What a different result one gets by changing the metaphor!
There's folks 'ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away the water.
A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.
If a woman's young and pretty, I think you can see her good looks all the better for her being plainly dressed.
Genius is the capacity for receiving and improving by discipline.
What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?