We are told, truly enough, that "Half a loaf is better than no bread," that "A man had better be half-blind than have both his eyes out." Burke declares that "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill; our antagonist is our helper"; and the French say, "On apprend en faillant"—one learns by failing. Riches entail responsibility and anxiety, and a poet of the reign of Queen Elizabeth would have us believe that they are on the whole more trouble than gain:
"Take upp thy fortune wythe good hape,
Wyth rytches thou doste fyle thy lappe;
Yet lesse were better for thy store,
Thy quyetnes sholde be the more."
One compensation of poverty is perhaps seen in the adage, "He that is down need fear no fall." We are told, too, that "A threadbare coat is armour against the highwayman"; and Chaucer, in "The Wif of Bathe's Tale," tells how
"The poure man whan he goth by the way,
Before the theves he may sing and play,"
since he has nothing to lose, and therefore nothing to fear.
The sad but just law of retribution finds its due recognition in our proverb lore. The following may be taken as a few examples of this: "He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith"; "Over-reachers most ordinarily over-reach themselves"; "A guilty mind punishes itself"; "He that will not be saved needs no preacher"; "He who sows thorns must not go barefoot"; "He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind"; "Hoist with his own petard." Shakespeare tells us how
"Diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all";
and of one elsewhere who cries: "I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial." Do we not see again the dread law of retribution in the passage:
"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:
The thief doth fear each bush an officer,"
and Gay tells us how at last all has to be faced, and the responsibility of one's actions has to be realised—