Sometimes the proverb does not actually in so many words repeat itself in various tongues. We have indeed exactly the same _thought_; but it takes an outward shape and embodiment, varying according to the various countries and periods in which it has been current: we have proverbs totally diverse from one another in their form and appearance, but which yet, when we look a little deeper into them, prove to be at heart one and the same, all these their differences being thus only, so to speak, variations of the same air. These are almost always an amusing, often an instructive, study; and to trace this likeness in difference has an interest lively enough. Thus the _forms_ of the proverb, which brings out the absurdity of those reproving others for a defect or a sin, to whom the same cleaves in an equal or in a greater degree, have sometimes no visible connexion at all, or the very slightest, with one another; yet for all this the proverb is at heart and essentially but one. We say in English: _The kiln calls the oven, “Burnt house;”_—the Italians: _The pan says to the pot “Keep off, or you’ll smutch me;”_[71]—the Spaniards: _The raven cried to the crow, “Avaunt, blackamoor;”_[72]—the Germans: _One ass nicknames another, Long-ears_;[73]—while it must be owned there is a certain originality in the Catalan version of the proverb: _Death said to the man with his throat cut, “How ugly you look.”_ Under how rich a variety of forms does one and the same thought array itself here. [Sidenote: Various proverbs.] Let me quote another illustration of the same fact. We probably take for granted that _Coals to Newcastle_ is a thoroughly English expression of the absurdity of sending to a place that which already abounds there, water to the sea, faggots to the wood:—and English of course it is in the outward garment which it wears; but in its innermost being it belongs to the whole world and to all times. Thus the Greeks said: _Owls to Athens_,[74] Attica abounding with these birds; the Rabbis: _Enchantments to Egypt_, Egypt being of old esteemed the head quarters of all magic; the Orientals: _Pepper to Hindostan_; and in the middle ages they had this proverb: _Indulgences to Rome_, Rome being the centre and source of this spiritual traffic; and these by no means exhaust the list.