"Pitch him into the Nile," say the Arabs, "and he will come up with a fish in his mouth;" and the Germans, "If he threw up a penny on the roof, down would come a dollar to him."[231]
What is worse than ill luck?
An unhappy man's cart is eith to tumble.—Scotch.
That is, easily upset. It happens always to some people, as Coleridge said of himself, to have their bread and butter fall on the buttered side. An Irishman of this ill-starred class is commonly supposed to have been the author of the saying,—
He that is born under a threepenny planet will never be worth a groat.
If my father had made me a hatter men would have been born without heads.
But the thought is not original in our language: an unlucky Arab had long ago declared, "If I were to trade in winding-sheets no one would die." A man of this stamp "Falls on his back and breaks his nose" (French).[232] The Basques say of him, "Maggots breed in his salt-box;" the Provençals, "He would sink a ship freighted with crucifixes;" the Italians, "He would break his neck upon a straw."[233]
Misfortunes seldom come single.
Misfortunes come by forties.—Welsh.
Ill comes upon waur's back.—Scotch.
"Fortune is not content with crossing any man once," says Publius Syrus.[234] "After losing, one loses roundly," say the French.[235] The Spaniards have three remarkable proverbs to express the same conviction:—"Whither goest thou, Misfortune? To where there is more."[236] "Whither goest thou, Sorrow? Whither I am wont."[237] "Welcome, Misfortune, if thou comest alone."[238] The Italian equivalents are numerous: e.g., "One ill calls another."[239] "One misfortune is the eve of another."[240] "A misfortune and a friar are seldom alone."[241]
Good fortune, as well as bad, is said to come in floods. "If the wind blows it enters at every crevice" (Arab).
It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.