Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.

Contentions fierce, Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.

When individuals approach one another with deep purposes on both sides they seldom come at once to the matter which they have most at heart. They dread the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it.

Stir up the hornets. [Fr., Irriter les freslons.]

In excessive altercation, truth is lost. [Lat., Nimium altercando veritas amittitur.]

Thus when a barber and collier fight, The barber beats the luckless collier--white; The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack, And, big with vengeance, beats the barber--black. In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o'er spread, And beats the collier and the barber--red; Black, red, and white, in various clouds are toss'd, And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost.