You can't catch the wind in a net
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Pictures; or, More of His Plain Talk for Plain People
A NET.
SOME people get windmills in their heads,
and go in for all sorts of silly things.
They talk of ruling the nation as if men
were to be driven Hke sheep, and they
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YOU CAN' T CA TCH THE WIND IN A NET. 131
prate of reforms and systems as if they could
cut out a world in brown paper, with a pair
of scissors. Such a body thinks himself
very deep, but he is as shallow as a milk-pan.
You can soon know him as well as if you
had gone through him with a lighted candle,
and yet you will not know a great deal after
all. He has a great head, and very little in
it. He can talk by the dozen, or the gross,
and say nothing. When he is fussing and
boasting of his fine doings you soon dis-
cover that he makes a long harvest of
very little corn. His tongue is like a pig's
tail, going all day long and nothing done.
This is the man who can pay off the
National Debt, and yet, in his little shop, he
sells two apples in three days : he has the
secret of high farming, and loses more at it
than any man in the county. The more he
studies the more he misses the mark ; he
reminds me of a blind man on a blind horse,
who rode out in the middle of a dark night,
and the more he tried to keep out of ditches
the more he fell in.
When they catch live red herrings on
Newmarket heath he will bring out a good
thing, and line his pockets with gold ; up
132 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
till now, he says, he has been unlucky, and
he believes that if he were to make a man
a coffin he would be sure not to die. He is
going to be rich next year, and you will
then see what you shall see: just now he
would be glad of half-a-crown on account,
for which he will give you a share in his in-
vention for growing wheat without plough-
ing or sowing.
It is odd to see this wise man at times
when his wits are all up in the moon : he is
just like Chang, the Chinaman, who said,
" Here's my umbrella, and here's my bundle,
but ivlicrc am /f " He cannot find his
spectacles though he is looking through
them ; and when he is out riding on his own
ass, he pulls up and says, " Wherever is
that donkey? "
I have heard of one learned man who
boiled his watch and stood looking at the
^gfe' ^"<^ another who forgot that he was to
be married that day, and would have lost
his lady if his friend had not fetched him
out of his study. Think of that, my boy,
and don't fret yourself because you are not
so overdone with learning as to have for-
gotten your common sense.
roc/ CAN' TCA TCH THE WIND IN A NET. 133
The regular wind-catcher is soft as silk
and as green as grass, and yet he thinks
himself very long-headed; and so indeed
he would be if his ears were taken into
the measurement. He is going to do —
well — there's no telling what. He is full
of wishes but short of will, and so his buds
never come to flowers or fruit. He is like
a hen that lays eggs, and never sits on them
long enough to hatch a single chick.
Moonshine is the article our friend deals
in, and it is wonderful what he can see by it.
He cries up his schemes, and it is said that
he draws on his imagination for his facts.
When he is in full swing with one of his
notions, he does not stick at a trifle. Will
Shepherd heard one of these gentry the
other day telling how his new company
would lead all the shareholders on to Tom
Tiddler's ground to pick up gold and silver ;
and when all the talk was over. Will said to
me, *' That's a lie, with a lid on, and a brass
handle to take hold of it." Rather sharp
this of Will, for I do believe the man was
caught on his own hook and believed in his
own dreams ; yet I did not like him, for he
wanted us poor fellows to put our little sav-
134 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
ings into his hands, as if we could afford
to fly kites with laborers' wages.
What a many good people there are who
have religious crazes ! They do nothing,
but they have wonderful plans for doing
everything in a jiffy. So many thousand
people are to give half-a-crown each, and
so many more a crown, and so many more
a sovereign, and the meeting-house is to be
built just so, and no how else. The mischief
is that the thousands of people do not rush
forward with their money, and the minister
and a few hard-working friends have to get
it together little by little in the old-fashioned
style, while your wonderful schemer slinks
out of the way and gives nothing. I have
long ago found out that pretty things on
paper had better be kept there. Our master's
eldest son had a plan for growing plum-trees
in our hedges as they do in Kent, but he
never looked to see whether the soil would
suit, and so he lost the trees which he put
in, and there was an end of his damsons.
•* Circumstances alter cases ;
Different ways suit different places."
New brooms sweep clean, but they mostly
YOUCAN'TCA TCH THE WIND IN A NET. 135
sweep up dirt. Plough with what you please,
I stick to the old horses which have served
me so well. Fine schemes come to nothing ;
it is hard work that does it, whether it be
in the world or in the church.
" In the laborious husbandman you see
What all true Christians are or ought to be."