Tall Talk
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Talk; or, Plain Advice for Plain People
" Gooseberries are to be heard of weighing twice as much as
possible."
THE art of stretching is uncommonly
general nowadays. Gooseberries are
to be heard of weighing twice as much
as possible, and unseen showers of frogs
ri.85)
186 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
fall regularly when newspapers are slack.
If a cart goes by, and rattles the lid of an
old woman's teapot, it is put down as an
earthquake. Fine imaginations are not at
all scarce. Certain people are always on
the look out for wonders, and if they don't
see them they invent them. They see
comets every night, and hear some rare tale
every day. All their molehills are moun-
tains. All their ducks are swans. They
have learned the multiplication table, and
use it freely. If they saw six dogs together
they would swear they saw a hundred
hounds; yes, and get as red in the face as
turkey-cocks if anybody looked a little
doubtful; and before long they would per-
suade themselves that they saw ten thou-
sand lions ; for everything grows with them
as fast as mushrooms, and as big as Box
Hill.
All things around them are wonderful,
but as for themselves, nobody is fit to clean
their boots. They are the cream of crea-
tion. They are as strong as Samson, and
could pull against John Ploughman's team,
only they won't try it, for fear of hurting
the horses. Their wealth is enormous;
TALL TALK. 187
they could pay off the National Debt, only
they have good reasons for not doing so
just yet. If they keep shop they turn over
several millions in the year, and only stop
in business at all for the sake of their
neighbors. They sell the best goods at
the lowest prices, in fact, under cost price ;
and none in the county are fit to hold a
candle to them; their business is cock of
the walk and king of the castle. If they
take a farm it is only for amusement, and to
show the poor ignorant natives how to do
it. All their doings are wonders ! Like
the wild beast show which stopped at our
village the other day, they are the only,
original, and unrivalled! But they are
quite as dead a sell as that fine affair was ;
all the best of it was outside on the pictures,
and it's just the same with them. But,
bless you, how they do draw the long bow !
Hear them talk. It is all in capital letters
and notes of admiration. " Did you ever
see such A nag ? Why, sir, it would beat
the wind ! ! That Cow — let me call your
attention to her, there is not such another
in the county; just notice the swing of
her tail ! ! Yes, sir, that boy of mine is
1 88 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
intelligent, far beyond his years. He's a
perfect prodigy! Like his father, did you
say? Very kind remark, sir, but there's a
good deal of truth in it : though I say it,
a man must get up early to beat me! Pm
one too many for most people ! Just look
over the farm, sir. Was there ever such a
field of turnips? The fly on the leaf?
Not a bit, sir ; that arises from the peculiar
sort ; it's A very rare turnip, with venti-
lated leaves pricked through by nature to
let the air in and out ! Too many moles
did you say? Ah! thereby hangs a tale.
Do you know our moles are a great sin-
gularity? they throw up bigger hills than
any others in England, and are supposed to
be of a fine old British stock now al-
most lost. Did you notice that tremen-
dous thistle ? Is it not a rare specimen ?
enough to make a Scotchman die of joy.
That shows the extraordinary richness of
the soil ; and, indeed, sir, our last year's
crop of wheat was so amazingly heavy, I
thought we should never get it home; it
nearly broke the wagons ; we had half the
county here to see it threshed, and the old-
est men in the parish said they never heard
TALL TALK. 189
tell of the like. It is a mercy that steam
IS INVENTED, OR WE NEVER COULD HAVE
THRESHED IT BY HAND."
When a man gets into this style of talk,
it is no matter what he is hammering at, he
speaks of it as the finest, greatest, and most
marvellous in the kingdom, or else the most
awful, horrible, and dreadful in the world.
His boots would not fit Goliath, but his
tongue is much too big for the giant's
mouth. He paints with a broom. He sug-
ars his dumplings with a spade, and lays
on his butter with a trowel. His horse, his
dog, his gun, his wife, his child, his singing,
his planning, are all nonsuches, he is the
forehorse of the parish, he lives at Number
One, and it would be hard to find a man fit
to be number two to him. The water out
of his well is stronger than wine ; it rains
pea-soup into his water butt; his currant
bushes grow grapes ; you might live in-
side one of his pumpkins ; and his flowers —
well, he's heard that the Queen herself
had the fellow plant to that geranium, only
his was rather the better ! The greatest won-
der is that men of this kidney don't see that
everybody is laughing at them ; they must
190 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
have bragged themselves blind. Everybody
sees the bottom of their dish, and yet they
go on calling in an ocean, as if they had
none but flat fish to deal with.
I've known men who open their mouths
like barn doors in boasting what they
would do if they were in somebody else's
shoes. If they were in Parliament they
would abolish all taxes, turn workhouses
into palaces, make the pumps run with beer,
and set the Thames on fire ; but all this de-
pends on an if, and that if is a sort of five-
barred gate which they have never got
over. If the sky falls we shall catch larks.
If Jack Brag does but get the reins he'll
make the horses fly up to the moon. If is
a fine word ; when a man jumps on its back
it will carry him into worlds which were
never created, and make him see miracles
which were never wrought. With an if
you may put all London into a quart
pot.
" If all the seas were one sea,
What a great sea that would be !
And if all the trees were one tree,
What a great tree that would be !
And if all the axes were one axe,
What a great axe that would be !
I
TALL TALK. 191
And if all the men were one man,
What a great man he would be !
And if the great man took the great axe,
And cut down the great tree,
And let it fall into the great sea,
What a splish splash that would be ! "
" What nonsense !" says some one ; so John
Ploughman thinks, and therefore he puts it
in as a specimen of the stupidity which tall
talkers are so fond of. This is not half so
silly as nine out of ten of their mighty
nothings.
What some of these fellows have done !
Now, would you believe it ? (I say, " No,
I would not/') They made their own for-
tunes in no time, and made other people's
too. Their advice has been the means of
filling many a bag with gold. What they
said at a meeting fastened the people to
their seats like cobbler's wax. They were
in a quarrel, and when all their party were
nearly beaten, they settled off the opposi-
tion side at once with first-rate wit and wis-
dom— King Solomon was a fool to them.
As to religion, they were the first to set it
up in the parish, and by their wonderful
exertions everything was set a going. They
192 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
laid the golden egg. People are not grate-
ful, or they would almost worship them:
it's shameful to see how they have been
neglected, and even turned off, of late by
the very people whom they have been the
making of. While they had a finger in the
pie all went well at the meeting, but now
they have left they say there's a screw
loose, and they who live longest will see
most. When they are in a modest humor
they borrow words from David, and say,
" The earth is dissolved, I bear up the pil-
lars of it." It is thought that their death
would fill the world with bones. If they
remove their custom people are expected to
shut up their shops directly, and it is only
their impudence that makes them hope to
get a living after such customers are gone.
When they feel a little natural pride at their
great doings, then it's fine to hear them go
ahead : talk of blowing your own trumpet,
they have a whole band of music, big drum
and all, and keep all the instruments going
first-rate to their own praise and glory.
I'd rather plough all day and be on the
road with the wagon all night when it
freezes your eyelashes off than listen to
TALL TALK. 193
these great talkers ; they make me as sick as
a cat. I'd sooner go without eating till I
was as lean as a wash-leather than eat the
best turkey that ever came on the table, and
be dinned all the while with their awful
jaw. They talk on such a mighty big
scale, and magnify everything so thunder-
ingly, that you cannot believe them when
they accidentally slip in a word or two of
truth ; and so you are apt to think that
even their cheese is chalk. They are great
liars, but they are hardly conscious of it;
they have talked themselves into believing
their own bombast. The frog thought her-
self equal to the cow, and then began to
blow herself out to make it true; they
swell like her and they will burst like her
if they don't mind.
Everybody who knows these big talkers
should take warning from them :
" Said I to myself, here's a lesson for me,
This man is a picture of what I might be."
We must try to state the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth. If we
begin calling eleven inches a foot we shall
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194 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
go on till we call one inch four-and-twenty.
If we call a heifer a cow, we may one day
call a dormouse a bullock. Once go in for
exaggeration, and you may as well be hung
for a sheep as a lamb ; you have left the
road of truth, and there is no telling where
the crooked lane may lead you to. He
who tells little lies will soon think nothing
of great ones, for the principle is the same.
Where there is a mouse-hole there will soon
be a rat-hole, and if the kitten comes the
cat will follow. It seldom rains but it pours ;
a little untruth leads on to a perfect shower
of lying.
Self-praise is no recommendation. A
man's praise smells sweet when it comes
out of other men's mouths, but in his own
it stinks. Grow your own cherries, but
don't sing your own praises.
Boasters are never worth a button with
the shank off. Long tongue, short hand.
Great talkers, little doers. Dogs that bark
much run away when it is time to bite.
The leanest pig squeaks most. It is not
the hen which cackles most that lays most
eggs. Saying and doing are two different
things. It is the barren cow that bellows.
TALL TALK, 195
There may be great noise of threshing
where there is no wheat. Great boast, little
roast. Much froth, little beer. Drums
sound loud because there is nothing in
them. Good men know themselves too
well to chant their own praises. Barges
without cargoes float high on the canal, but
the fuller they are the lower they sink.
Good cheese sells itself without puffery;
good wine needs no bush ; and when men
are really excellent, people find it out with-
out telling. Bounce is the sign of folly.
Loud braying reveals an ass. If a man is
ignorant and holds his tongue, no one will
despise him ; but if he rattles on with an
empty pate, and a tongue that brags like
forty, he will write out his own name in
capital letters, and they will be these —
F, O, O, L.
As "by the ears the ass is known " —
A truth as sure as parsons preach,
"The man," as proverbs long have shown,
" Is seen most plainly through his speech. "
" I would not choose to be gossipped to death by wild washerwomen." — Page 199
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