The Gilded Age - Mark Twain [228]
CHAPTER 49
Russian: “The sun began to shine, but not for a long time; it shone for a moment and disappeared.”
Yoruba proverb: “I almost killed the bird.” “Nobody can make a stew of almost” (or “Almost never made a stew”). —Crowther’s Yoruba Proverbs, in Grammar, p. 229.
CHAPTER 50
Icelandic, from a modern poem:
“When anguish wars in thy heavy breast,
and adverse scourges lash thy cheeks,
and the world turns her back on thee,
and pleasure mocketh at thy pain:
Think all is round and easily turns;
he weeps to-morrow who laughs to-day;
Time makes all good.”
CHAPTER 51
Wolof (Senegambian) proverb: “If you go to the sparrows’ ball, take with you some ears of corn for them.” R. F. Burton, from Dard’s Grammaire Wolofe. Hungarian, from 2 Kings, viii. 13:
—“Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?”
CHAPTER 52
French of Molière:
“Nothing in the world is more noble and more beautiful
Than the holy fervor of true zeal.”—Molière.
French:
[The Fox] “assumed a benign and tender expression,
He bade them good day with a Laudate Deum,
And invited the whole world to share his brotherly love.”
CHAPTER 53
French of Molière: Tartuffe, the hypocrite, is speaking:
“According to differing emergencies, there is a science
Of stretching the limitations of our conscience,
And of compensating the evil of our acts
By the purity of our motives.”
CHAPTER 54
Sanskrit: “The distinctions of obscurity are eightfold, as are also those of illusion; extreme illusion is tenfold; gloom is eighteenfold, and so is utter darkness.”
[This description of a New York jury is from Memorial Verses on the Sankya philosophy, translated by Colebrooke.]
Old Welsh: “Nobody is a judge through learning; although a person may always learn he will not be a judge unless there be wisdom in his heart; however wise a person may be, he will not be a judge unless there be learning with the wisdom.”—Ancient Laws of Wales, ii. 207.
CHAPTER 55
Danish proverb: “Virtue in the middle,” said the Devil, when he sat down between two lawyers.
Breton: “This is a great pleader! Have you heard him plead?” —Legonidec’s
Descrip. de Braham.
CHAPTER 56
Old French: “ ‘Yea, but,’ asked Trinquamelle, ‘how do you proceed, my friend, in criminal causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrante crimine? ’ ‘Even as your other worships use to do,’ answered (Judge) Bridlegoose.”—Rabela. Pantagruel, b. ii., ch. 137.
Breton: “Have you anything to say for her justification?” —Legonidec.
CHAPTER 57
Chippeway: “I don’t know what may have happened; perhaps we shall hear bad news!”—Baraga.
CHAPTER 58
Chinese (Canton dialect, Tsow pak păt fun): “Black and white not distinguished,” i.e., Right and wrong not perceived.
Spanish proverb (of a court of law): Paper and ink and little justice.
CHAPTER 59
Efik (Old Calabar) proverb: “One monkey does not like to see another get his belly full.”—Burton’s W. African Proverbs.
Grecian. From the Greek Anthology: “When the Crab caught with his claw the Snake, he reproved him for his indirect course.” [An old version of what the Pot said to the Kettle.]
Massachusetts Indian, from Eliot’s translation of Psalm xxxv. 21: “Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it!”
CHAPTER 60
Javanese: “Alas!”
Cornish: “My heart yet is proud
Though I am nearly dead.”—The Creation.
CHAPTER 61
Danish proverb: “He is a good driver who knows how to turn.”
Sioux (Dakota): “Let us go now. Will you go?” [The Iapi Oaye is a Dakota newspaper published monthly in the Dakota language.]
CHAPTER 62
Kanuri (Borneo): “At the bottom of patience there is heaven.”—R. F. Burton’s
West African Proverbs.
Quiché: “Is it in vain, is it without profit, that I am come here to lose so many days, so many nights?”
CHAPTER 63
Hawaiian: “Then we two shall be happy, our offspring shall live in the days of our old age.”
Syriac (from the Old Testament; the blessing on Naomi transferred to Ruth): “And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy