PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18784, 18 May 1923, Page 10

PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY

A proverb expresses the wisdom of many and the wit of one. It is possible, . however, to appreciate the wit without ! endorsing the wisdom. In this generation proverbial philosophy is going out ■ of fashion, and tnere seems little reason i why we should bid it stay. It was I f<. largely fraudulent. We recall our early difficulties w’-h proverbs, other than Solomon's. V e hadn’t the courage to question his ; but then his were mainly reserved for Sunday use. With pre verbs less sacrosanct wo discovered to our bewilderment ilnat they freely cancelled each other. ■ Never put off till to-morrow what you < a.n do to-day’; ‘‘Sleep ever what you intend to do rather than lie awake ever what you intend to do rather than lie awake over what you have done."' ‘‘Happy wooing that’s not long adoing’’; ‘‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure.*’ By this cancelling process you can nullify most of the proverbs ever concocted, you can multiply proverbial contradictions indefinitely. Some persons who should never hare been parents rear their children on maxims. They have endless stocks of them, and they mistake them for native wisdom. They have a pat aphorism for practically every contingency in daily life. They repeat them unctuously, and with parrot-like persistency. Small wonder that children so reared grow up to go wrong. A surfeit of proverbial philosophy is sufficient to arouse murderous intent in anvbodv.

Elderly peope have much to answer for in the matter. We suspect that most of our proverbs were coined in the mint of old age. The aged are often appallingly conceited. They boast their experience, and on that experience they base adages with the air of heaven-born sages. Withered, and occasionally soured, they find great consolation is shaking heads, that never contained much, over what they have to call the follies of youth. They fancy themselves store houses of wisdom. which they sene out in short-cut lengths, called proverbs. A particularly exasperating use is made of the proverb by persons who have neither wit nor wisdom of their cwn. If you box them up in an argument, or consuit then, in a difficuliv. they quote a hackneyed proverb with the air of saying something profound. They think they are covering their intellectual nakedness. They seem to forget the fact that you, too, have access to the archives of proverbial philosophy. This is an age when the organically feeble may avail themselves of predigested food. They are few in number compared with the m entail v feeble ■who avail themselves of predigested thought. Even before you started cancelling one proverb with another you probable saw reason to doubt the wisdom of either. Take this one at random.

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” It is safe to say that proverb owes its curlency—it never had’ any popularity—to the fact that it rhymes. Simple fjeople are impressed by lines that jingle. This particular proverb has been used chiefly by seniors on juniors, and usually to get the latter off to bed m erder that the former might enjoy continued fireside peace. The seniors never practised it; juniors with any sense resented it. They instinctively sensed the unsound nesb of the philosophy ; they soon discerned the iiaglant inconsistency of which their seniors were guilty. Greater experience confirmed their impressions. They were shrewd enough to perceive that the people who practised the rule were not always rich in the contingent qualities.

The principal folly underlying proverbial philosophy is that it is an attempt to carry into one generation some truth that was applicable only in a former generation. Some proverbs were once true. The evolution of civilisation has made them untrue. Our ancestors in the northern hetni sphere went early to Led, not from -my excess of virtue, but because they had nothing better io do. They had no inducement to stay up. No electric light,, no newspapers, no picture shows, political meetings or late trains. Between ourselves it must have been a dreary existence. The only thing they could do was to shorten it by go- : ing to bed and waiting for daylight Very sensible for them. But the wisdom of one century may easily l>e the foolishness of the next. There is much in life nowadays that is worth sitting up for. With so many delightful ac cessories available, why should we cling to a practice which, to our ancestors was the only one possible? Why, then, should we go to led earlv? The day’s turmoil is over; a good dinner, a good cigar, your feet in slippers, and a feeling of kindliness towards your fellow 7 creatures that you ’nave not had all day. In such cir- < umstances a time extension is a positively virtuous action. Mind and body relax, emotions grow tender. We get very near to each other spiritually. 11 your companion is a pretty girl you probably get very near to each other corporeally. Courting is appropriate to evening. Suppose it were permissible for you to tell us about that promise you extracted from the girl with whom you now live. We mean the promise that made you the happiest man in the world; at least that is what you told her. It is a thousand pounds io a jieanut that you got that promise from her at night. It is pretty certain you did not eall at her place and ask her for it at 5 o’clock in the morning. 'Hie best yarns are told when sitting well into the night. The number of strokes you took at your last game of golf diminishes, the last fish you caught grow to abnormal sizes, as you sit up late. As a reciprocal favour to you for Eeeming to believe their palpable lies, your friends pretend to believe yours, as you sit up late. Night and jx?:u:e came together. In the morning, the day, with its certain strain and probable iiritation is before you. At night, the dav, with its wori les lie behind you. You may regard them philosophically. The night’s repose is earned but not entered upon. I hat is, the culminating point of y. Not the realisation, not even the distant anticipation, but the moments when you are just about to realise—these are the moments of bliss. And such are the moments the wise enjoy when sitting up late The early-to-bed proverb is defective in itself and is extremely objectionable in its by-products. 'Hie people who ostentatiously practise it should be put in quarantine. They are constantly invading other people’s right in order to gratify their whim. They are an exasperating class, always conscious of their virtue. If they lived the hermit life, they would be welcome to rise and to retire when they chose. And they would 1 probably do both much later if there were no others to look on. As it is, they cling to the communal lite and refuse to abide by the communal rules.

There ought to be some form of protection against such social pests. And in these days when commissions of all

kinds are appointed on the slightest provocation, one might well be appointed to revise our lists of proverbs, rejecting all such as were applicable to social conditions that have completely pas&ed away. Among the first to go would be the inane ryhme. “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Strictly from necessity we rise e?ch morning at what seems to us an extremely early hour. We have no desire to rise earlier. We have such an abundance of health that we would be unreasonable to expect more. It is true we are in poverty, but it is honourable poverty. We are free from that sordidness of spirit, which drives people out of Led, merely to secure wealth. And we already feel as wise as there is any need to be. Certainly, we are wise enough not to take seriously a great deal of our proverbial philosophy.