PROVERBS 



4849 



PROVIDENCE 



Stolen waters are sweet. 

 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. 

 A soft answer turneth away wrath. 

 Pride goeth before destruction. 

 Heap coals of fire upon his head. 



Outside of the Bible, no other book contains 

 so many proverbs as Don Quixote. These were 

 not original with Cervantes, but were collected 

 by him from the sayings of the peasants. 

 Franklin in his Poor Richard's Almanac made 

 use of many proverbial expressions, some of 

 which he adapted, some of which he coined; 

 and a great number of these are still in general 

 use. The making of proverbs is commonest 

 in the early days of a people's history, and 

 though to-day many epigrammatic statements 

 find a place in books and in newspapers, few of 

 them become widespread enough to be classed 

 as proverbs. 



Consult Christy's Proverbs, Maxima and 

 Phrases of All Ages; Skeat's Early English 

 Proverbs. 



PROVERBS, a book of the Old Testament 

 containing a collection of short poems, epi- 

 grams and proverbs, known as the "Wisdom 

 Literature" and having for its purpose instruc- 

 tion in the choice of wise rather than foolish 

 living. It surpasses all other books in this 

 form of literature. An exquisite example of 

 the poems it contains is that of the Ant and 

 the Sluggard (VI, 6-11): 



Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; 



Consider her ways and be wise : 

 Which having no guide, 

 Overseer, 

 Or ruler, 



Provideth her meat in the summer, 



And gathereth her food in the harvest. 



How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? 

 When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? 



a little sleep, 

 A little slumber, 



A little folding of the hands to sleep: 

 So shall thy poverty come as one that travel- 

 eth, 

 thy want as an armed man. 



typical proverbs are marvclously 

 and forceful in their expression, being written 

 in the Oriental style known as parallelism, as: 



A good name Is rather to be chosen than great 



riches, 

 loving favour rather than silver and gold 



MI. 1 . 



Thouph ascribed by tradition to Solomon, 

 book of Proverbs is thought by modern 

 scholars to have been written by different au- 

 - and at different times, and to represent 

 an assemblage of several collections of proverbs. 

 Consult Davidson's The Wisdom Literature of 

 the Old Testament. 

 304 



PROVIDENCE, prov'idens, R. I., the state 

 capital and the county seat of Providence 

 County, and the second largest city in Now 

 England (next to Boston), is situated thirty- 

 five miles north of the open ocean at the 

 head of Providence River, a tidal arm of Nar- 

 ragansett Bay. Boston is forty-four miles 

 northeast, and New York City is 185 miles 

 southwest. Transportation facilities include di- 

 rect steamboat communication with New York, 

 Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newport News (Va.), 

 Norfolk (Va.) and Mediterranean ports; the 

 New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad 

 and electric interurban lines. The population 

 was 224,326 in 1910, and 254,960 (Federal esti- 

 mate) in 1916. Of the inhabitants, about 

 seventy per cent are Americans and thirty per 

 cent are foreign bora. The latter include Ital- 

 ians, Irish, English, Russians and Canadians. 



Parks and Buildings. Providence occupies a 

 site on both sides of the Providence River, about 

 eighteen square miles in extent. In the eastern 

 part of the city a ridge rises 200 feet, separat- 

 ing the valleys of the Providence and the See- 

 konk rivers. On this elevation are many fine 

 residences and the campus of Brown University. 

 Exchange Place, the civic center, is on the west 

 side of the river. On one side of this large 

 park is the Union Station, which, with ap- 

 proaches, river walls and viaduct, cost $4,400,- 

 000. Opposite the station, to the north, upon 

 rising ground, stands the massive white mar- 

 ble Capitol building, completed in 1900 at a 

 cost of $3,200,000. Other buildings about Ex- 

 change Place are the city hall, built at a coat 

 of $1,000,000, a handsome Federal building 

 costing $1,300,000, and the state normal school. 

 Among many prominent structures are the 

 courthouse, the state armory, the Y. M. C. A. 

 building, the Athenaeum, the public library and 

 the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul 

 (Roman Catholic). Roger Williams is the 

 largest of the city's attractive parks, which have 

 a combined area of 650 acres. In Exchange 

 Place is a soldiers' and sailors' monument, a 

 beautiful fountain and an equestrian statue 

 of General A. E. Burnsidc. The city has an 

 extensive system of boulevards. 



Institutions. In addition to Brown Uni- 

 versity (which sec) and the state normal school, 

 the city has the Friends' School and the Rhode 

 Island School of Design. The principal libra- 

 ries are the public library, Providence Atho- 

 ;m and the libraries of the Rhode Island 

 Historical Society, the Rhode Island Medical 

 Society and the Young Men's Christian As- 



