But a man need not be a fine gentleman nor a _roué_ to think ill of womankind. He needs only to be commonplace; and hence it is that the homely proverbs of all time bear so hardly upon women. The native land of the modern proverb is Spain, as we might guess from Sancho Panza's exhaustless repertory; and most of those homely disparaging sentences concerning women that pass current in all lands appear to have originated there. What Spain has left unsaid upon women's foibles, Italy has supplied. Most of the following proverbs are traceable to one of the two peninsulas of Southern Europe: "He that takes an eel by the tail or a woman by her word may say he holds nothing." "There is one bad wife in Spain, and every man thinks he has her." "He that loses his wife and a farthing hath great loss of his farthing." "If the mother had never been in the oven, she would not have looked for her daughter there." "He that marries a widow and three children marries four thieves." "He that tells his wife news is but newly married." "A dead wife's the best goods in a man's house." "A man of straw is worth a woman of gold." "A woman conceals what she knows not." "As great a pity to see a woman weep as to see a goose go barefoot." "A woman's mind and winter's wind change oft." "There is no mischief in the world done but a woman is always one." "Commend a wedded life, but keep thyself a bachelor." "Where there are women and geese, there wants no noise." "Neither women nor linen by candle-light." "Glasses and lasses are brittle ware." "Two daughters and a back-door are three thieves." "Women commend a modest man, but like him not." "Women in mischief are wiser than men." "Women laugh when they can and weep when they will." "Women, priests, and poultry never have enough." [Illustration: Evening Scene in the Parlor of an American Boarding-house. "Ladies who have no engagements (in the evening) either mount again to the solitude of their chamber, or remain in the common sitting-room, in a society cemented by no tie, endeared by no connection, which choice did not bring together, and which the slightest motive would break asunder. I remarked that the gentlemen were generally obliged to go out every evening on business; and, I confess, the arrangement did not surprise me."--MRS. TROLLOPE, _Domestic Manners of the Americans_, vol. ii., p. 111. 1830.] Among the simple people of Iceland similar proverbs pass current: "Praise the fineness of the day when it is ended; praise a woman when she is buried; praise a maiden when she is married." "Trust not to the words of a girl; neither to those which a woman utters, for their hearts have been made like the wheel that turns round; levity was put into their bosoms."