Excerpt from Gombo Zhebes: Little Dictionary of Creole Proverbs, Selected From Six Creole Dialects Nevertheless all which I have utilized exhibit the peculiarities of the vernacular sufficiently to justify their presence. While some of these proverbs are witty enough to call a smile to the most serious lips, many others must, no doubt, seem vapid. Enigmatic, or even meaningless. But a large majority of negro sayings depend altogether upon application for their color or their effectiveness; they possess a chameleon power of changing hue according to the manner in which they are placed. (see for examples: Prov. 161, 251, or Every saying of this kind is susceptible of numerous applications; and the art of applying one proverb to many different situations is one in which the negro has no rival - not even among the Arabs them selves, whose use of such folklore has been so admirably illustrated by Carlo Landberg. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.