Stolen kisses much completer;
Stolen looks are nice in chapels;
Stolen, stolen be your apples!"
So sings Leigh Hunt, translating from the Latin of Thomas Randolph. The doctrine of these poets is as old as Solomon, who says, "Stolen waters are sweet"—a sentence thus paraphrased in German: "Forbidden water is Malmsey."[367] A story is told of a French lady, say Madame du Barry, who happened once, by some extraordinary chance, to have nothing but pure water to drink when very thirsty. She took a deep draught, and finding in it what the Roman emperor had sighed for in vain—a new pleasure—she cried out, "Ah! what a pity it is that drinking water is not a sin!"
"There is no pleasure but palls, and all the more if it costs nothing" (Spanish).[368] "The sweetest grapes hang highest" (German).[369] "The figs on the far side of the hedge are sweeter" (Servian). "Every fish that escapes appears greater than it is" (Turkish). Upon the same principle it is that what nature never intended a man to do is often the very thing he particularly desires to do. "A man who can't sing is always striving to sing" (Latin);[370] and generally "He who can't do, always wants to do" (Italian).[371]
Forbid a fool a thing, and that he'll do.
Of course; and so will many a one who is otherwise no fool. What mortal man, to say nothing of women, but would have done as Bluebeard's wife did when left in the castle with the key of that mysterious chamber in her hand?
Every man has his hobby.
Some men pay dearly for theirs. "Hobby horses are more costly than Arabians" (German).[372]