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 appetite"; "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"; "God 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 pessimæ 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 quærunt, 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 petit 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 God 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 Saturday, 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. Saturday 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."