this, "Deridet sed non derideor"--he laugheth, but I am not laughed at; the impertinence is suffered, is passed unregarded, and falls flat and dead. Custom and habit exercise their influence on our proverb lore; thus we are told, wisely enough, that "Custom is the plague of wise men, the idol of fools." Kelly tells a good story, in illustration of this bowing to custom, of a captain's wife whose husband the South Sea Islanders had eaten, being consoled by a friend; "Mais, madame, que voulez-vous? Chaque peuple a ses usages." The power of habit is immense; an old saying tells us that "Habit is overcome by habit," but ordinarily the habit in possession fights hard, and is not readily dispossessed. Hence it is of solemn warning to "Kill the cockatrice while yet in the egg." It is one of the most familiar of truisms that "Habit becomes second nature," and that "What is bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh." To check at the beginning may be difficult, but to overcome in the end may be impossible. "Can the Ethiopian," asks the prophet, "change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil." As the bough of a tree bent from its usual direction returns to its old position so soon as the temporary force to which it yielded is removed, so do men return to their old habits so soon as the motives, whether of interest or fear, which had influenced them, are done away. "Nature," says Lord Bacon, "is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. Let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far; for nature will be buried a great time and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation, like as it was with Æsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her." The same philosopher gives the following admirable caution: "A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds: therefore let him seasonably water the one and destroy the other." The Spaniards say: "Mudar costumbre a par de muerte"--to change a habit is like death. "Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." And Shakespeare, in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," exclaims: "How use doth breed a habit in a man!" The ancient Romans declared: "Fabricando fit faber," which we find in French as "En forgeant ou devient forgeron"; in Spanish, as "El usar saca oficial"; in German, as "Uebung macht den meister"; and in English, as "Use makes the craftsman." Boys catch the habit of stammering if thrown with those who stammer, and the Dutch declare: "Die bij kreupelen woont, leert hinken"--he that lives with cripples learns to limp. Fortunately, there are good habits as well as bad ones; hence the Romans taught: "Boni principii finis bonus," and the French say, "De bon commencement bonne fin"--we insensibly imitate what we habitually admire.