Well-known Sayings

It will bo found on examination that most saymg-s may be traced back to A literary origin, says the New York Sun. Witat more common, popular maxim ia there than that "Procrastination is the thief of time?" Yet it is the first line of that most deadly dull of books, Young's "Night Thoug-hts." Crowds of people have been befooled in imagüning that "The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb" is a biblical sayiag, yet it is only as old as Sterne's "Sentimental Journey." Everybody knows about the man wïio rcad "Hamlet" at an advanced age, and said he would have liked it if it had not been so f uil of "ehestnuts." The fact is that a great part of it has beeome proverbial, and so common property. V,e no longer have to read the play to imbibe a lot of its philosophy, for it is floating in the air aboat us. On the other hand, 6ome sayings undoubtedly have a popular origiu. A splendid example of the evolution of one occurs in the old testament, in the history of Saul. When the future first king of Israel appeared among the prophets the people were astonished. He had been of a rather frivolous disposition. fcome man in the crowd claimed: "Is Saúl also among the proph ets?" The expression caught on, and it has been a familiar ever since. We have among ouraelves a very goot example of the same sort in the expression: "A good enough Morgan till after election." A difficulty here meets us. IIow is il that among eastern illiterate nations proverbs of the most perfect form anc literary finish are found? The same state of affairs occurs in Spain. The explanation lies in the f act that in both cases the people are able to get at literature vicariously. In Persia and the east generally the professional story-teller comes to a village. In the the inhabitants sit around the tent and he tells them tales, many of them thousands of years old and full of the condensed wisdom of ages. In Spain the muieteer who wanders about the country filis exactly the same position and to the literature popularized by hún must be largely attribnted the richness of Spanish in proverbs. Tony Weller was the proverb-spinner of the Piökwick crowd. Ile got his faculty in the very same way that the Spánish muieteer and the Persian storyteller got theirs. He met a great many people in his trips on the coach and his saying-s pot sharpmess and clearness of outline wfth every Iresh repetltion. No doubt many oí them were retailed by countless appreciative hearers. In the same way, the Jarvey in th# 6outh of Ireland is by nature a manuf acturer of proverbs. He is a part of all that he has met, and as action and reaction are equal and opposite, all that he has met become a part of him. Whcn a proverb has gained a sure place in one lang-uage, and strikes some obscrver of a different race and civilization, there isadifficulty about transporting- it bodily. If it be eastern it will have a reference that will not, for instance, appeal to westerns. Vhat then happens is that it is looalized. It is treated in the very way that names are altered in a good story to give it local color. In this way an eastern proverb about a camel becomes a western one about a horse, and so on.