Youth and Age
A ragged colt may make a good horse.128
An untoward boy may grow up into a proper man. This may be understood either in a physical or a moral sense. “There is no colt but breaks some halter” (Italian),129 otherwise it is good for nothing (French).130 “Youth comes back from far” (French).131 Do not despair of it as lost, though it runs a mad gallop; something of the sort is to be expected of all but those preternaturally sedate youths who are born, as the author of “Eothen” says, with a Chifney bit in their mouths from their mother’s womb.
A man at five may be a fool at fifteen.
In the days when cock-fighting was a fashionable pastime, game chickens that crowed too soon or too often were condemned to the spit as of no promise or ability. “A lad,” says Archbishop Whateley, “who has to a degree that excites wonder and admiration the character and demeanour of an intelligent man of mature years, will probably be that and nothing more all his life, and will cease accordingly to be anything remarkable, because it was the precocity alone that ever made him so. It is remarked by greyhound fanciers that a well-formed, compact-shaped puppy never makes a fleet dog. They see more promise in the loose-jointed, awkward, and clumsy ones. And even so there is a kind of crudity and unsettledness in the minds of those young persons who turn out ultimately the most eminent.”
Soon ripe soon rotten.
“Late fruit keeps well” (German).132
It is better to knit than to blossom.
Orchard trees may blossom fairly, yet bear no fruit.
It early pricks that will be a thorn.
Some indications of future character may be seen even in infancy. The child is father of the man.
Soon crooks the tree that good gambrel will be.
A gambrel (from the Italian gamba, a leg) is a crooked piece of wood, on which butchers hang the carcasses of beasts by the legs.
As the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.
Best to bend while it is a twig.
It is not easy to straighten in the oak the crook that grew in the sapling.—Gaelic.
“What the colt learns in youth he continues in old age” (French).133 “What youth learns, age does not forget” (Danish).134
Reckless youth maks ruefu’ eild.—Scotch.
“If youth knew! if age could!” (French).135
Footnotes
128 Spanish: De potro sarnoso buen caballo hermoso. German: Ans klattrigen Fohlen werden die schönsten Hengste.
129 Non c’è polledro che non rompa qualche cavezza.
130 Rien ne vaut poulain s’il ne rompt son lien.
131 Jeunesse revient de loin.
132 Spät Obst liegt lange.
133 Ce que poulain prend en jeunesse, il le continue en vieillesse.
134 Det Ung nemmer, Gammel ei glemmer.
135 Si jeunesse savait! si vieillesse pouvait!