laid the golden egg. People are not grateful, or they would almost worship them: it's shameful to see how they have been neglected, and even turned off, of late by the very people whom they have been the making of. While they had a finger in the pie all went well at the meeting, but now they have left they say there's a screw loose, and they who live longest will see most. When they are in a modest humor they borrow words from David, and say, "The earth is dissolved, I bear up the pillars of it." It is thought that their death would fill the world with bones. If they remove their custom people are expected to shut up their shops directly, and it is only their impudence that makes them hope to get a living after such customers are gone. When they feel a little natural pride at their great doings, then it's fine to hear them go. ahead: talk of blowing your own trumpet, they have a whole band of music, big drum and all, and keep all the instruments going first-rate to their own praise and glory. I'd rather plough all day and be on the road with the wagon all night when it freezes your eyelashes off than listen to these great talkers; they make me as sick as a cat. I'd sooner go without eating till I was as lean as a wash-leather than eat the best turkey that ever came on the table, and be dinned all the while with their awful jaw. They talk on such a mighty big scale, and magnify everything so thunderingly, that you cannot believe them when they accidentally slip in a word or two of truth; and so you are apt to think that even their cheese is chalk. They are great liars, but they are hardly conscious of it; they have talked themselves into believing their own bombast. The frog thought herself equal to the cow, and then began to blow herself out to make it true; they swell like her and they will burst like her if they don't mind. Everybody who knows these big talkers should take warning from them: "Said I to myself, here's a lesson for me, This man is a picture of what I might be." We must try to state the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If we begin calling eleven inches a foot we shall go on till we call one inch four-and-twenty. If we call a heifer a cow, we may one day call a dormouse a bullock. Once go in for exaggeration, and you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb; you have left the road of truth, and there is no telling where the crooked lane may lead you to. He who tells little lies will soon think nothing of great ones, for the principle is the same. Where there is a mouse-hole there will soon be a rat-hole, and if the kitten comes the cat will follow. It seldom rains but it pours; a little untruth leads on to a perfect shower of lying. A Self-praise is no recommendation. man's praise smells sweet when it comes out of other men's mouths, but in his own it stinks. Grow your own cherries, but don't sing your own praises. Boasters are never worth a button with the shank off. Long tongue, short hand. Great talkers, little doers. Dogs that bark much run away when it is time to bite. The leanest pig squeaks most. It is not the hen which cackles most that lays most eggs. Saying and doing are two different things. It is the barren cow that bellows. There may be great noise of threshing where there is no wheat. Great boast, little roast. Much froth, little beer. Drums sound loud because there is nothing in them. Good men know themselves too well to chant their own praises. Barges without cargoes float high on the canal, but the fuller they are the lower they sink. Good cheese sells itself without puffery; good wine needs no bush; and when men are really excellent, people find it out without telling. Bounce is the sign of folly. Loud braying reveals an ass. If a man is ignorant and holds his tongue, no one will despise him; but if he rattles on with an empty pate, and a tongue that brags like forty, he will write out his own name in capital letters, and they will be theseF, O, O, L. As "by the ears the ass is known". A truth as sure as parsons preach, |