But what, it may be asked, before we proceed further, is a proverb? Nothing is harder than a definition. While on the one hand there is for the most part no easier task than to detect a fault or flaw in the definitions of those who have gone before us, nothing on the other is more difficult than to propose one of our own, which shall not also present a vulnerable side. Some one has said that these three things go to the constituting of a proverb, _shortness_, _sense_, and _salt_. In brief pointed sayings of this kind, the second of the qualities enumerated here, namely _sense_, is sometimes sacrificed to alliteration. I would not affirm that it is so here: for the words are not ill spoken, though they are very far from satisfying the rigorous requirements of a definition, as will be seen when we consider what the writer intended by his three _esses_, which it is not hard to understand. The proverb, he would say, must have _shortness_; it must be succinct, utterable in a breath. It must have _sense_, not being, that is, the mere small talk of conversation, slight and trivial, else it would perish as soon as born, no one taking the trouble to keep it alive. It must have _salt_, that is, besides its good sense, it must in its manner and outward form be pointed and pungent, having a sting in it, a barb which shall not suffer it to drop lightly from the memory.[2] Yet, regarded as a definition, this of the triple _s_ fails, as I have said; it indeed errs both in defect and excess. [Sidenote: Proverbs will be concise.]