"I was afraid you were forgetting me! George, you will never forgive me?"
"Angel! Why, here is the Box Tunnel!"
Now, reader—fie! No! No such thing! You can't expect to be indulged in this way every time we come to a dark place. Besides, it is not the thing. Consider, two sensible married people. No such phenomenon, I assure you, took place. No scream in hopeless rivalry of the engine—this time!
SAYINGS IN EVERY-DAY USE.
Where They Come From, Who Said Them First, and How in Course of Time
They Have Become Changed.
Many of our common sayings, so trite and pithy, are used without the least idea from whose mouth or pen they first originated. Probably the works of Shakespeare furnish us with more of these familiar maxims than any other writer, for to him we owe: "All is not gold that glitters"; "Make a virtue of necessity"; "Screw your courage to a sticking place" (not point); "They laugh that win"; "This is the long and short of it"; "Make assurance double sure" (not doubly); "As merry as the day is long"; "A Daniel come to judgment"; "Frailty, thy name is woman"; and a host of others.
Washington Irving gives us "The almighty dollar"; Thomas Norton queried long ago, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" while Goldsmith answers, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no fibs." Charles C. Pinckney: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." "First in war, first in peace, and first in the heart of his fellow citizens" (not countrymen) appeared in the resolutions presented to the House of Representatives in December, 1790, prepared by General Henry Lee.
Thomas Tusser, a writer of the sixteenth century, gives us: "It's an ill wind turns none to good," "Better late than never," "Look ere thou leap," and "The stone that is rolling can gather no moss." "All cry and no wool" is found in Butler's "Hudibras."
Dryden says: "None but the brave deserve the fair," "Men are but children of a larger growth," and "Through thick and thin." "No pent-up Utica contracts your powers," declared Jonathan Sewall.