gumbo with one finger as to eat peas with a nut-picker. This proverb illustrates our dependence upon each other in every stage and condition of life.' The Haytians have another which is like unto it: XIII. NION DOIGT PAS SA POUANd puces.2 A single finger can't catch fleas. 1 Your observations are entirely correct so far as they go, but it is worth while to remark perhaps that this is strictly a practical slave proverb. This preparation of gumbo was distributed to the slaves at their meals in a cour (pronounced quee) or half a calabash and the part which they could not drink, they were expected to take out with their fingers and they made a sort of a spoon with the first two fingers and thumb. Haytian women in towns to this day, prepare for themselves a plate of food and instead of drawing up a table, they sit down in the door way and eat the contents of their plate in this manner. Hunt. 2 The Haytian version differs from the Trinidad version which you have given. It runs thus : "Ous pas capable trapper puces avec une doight." The sa " in the 66 Trinidad version I do not understand."— Hunt. The "sa" is doubtless a form of the verb savior to know, literally our judge (ne sait pas prendre puces), does not know how to catch fleas. These are only variations of the old Greek proverb. Εἰν ανηρ, ονδείς ανηρ. Or, as it comes to us through the Spanish, One man and no man is all the same. The Calabars of West Africa say, A man does not use one finger to take out an arrow. Dr. Franklin compared an old bachelor to the half of a pair of scissors which had not yet found its fellow, and therefore was not even half as useful as it might be. The Spaniards also say, Three helping each other will bear the burden of six. As the gods of the ancients were wont to visit this earth in the guise of the humblest peasants, so one of those everlasting truths, which may be said to embrace the beginning and end of human wisdom, lies enveloped. in the homely rhetoric of the rustic proverb of which these are variations. They teach 1 One man, no man. that elementary sense of dependence among men by which the most ignorant, as well as the most learned, are unconsciously led to comprehend and acknowledge their primary and final dependence upon God, a conviction which is the basis of all true religion; and in the same degree to lose faith in their own sufficiency, the basis of all idolatry. The French have a proverb which, while it seems to enlarge the significance of that we are considering, is actually embraced by it: Celui qui mange seul son pain est seul á porter son fardeau. He who eats his bread alone must alone bear his burden. Or, as the Spaniards say: Quien solo come su gallo, solo ensille su caballo. Who eats his dinner alone, must saddle his horse alone. "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ," so wrote St. Paul to the Galatians. "Two are better than one," says the 3 preacher, "because they have a good reward for their labor; for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.' All the selfishness, wars, intolerance, persecution, crime, and disorder in this world, and which seem to be most rife among those nations which boast of being most civilized, may be traced to a disregard of this universal law of dependence, the mother of humility, which the unlettered peasant of Hayti has extracted from his daily necessity of taking two fingers to his gumbo. Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Till one man's weakness, grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally The common interest, or endears the tie: To these we owe true friendship, love sincere ; Each home felt joy that life inherits here: Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign: There is a proverb current among the 1 Ecclesiasties, iv: 9, 10. Pope's Essay on Man, 249. Turks, and commonly supposed to be of Turkish origin, though it is not, which makes a corresponding recognition of the highest of Christian duties, to serve, that is, to love one another. What I give away is mine. It is a treasure laid away where moth and rust do not corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. This noble sentiment which embodies the very essence of Christianity was embalmed in the felicitous verse of the Hispano Roman poet Martial, many centuries before the name of the Turk had been breathed among men. OPES SECURAE. 1 Callidus effractâ nummus fur auferet arcâ, Mercibus extructas obruet unda rates. Our poet Byrant has renewed the youth of these lines in a version which is likely to 1 1 Martial, Book v, Epig. 41. |