"Those that eat cherries with great persons shall have their eyes squirted out with the stones."
A man who makes a great show without a corresponding practice is said to be like "fig-tree fuel, much smoke and little fire," and another adage says:—
"Peel a fig for your friend, and a peach for your enemy."
This proverb, however, is not quite clear when applied to this country. "To peel a fig, so far as we are concerned," writes Mr. Hazlitt[2], "can have no significance, except that we should not regard it as a friendly service; but, in fact, the proverb is merely a translation from the Spanish, and in that language and country the phrase carries a very full meaning, as no one would probably like to eat a fig without being sure that the fruit had not been tampered with. The whole saying is, however, rather unintelligible. 'Peeling a peach' would be treated anywhere as a dubious attention."
Of the many proverbs connected with thorns, there is the true one which tells us how,
"He that goes barefoot must not plant thorns,"
The meaning of which is self-evident, and the person who lives in a chronic state of uneasiness is said to, "sit on thorns." Then there is the oft-quoted adage:—
"While thy shoe is on thy foot, tread upon the thorns."
On the other hand, that no position in life is exempt from trouble of some kind is embodied in this proverb:—
"Wherever a man dwells he shall be sure to have a thorn bush
near his door,"