The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1876-03-25
Subscribers out of County, S1.so
PROVERBS,

It Is Lord Bacon who says The pe.
MUS, spirit, and the wit OF a nation are
discovered in It's proverbs !" and Earl
Russell defined proverb admirably
when he called II the "Wisdom of MANY,
and the wit of one that is, the wis
dom Of many having observed fact,
and wittier than the rest puts It into
some happy phrase. So also Pope
True wit is nature to advani age dressed
what OFT was thought but ne'er so well ex.
pressed.
As for the wit Of a nation being dis
covered in Its proverbs this Is true with
the reserve that almost every proverb
worth repeating may be found In many
languages, indicating common origin
perhaps, certainly showing that all men
are OF one kin. A prUverb, in fact,
should be that touch OF nature which
will make all feel alike and all accent
it.
The following are few proverbs.
some OF which combine much shrewd
observation with caustic wit,and which
are all deserving of being treasured in
our memories and taken as a guidance
in life.
Like itself is so short and so near to
us all that we do not wonder at the sum
of wisdom being to the Babylouian.
Eat, ,drlnk,and love-" or, as some saw,
live" 1t is the old materialist idea.
Enjoy the present hour"
The Syrian hits this off admirably
when he says. The egg of TODAY.
and not the hen of to- morrow"
We say, "a bird in the hand Is worth
two in the BUSH" calling in ALTERATION
to aid us to remember that promised
happiness is uncertain. .....
TO morrow never comes, we are
told !" but there are others who have
turned the good Of waiting into words
of wisdom as true as they are poetical.
ApropoS Of eggs, Jerrold has said
with sweetest poetry, d" Patience
wanted nightingale; Patience waited,
and the egg sang"
A parallel piece of poetry Is French
proverb, With time and patience a
mulberry leaf becomes SATIN"
Another writer tells US that "Pas
tience and Faith alone can copauer
Time )" and the French have a beauti-
full line, which tho poet LongfeIIow has
'huN H"Shohpu, al buIukh COiut TOunu
to him who will but wait" Finally he
would rather have the egg than the
hen may consider himself sat upon"
by the mighty Shakespear and his
weighty pity, "How poor are they that
have no patiencep' " Wait-that is the
lesson of life," says one but, answers
another, A setting hen never gets
fat" "Ay, ay," rejoins the first,
"but a rolling stone gathers no moss. )"
Both thurst and parry, ,lunge and riposte
are good /; Il setting hen does not want
to get fat, but she matches her chickens,
and the rolling stone, we may suppose,
sees the world.
There are some excellent Syriac pro-
verbs. The Moslem Syrian laughs at
the Jew beggar who neither enjoys
this world nor the next :" and, while
we say +" Hard words break no bones,"
he puts his view (the same) in more ap.
propriate words" A thousand curses
never tore a shirt" Speech is of sill.
vel, silence is gold," made popular here
by Carlyle, is German, but the original
is Syriac, and is manifestly Eastern. II
had many friends when my vines gave
wlne," elnbodes the common expert
ence that prosperity begets friends and
adversely tries them so we see that
what Is true in the West is true also In
Eosk