Proverbial wisdom, it must be borne in mind, deals sometimes with only one aspect of a truth. The necessary brevity often makes the teaching one-sided, as the various limitations and exceptions that may be necessary to a complete statement of a truth are perforce left unsaid. One proverb therefore is often in direct contradiction to another, and yet each may be equally true. Solomon, for example, tells us to "answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit," and he also tells us to "answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."[10:A] These two directions are placed one immediately after the other of deliberate forethought that the sharp contrast may force itself on the attention. The two modes of action are in direct contradiction, yet each is equally valuable in its place, and according to circumstances one or other of them would be the right course to pursue. To the restless, unstable man we may well quote the well-known adage, "A rolling stone gathers no moss";[10:B] but, on the other hand, it is equally true that "A tethered sheep soon starves." While one villager is content to remain in the little hamlet where he was born, living hardly throughout his life, the recipient of a scanty wage, of soup and blankets from the vicarage or the hall, and, finally, of a pauper grave, his schoolmate, the rolling stone, goes out into the big world and fights his way into a position of independence. The fourth stipulation of Ward--figurativeness of expression--while it may appear to somewhat clash with his second, the demand for plainness of utterance, is undoubtedly of great value; but it is not an essential. Such proverbs as "Plough, or not plough, you must pay your rent," "The receiver is as bad as the thief," "The child says what father says," "Misfortunes never come singly," "Extremes meet," "Ill doers are ill deemers," are direct statements to be literally accepted, and to these scores more could be added. The figurative treatment is, nevertheless, still more in evidence, and very justly so. By its employment the attention is at once arrested and the memory helped. This love of picture language is specially characteristic of early days and of primitive peoples, and those who would turn away from an abstract discourse in praise of virtue, temperance, or strenuous endeavour will gladly accept the teaching if presented in more concrete form--the fairy tale, the fable, or the parable.