What's bred in the bone will never be out of the flesh.
What is innate is not to be eradicated by force of education or self-discipline: these may modify the outward manifestations of a man's nature, but not transmute that nature itself. What belongs to it "lasts to the grave" (Italian).[136] The ancients had several proverbs to the same purpose, such as this one, which is found in Aristophanes—"You will never make a crab walk straight forwards"—and this Latin one, which is repeated in several modern languages: "The wolf changes his coat, but not his disposition;"[137]—he turns grey with age. The Spaniards say he "loses his teeth, but not his inclinations."[138] "What is sucked in with the mother's milk runs out in the shroud" (Spanish).[139] Horace's well-known line,—
"Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret"—
"Though you cast out nature with a fork, it will still return"—has very much the air of a proverb versified. The same thought is better expressed in a French line which has acquired proverbial currency:—
"Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop."
"Drive away nature, and back it comes at a gallop." This line is very commonly attributed to Boileau, but erroneously. The author of it is Chaulieu (?). The Orientals ascribe to Mahomet the saying, "Believe, if thou wilt, that mountains change their places, but believe not that men change their dispositions."
"What is born of a hen will scrape" (Italian).[140] "What is born of a cat will catch mice" (French, Italian).[141] This proverb is taken from the fable of a cat transformed into a woman, who scandalised her friends by jumping from her seat to catch a mouse. "A good hound hunts by kind" (French).[142] "It is kind father to him," as the Scotch say. "Good blood cannot lie" (French);[143] its generous instincts are sure to display themselves on fit occasions. On the other hand, "The son of an ass brays twice a day."[144] We need not say what people that stroke of grave humour belongs to.
Drive a cow to the ha' and she'll run to the byre.—Scotch.
She will be more at home there than in the drawing-room. "A sow prefers bran to roses" (French).[145] "Set a frog on a golden stool, and off it hops again into the pool" (German).[146]
There's no making a silk purse of a sow's ear;
or, "A good arrow of a pig's tail" (Spanish);[147] or, "A sieve of an ass's tail" (Greek).
A carrion kite will never make a good hawk.[148]
An inch o' a nag is worth a span o' an aver.—Scotch.
A kindly aver will never make a good nag.—Scotch.
An aver is a cart horse.
One leg of a lark is worth the whole body of a kite.
A piece of a kid is worth two of a cat.
Bray a fool in a mortar, he'll be never the wiser.
"To wash an ass's head is loss of suds" (French).[149] "The malady that is incurable is folly" (Spanish).[150]
There's no washing a blackamoor white.
"Wash a dog, comb a dog, still a dog is but a dog" (French).[151]
A hog in armour is still but a hog.
An ape is an ape, a varlet's a varlet,
Though he be clad in silk and scarlet.
There's no getting white flour out of a coal-sack.
"Whatever the bee sucks turns to honey, and whatever the wasp sucks turns to venom" (Portuguese).[152]
Literally translated from a Latin adage[153] much used by Queen Christina, of Sweden, who affected a superb disdain for petty details. The Romans had another proverbial expression for the same idea:—"The prÆtor takes no heed of very small matters,"[154] for his was a superior court, and did not try cases of minor importance. Our modern lawyers have retained the classical adage, only substituting the word "law" for "prÆtor." They say, "De minimis non curat lex," which might, perhaps, be freely translated, "Lawyers don't stick at trifles."
