The very familiar adage, "As the twig is bent so is the tree inclined," remains as true as ever; therefore "Guard well thy thoughts, for thoughts are heard in Heaven."[212:A] Another writer very aptly declares that "It is better to hammer and forge one's character than to dream oneself into one"; while the old adage, "Keep good company and be one of the number," is excellent advice, pithily put.
Tusser, some three hundred or more years ago, declared that
"The greatest preferments that childe we can giue,
Is learning and nurture, to traine him to liue."
It has been well said that "Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune," and that "If the brain sows not corn it plants thistles." Were a farmer to leave a field a year untilled, not only would the corn supply that it might have yielded be lost, but the ground would produce in abundance useless weeds that would scatter their seed on the wind over the whole country-side; neither brain nor cornfield will remain neutral and dormant; a crop of something or other is inevitable. "If a man empties his purse," says the proverb, "into his head no man can take it from him;" and other good adages are: "Not the studies, but the study, makes the scholar"; "Inquirers who are always inquiring never learn anything"; "It is less painful to learn in youth than to be ignorant in age"; while the doctrine of plain living and high thinking was admirably foreshadowed in this: "Cater frugally for the body, but feed the mind sumptuously"—an altogether excellent precept, and we must remember that, when all is done, the best and most important part of a man's education is that which he gives himself, and which fits him in this great workshop of the world to use his tools to the best advantage, and contribute something of value to the general store.
It is a wise counsel to "Read not books alone but men, and chiefly to be careful to read oneself"—to take stock of oneself from time to time; that youth should remember what seems too difficult then to realise, that a day will come when youth has fled, when the demands of life will continue, and the power to meet them will have weakened. Such proverbs as these should be pondered over: "Reckless youth makes rueful age"; "If youth knew what age would crave, it would both get and save"; "A young man negligent, an old man necessitous." The same truth is put as clearly, but not so lugubriously, in the quainter saying: "He that saveth his dinner will have the more for his supper"—he that spares, that is, when he is young may the better spend when he is old. We have this, again, in a slightly varied and more intense form in the French, "He sups ill who eats all at dinner."
When the youth goes forth into the world his knowledge of the trials and temptations of life is small, while his faith in himself is great, and he sadly needs, far more than he knows, guidance, human and divine. What of counsel and of warning will our proverbs yield here?
The following precepts answer this weighty question, and all are rich in wisdom and guidance:—"No one is mighty but he that conquers himself"; "As we sow the habit so we reap the character"; "Let others' shipwrecks be your beacons"; "Careless watch invites vigilant foe"; "Every day is a leaf in our history"; "We live in the body, not as the servant but as the master"; "One vice is more expensive than many virtues"; "Consider not pleasures as they come, but as they go"; "Wade not where you see no bottom"; "The path of virtue is the path of peace"; "Clean glove may hide soiled hand"; "Satan promises the best and pays the worst"; "Those that would be kept from harm must keep out of harm's way"; "One bad example spoils many good precepts"; "The day has eyes, the night has ears"; "He who makes light of small faults will fall into great ones"; "He that cometh into needless danger dies the Devil's martyr." Each of these will amply repay quiet pondering over.
We give two verses of a very striking poem from a manuscript of the fifteenth century. It is entitled, "Man his own Woe," and is fifteen verses long:
"I made covienaunte trewe to be
When I fiyrste crystened was,
I wente to the worlde, and turned fro Thee,
And folowede the fend and his trace.
Fro wrathe and enuye wolde I not passe,
With covetyse I was bawte also,
My flesh hadde his wyll, alas,
I wyte myselfe myne owene woo.
"Ryche manne a thefe ys another,
That of covetyse woll not slake,
What he with wronge begyle his brother,
In blysse ful sone shall he forsake.
Byfore God for thefte hit ys take,
All that wyth wronge he wynneth so;
But he the radure amends make
He shall wyte hymeself hys owen wo."
