Nearly akin to the language of a race are its proverbs, and some of the
Manx proverbs are wise, witty, and racy of the soil. Many of them are
the common possession of all peoples. Of such kind is "There's many
a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." Here is one which sounds like an
Eastern saying: "Learning is fine clothes for the rich man, and riches
for the poor man." But I know of no foreign parentage for a proverb like
this: "A green hill when far away; bare, bare when it is near."
That may be Eastern also. It hints of a long weary desert; no grass,
no water, and then the cruel mirage that breaks down the heart of the
wayfarer at last. On the other hand, it is not out of harmony with
the landscape of Man, where the mountains look green sometimes from a
distance when they are really bare and stark, and so typify that waste
of heart when life is dry of the moisture of hope, and all the world is
as a parched wilderness. However, there is one proverb which is so Manx
in spirit that I could almost take oath on its paternity, so exactly
does it fit the religious temper of our people, though it contains a
word that must strike an English ear as irreverent: "When one poor man
helps another poor man, God himself laughs."