=A ragged colt may make a good horse.=[128]
An untoward boy may grow up into a proper man. This may be understood
either in a physical or a moral sense. "There is no colt but breaks
some halter" (Italian),[129] otherwise it is good for nothing
(French).[130] "Youth comes back from far" (French).[131] Do not
despair of it as lost, though it runs a mad gallop; something of the
sort is to be expected of all but those preternaturally sedate youths
who are born, as the author of "Eothen" says, with a Chifney bit in
their mouths from their mother's womb.
=A man at five may be a fool at fifteen.=
In the days when cock-fighting was a fashionable pastime, game chickens
that crowed too soon or too often were condemned to the spit as of
no promise or ability. "A lad," says Archbishop Whateley, "who has
to a degree that excites wonder and admiration the character and
demeanour of an intelligent man of mature years, will probably be
that and nothing more all his life, and will cease accordingly to be
anything remarkable, because it was the precocity alone that ever
made him so. It is remarked by greyhound fanciers that a well-formed,
compact-shaped puppy never makes a fleet dog. They see more promise in
the loose-jointed, awkward, and clumsy ones. And even so there is a
kind of crudity and unsettledness in the minds of those young persons
who turn out ultimately the most eminent."
=Soon ripe soon rotten.=
"Late fruit keeps well" (German).[132]
=It is better to knit than to blossom.=
Orchard trees may blossom fairly, yet bear no fruit.
=It early pricks that will be a thorn.=
Some indications of future character may be seen even in infancy. The
child is father of the man.
=Soon crooks the tree that good gambrel will be.=
A gambrel (from the Italian _gamba_, a leg) is a crooked piece of wood,
on which butchers hang the carcasses of beasts by the legs.
=As the twig is bent the tree's inclined.=
=Best to bend while it is a twig.=
=It is not easy to straighten in the oak the crook that grew in the
sapling.=--_Gaelic._
"What the colt learns in youth he continues in old age" (French).[133]
"What youth learns, age does not forget" (Danish).[134]
=Reckless youth maks ruefu' eild.=--_Scotch._
"If youth knew! if age could!" (French).[135]