It is not strictly true. Scarcely any proverb will bear picking to
pieces, and analyzing, as a botanist would pick to pieces and analyze
a rose or a tulip. Almost all dogs bark a little, now and then. Still
I believe those dogs bark the most that bite the least, and the dogs
that make a practice of biting the hardest and the oftenest, make very
little noise about it.

Have you never been passing by a house, and seen a little pocket
edition of a cur run out of the front door yard, to meet you, with
ever so much bravery and heroism, as if he intended to eat you at two
or three mouthfuls? What a barking he set up. The meaning of his _bow,
wow, wow_, every time he repeated the words, was, "I'll bite you! I'll
bite you!" But the very moment you turned round and faced him, he ran
back into the yard, as if forty tigers were after him. You see he was
all bark, and no bite.

Well, it is about the same with men and women, and boys and girls, as
it is with dogs. Those who bark most bite least, the world over.

Show me a boy who talks about being as bold as a lion, and I will show
you one with the heart of a young rabbit, just learning to eat
cabbage. I do dislike to see boys and girls boasting of what they can
do. It always gives me a low opinion of their merits.

There is Tom Thrasher. You don't know Tom, do you? Well, he is one of
your barking dogs. He is all the time boasting of the great things he
is able to do. Nobody ever saw him do any such things. Still he keeps
on boasting, right in the midst of the young people who know him
through and through, a great deal better than he knows himself. It is
strange that he should brag at that rate where everybody knows him.