Those
who are quick to promise are generally slow to perform. They promise
mountains and perform mole-hills. He who gives you fair words and
nothing more feeds you with an empty spoon, and hungry creditors soon
grow tired of that game. Promises don't fill the belly. Promising men
are not great favorites if they are not performing men. When such a
fellow is called a liar he thinks he is hardly done by; and yet he is
so, as sure as eggs are eggs, and there's no denying it, as the boy said
when the gardener caught him up the cherry-tree.
A HAND-SAW IS A GOOD THING, BUT NOT TO SHAVE WITH.
Our friend will cut more than he will eat, and shave oft something more
than hair, and then he will blame the saw. His brains don't lie in his
beard, nor yet in the skull above it, or he would see that his saw will
only make sores. There's sense in choosing your tools, for a pig's tail
will never make a good arrow, nor will his ear make a silk purse. You
can't catch rabbits with drums, nor pigeons with plums. A good thing is
not good out of its place. It is much the same with lads and girls; you
can't put all boys to one trade, nor send all girls to the same service.
One chap will make a London clerk, and another will do better to plough,
and sow, and reap, and mow, and be a farmer's boy. It's no use forcing
them; a snail will never run a race, nor a mouse drive a wagon.
"Send a boy to the well against his will,
The pitcher will break, and the water spill.
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