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Certainly that ought to be true if you have the stuff in you. And if you have not the stuff in you, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford, and all the universities of Germany cannot lift you an inch above your normal level. "You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" is our pithy and brutally truthful folk-saying. "What do you raise on these shaly hills?"
Yet whatever its defects, it had those qualities which I have tried to outline; and where it really flourished it ultimately led to gracefulness of living and love of what is comely and kindly. You can detect as much still, in the flavour of many a mellow folk-saying, not to mention folk-song; you may divine it yet in all kinds of little popular traits, if once you know what to look for.
There is an Irish folk-saying that any dream may be remembered if the dreamer, after awakening, forbear to scratch his head in the effort to recall it. But should he forget this precaution, never can the dream be brought back to memory: as well try to re-form the curlings of a smoke- wreath blown away. Nine hundred and ninety-nine of a thousand dreams are indeed hopelessly evaporative.
I said something some platitude turning to go away. Then she managed to smile a shining-eyed smile saying: "Well, 'tis only for life. If 'twas for longer than that I don't know if we should hardly be able to bear it." This was but one old woman. Yet, if you have an ear for a folk-saying, you will recognize one there in that "only for life" of hers.
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