The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1876-01-13
ton evinces grievous want of sensibility

larger and better life. To put it primarily
to material use is to degrade and profane
it. The nature capable Of understanding
or feeling friendship will be slow to ask
the rhetorical question unless playfully or
satirically. And such nature never will
and never can act upon it.
There is quite enough in this bustling,
necessarily prosaic world to dwarf and
destroy our ideals, without our volunteer
ing any cynical and superfuous aid there
to. A true friend is so willing and anx-
ious to assist us in every honorable way
possible, that we should be careful not to
give him excess of opportunity. Besides,
to use a friend, in the general sense of the
verb, is ignoble, and must soon result in
the fracture of friendship; for no friend
can long consent to be used without a GER
tain loss of self-respect, without which
friendship is impracticable.
No doubt there is constant temptation
with many persons to employ their friends
to their own advantage without thought of
reciprocity; and quoting the proverb
strengthens the temptation and justifies
the habit. Never let the aphorism pass
your lips, however jocularly, lest you be
suspected, in the first place, of meaning
it, and secondly, lest you prompt others to
do what they shall eventually regret.
"Guilt is always timid' is one of the
phrases that must have been coined in the
mint of ignorance. The student of hui
man nature knows that guilt, and that of
the deepest order, is very often so superla-
lively audacious that it cannot be fright
ened or abashed.
What is termed wickedness is very diff
ferent actually from the thing tits theoret-
ically. 1t is sincerely conscious of itself
the popular notion is that it is ever ad-
palled by its own image, and when it is
conscious it sees itself at remarkably
propitious angle. Vice is its own vindi-
Gator through the very perversity of judg-
ment that allows it to exist. Its continu-
ance lends it a hardness and tirmness
which neither disapproval nor denuncia-
ton can soften or shake. Guilt can and
will look rebuking innocence steadily in
the face, while sensitive and suspected
virtue shall be overwhelmed with confu-
sion and modification.
Belief in the proverb wrongs innocence
incidentally by causing it to be mistaken
for guilt and at the same time acquits this
of its offense. If we wish to detect guilt,
we must discard the maxim or interpret
it by contrariety; for, whenever We
confront indubitable, clearly established
guilt, we shall be likely to find it gazing
as calmly and detiantly at us as does the
Sphinx at the sands of the surrounding
desert.
People like to be deceived" How
often we hear this! Perhaps they do but
what kind of people are they? They
must be peculiar, since they are never the
people we meet. Everybody will bear
witness that his or her acquaintance hate
to be, and are angry at beng, deceived.
They that are fond Of deception are plain
ly those unknown, abstract folk who are
sure to be punished for the sins we COM
nit and whom we love to regard meta
physically as the victims of yaguely-vio-
lated justice.
The trte aphorism in its truth or false
hood is Of small consequence. Its mis-
chief is in lis instigation to deceive.
Most of us have sufficient tendency in
that direction without any verbal stimu-
liant or honeyed sophistry. Thephrase is
a trick put upon us wherew.th to trick
our fellows. 1t is a cunning device to
mollify our consciousness of doing wrong.
Not merely this, it proclaims as benevo-
lence what is manifestly meanness on
our part; and we are so willing to appear
duped when we are not-our faults being
in qucstion-that we appeal to maxims to
prove the unprovable. If the conscience
smarts, a timely proverb is hunted up to
draw out the sting. The sting may stick
but the prescription is paraded, and the
cure is inferred.
"A little learning is dangerous thing"
ing or knowing that it is line Of Pope,
probably made with no higher intent than
to fit the corresponding rhyme of the
coLplet. 1t has become an aphorism, a
proverb, because it has taking air and
sounds well-reason enough for the cur
rency of half our popular sayings. A
little learning may be dangerous, but it is
far better than no learning, which is dan
gerous itself. The corollary is that igno-
rance is comparatively free from peril,
which is ten times as false as the origina
proposition.
The greatest fallacy of this and many
maxims is in the necessary inference that
is drawn. Their greatest mischief lies
in their incompleteness, and in the fact
that they are generally accepted as COM
plete Any half truth, or partial false
hood, if felicitously expressed and aptly
repeated, has five.foli the weight in con.
troversy Or conversation that a whole truth
awkwardly worded has. He who could
make the proverbs of nation would
possess more influence than he who
should write its history or frame its laws
They have been defined the wit of one and
the wisdom of many. They are oftener
the fallacy of one and the inability to de.
tect it of the multitude.
Proverbs depend not for popularity upon
wisdom, but upon the art of putting them
The farther they are removed from obvi
Gus truth, if they be adroitly couched, the
more likely they are to be accepted A
spice of Immature is prone to preserve
them and render them apDetiZinp to the
public palate. We like to repeat what we
know is false when the falsehood is CLOSED
by the embalming epigram, the conscious
ness that the thing has been said before
freeing us from accountability for its pro
mitigation. ,..
Hardly maxim or proverb exists ir
our own or any other language that may
not be taken to pieces before its atom o.
truth, if any, can be found. The proverbs
of the French and Spanish are the witties
and the falsest; those of the Germans ano
Scandinavians the dullest and the truest
No current saying but is contradicted by
another = as "Two of trade never
agree" "Birds of feather flock to
gether;" In multitude of counselors
there is safety" "Too many cooks spoi
the BROTH" and so on through every va
riety of affirmation and denial, of incon
sistency and contrarieH.
All sorts of sustainment for all sorts o
conduct, every kind of encouragement
for every virtue and every vice, may b.