Walter K. Kelly

A bad shift is better than none.

Better sup wi' a cutty nor want a spune.—Scotch.

A cutty is a spoon with a stumpy handle or none at all. It is not a very convenient implement, but it will serve at a pinch.

A bad bush is better than the open field.

A wee bush is better nor nae bield.—Scotch.

Bield, shelter. A man's present occupation may not be lucrative, or his connections as serviceable as he could wish, but he should not therefore quit them until he has better.

Half a loaf is better than no bread.

I will make a shaft or a bolt of it.

A shaft is an arrow for the longbow, a bolt is for the crossbow.

If I canna do it by might I'll do it by slight.—Scotch.

"It's best no to be rash," said Edie Ochiltree—

Sticking disna gang by strength, but by the guiding o' the gully.—Scotch.

A gully is a butcher's knife. There is a knack even in slaughtering a pig.

There goes reason to the roasting of eggs.

Many ways to kill a dog besides hanging him.

A story told by the African traveller, Richardson, supplies an apt illustration of this proverb. An Arab woman preferred another man to her husband, and frankly confessed that her affections had strayed. Her lord, instead of flying into a passion and killing her on the spot, thought a moment, and said, "I will consent to divorce you if you will promise me one thing." "What is that?" the wife eagerly asked. "You must looloo to me only on your wedding day." This looloo is a peculiar cry with which it is customary for brides to salute any handsome passer-by. The woman gave the promise required, the divorce took place, and the marriage followed. On the day of the ceremony the ex-husband passed the camel on which the bride rode, and gave her the usual salute by discharging his firelock, in return for which she loolooed to him according to promise. The new bridegroom, enraged at this marked preference—for he noticed that she had not greeted any one else—and suspecting that he was duped, instantly fell upon the bride and slew her. He had no sooner done so than her brothers came up and shot him dead, so that the first husband found himself amply avenged without having endangered himself in the slightest degree. "Contrivance is better than force" (French).[583] Lysander of Sparta was reproached for relying too little on open valour in war, and too much on ruses not always worthy of a descendant of Hercules. He replied, in allusion to the skin of the NemÆan beast worn by his great ancestor, "Where the lion's skin comes short we must eke it out with the fox's."

It is easy to find a stick to beat a dog; or,

It is easy to find a stone to throw at a dog.

It is easy for the strong to find an excuse for maltreating the weak. "On a little pretext the wolf seizes the sheep" (French),[584] or the lamb, as the fable shows. "If you want to flog your dog say he ate the poker" (Spanish).[585] "If a man wants to thrash his wife, let him ask her for drink in the sunshine" (Spanish),[586] for then what can be easier for him than to pick a quarrel with her about the motes in the clearest water?

A handsaw is a good thing, but not to shave with.

Everything to its proper use. In Italy they say, "With the Gospel sometimes one becomes a heretic." Disraeli, and after him Dean Trench, have given to this proverb an erroneous interpretation, founded on a false reading. Their version of it is "Coll' Evangelo si diventa heretico." Here there is no qualifying "sometimes;" the proposition is put absolutely, and the two English writers consider it to be a popular "confession that the maintenance of the Romish system and the study of Holy Scripture cannot go together." It would certainly be "not a little remarkable," if it were true, "that such a confession should have embodied itself in the popular utterances of the nation;" but the fact is that nothing more is meant by the proverb than what the Inquisition itself might sanction. It is only a pointed way of saying that anything, however good, is liable to be used mischievously.[587]