I said I respected her I should lie too."

"Here lies my wife, and, Heaven knows, Not less for mine than her repose."

"Here lies my poor wife, much lamented; She is happy, and I am contented."

"Here rests my spouse; no pair through life So equal lived as we did; Alike we shared perpetual strife, Nor knew I rest till she did."

"Here lies my poor wife, Without bed or blanket; But dead as a door nail: G.o.d be thanked."

At Prittlewell Church a man buried his two wives in one grave, and then placed over their remains this callous rigmarole:

"Were it my choice that either of the twaine Might be restor'd to me to enjoy again, Which should I choose?

Well, since I know not whether, I'll mourn for the loss of both, But wish for neither."[236:A]

On the tomb of a man at Bilston we get the other side, as the widow selected as a text the words: "If any man ask you, why do you loose him, then shall ye say unto him, because the Lord hath need of him." Those who recall the occasion on which these words were first used will see that her husband was, by implication, an a.s.s.

Mere loquacity is satirised in the two following:--

"Here lies, returned to Clay, Miss Arabella Young, Who, on the first of May, Began to hold her tongue."

"Beneath this silent stone is laid A noisy, antiquated maid, Who from her cradle talked till death, And ne'er before was out of breath."

Other proverbs that deal with womankind are the following:--"He that has a wife has strife"; "Of all tame beasts s.l.u.ts are the worst"; "If a woman were as little as good, a peascod would make her a gown and a hood"; "He that loses his wife and a farthing hath great loss of the farthing"; "Every man can tame a shrew but he that hath her"; "Lips, however rosy, must be fed"; "Women, wind, and fortune soon change." The feminine readiness to take refuge in tears is responsible for the following cynical adage:--"It is no more sin to see a woman weep than to see a goose go barefoot."[237:A] Another well-known proverb is that "No mischief in the world is done, but a woman is always one"; while the French say, if any inexplicable trouble breaks out, "Cherchez la femme"--in the a.s.sured belief that a woman is in some way or another at the bottom of it. Lamartine, on the other hand, declares that "There is a woman at the beginning of all great things." There is considerable truth in both statements, antagonistic as they are.