And once more, proverbs are not to be accounted selfish, which announce selfishness; unless they do it, either avowedly recommending it as a rule and maxim of life, or, if not so, yet with an evident complacency and satisfaction in the announcement which they make, and in this more covert and perhaps still more mischievous way, taking part with the evil which they proclaim. There are a great many proverbs, which a lover of his race would be very thankful if there had been nothing in the world to justify or to provoke; for the convictions they embody, the experiences on which they rest must be regarded as very far from complimentary to human nature: but seeing they express that which is, however we might desire it were not, it would be idle to wish them away, to wish that this evil had not found its utterance. Nay, it is much better that it should so have done; for thus taking form and shape, and being brought directly under notice, it may be better watched against and avoided. Such proverbs, not selfish, but rather detecting selfishness and laying it bare, are the following; this Russian, on the only too slight degree in which we are touched with other men’s troubles: _The burden is light on the shoulders of another_; with which the French may be compared: _One has always enough strength to bear the misfortunes of one’s friends_.[146] Such is this Italian: _Every one draws the water to his own mill_;[147] or as it appears in its eastern shape, which brings up the desert-bivouack before one’s eyes: _Every one rakes the embers to his own cake_. Such this Latin, on the comparative wastefulness wherewith that which is another’s is too often used: _Men cut broad thongs from other men’s leather_;[148] with many more of the same character, which it would be only too easy to bring together. [Sidenote: Selfish proverbs.]