He is a niggard all the week, except
on market-days, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk
with a good conscience. He is sensible of no calamity but the burning of
a stack of corn, or the overflowing of a meadow, and he thinks Noah's
flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the
world, but spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he
gets in his harvest before it happens, it may come when it will, he
cares not." He is as stubborn as he is stupid, and to get a new thought
into his head you would need to bore a hole in his skull with a
center-bit. The game would not be worth the candle. We must leave him
alone, for he is too old in the tooth, and too blind to be made to see.
DON'T CUT OFF YOUR NOSE TO SPITE YOUR FACE.
Anger is a short madness. The less we do when we go mad the better for
every body, and the less we go mad the better for ourselves. He is far
gone who hurts himself to wreak his vengeance on others. The old saying
is: "Don't cut off your head because it aches," and another says: "Set
not your house on fire to spite the moon." If things go awry, it is a
poor way of mending to make them worse, as the man did who took to
drinking because he could not marry the girl he liked. He must be a fool
who cuts off his nose to spite his face, and yet this is what Dick did
when he had vexed his old master, and because he was chid must needs
give up his place, throw himself out of work, and starve his wife and
family.
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