Let me adduce some other variations of the same descriptions, though not running through quite so many languages. Thus compare the German, _Who lets one sit on his shoulders, shall have him presently sit on his head_,[75] with the Italian, _If thou suffer a calf to be laid on thee, within a little they’ll clap on the cow_,[76] and, again, with the Spanish, _Give me where I may sit down; I will make where I may lie down_.[77] They all three plainly contain one and the same hint that undue liberties are best resisted at the outset, being otherwise liable to be followed up by other and greater ones; but this under how rich and humorous a variety of forms. Not very different are these that follow. We say: _Daub yourself with honey, and you’ll be covered with flies_; the Danes: _Make yourself an ass, and you’ll have every man’s sack on your shoulders_; while the French: _Who makes himself a sheep, the wolf devours him_;[78] and the Persians: _Be not all sugar, or the world will gulp thee down_;[79] to which they add, however, as its necessary complement, _nor yet all wormwood, or the world will spit thee out_. Or again, we are content to say without a figure: _The receiver’s as bad as the thief_; but the French: _He sins as much who holds the sack, as he who puts into it_;[80] and the Germans: _He who holds the ladder is as guilty as he who mounts the wall_.[81] We say: _A stitch in time saves nine_; the Spaniards: _Who repairs not his gutter, repairs his whole house_.[82] We say: _Misfortunes never come single_; the Italians have no less than three proverbs to express the same popular conviction: _Blessed is that misfortune which comes single_; and again: _One misfortune is the vigil of another_; and again: _A misfortune and a friar are seldom alone_.[83] Or once more, the Russians say: _Call a peasant, “Brother,” he’ll demand to be called, “Father;”_ the Italians: _Reach a peasant your finger, he’ll grasp your fist_.[84] Many languages have this proverb: _God gives the cold according to the cloth_;[85] it is very beautiful, but attains not to the tender beauty of our own: _God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb_.