Chaucer, it will be remembered, says that "Three may keep a counsel if twain be away." Another old writer tells us that "Curiosity is a kernel of the forbidden fruit, which still sticketh in the heart of the natural man," and this is seen almost at its worst when endeavouring to find out a matter that the person most concerned would desire to leave unknown, and quite at its worst when knowledge thus gained is made general property. "None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them." There is no more trying person to deal with than he or she who continually punctuate their conversation with cautions that they "wish this matter to go no further," and warn us that that detail is "entirely between ourselves." They are an unmitigated nuisance.
A very quaint old proverb is that which tells us that "He was scarce of news that told that his father was hanged," and a very excellent rule of conduct is this: "Whether it be to friend or foe talk not of other men's lives." We are warned, too, that "He who chatters to you will chatter also of you," and the experience of most of us will confirm the wisdom of the adage.
Other happy sayings are these: "No one will repeat the matter if it be not said"; "Sudden trust heralds sudden repentance"; "More have repented of speech than of silence"; "A fool will neither give nor keep counsel"; "He that tells all he knows will also tell what he does not know"; "To tell our own secrets is folly, to tell those of others treachery"; "Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend hath a friend"—great discretion is therefore necessary.
Heywood warns the man who thinks himself secure:
"Some heare and see him whom he heareth and seeth not
For fieldes have eies and woods have eares ye wot,"
an idea that we find yet earlier in a manuscript, "King Edward and the Shepherd," written about the year 1300:
"The were bettur be styll,
Wode has erys, felde has syght."
So gracious a gift of Heaven to the sons of men as hope must necessarily find recognition in our proverbial wisdom. Our readers will recall the lines in Pope's "Essay on Man," where he declares that
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be, blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home
Rests and expatiates in a life to come."
And in "Measure for Measure" we read that "the miserable have no other medicine, but only hope"; hence the saying: "Quench not hope, for when hope dies all dies." The Italians say: "L'ultima che si perde è la speranza"—the last thing lost is hope,[242:A] and the terrible words in the "Paradise Lost" recur to us:
