PROVERBIAL

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27149, 19 September 1953, Page 3

PROVERBIAL

[From the “Manchester Guardian”] We shall never know to what extent proverbial wisdom has moved or modified the conduct of men; we can only guess. Probably there was always a sales resistance against proverbs of the higher-minded sort, often tossed off with an air by famous writers who have .condescended to shape and season the common stock. These, magisterially speaking for all mankind, afflict us if we read them in bulk with a sense of collective insincerity. There they all are—the literary moguls of many nations or the nobler representatives of the power* ful Anon syndicate—deploring pride, praising simplicity, forswearing ambition. What will they be saying on other pages, under other headings? It is as though the armourers were humming lullabies at their work; behind it all we seem to hear the sharpening of swords. Nevertheless, folk wisdom even in this sawn-off form has its charm and its validity. Its technique does not stand still; the propagandists and copywriters who have inherited the art of pithy phrase-mongering are busier than ever today, though even they sometimes confess to a doubt about just how the public mind is reacting. How do their achievements compare in wit and point with those of the past? An ambitious new collection called “A World Treasury of Proverbs” (published by Cassell at 255), drawn from 25 languages over thousands of years, may help us to judge. Anon, let us face it, can in all ages be a bit of a bore; but so can Shakespeare and the other great ones when they enter this field. It can scarcely be guidance that we seek. A cheerful wife is the joy of life; he that hath a wife has strife. A fool’s bolt is soon shot, but it may sometimes hit the mark. Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast: music helps not the toothache. So it goes on. Silence, no doubt, is true wisdom’s best reply. But silence —and here we prick up our ears for the first time—-is also “the wit of fools.” May not a clue lie there? Of these fifteen thousand sayings those that bite hardest are the ones that cut across the grain, are wrung from the heart or the nerves, flash from a lonely or cantankerous mind. The days that make us unhappy make us wise: ran this be the mournful truth? But we tread on dangerous ground; we are sophists and phrase-mongers all. Who carries butter on his head should not walk in the sun.