There is the following passage in Jeffery Archer’s fiction, “Be careful what you wish for”:
“If Diego failed to turn up, Cedric had already decided that the game
wouldn’t be worth the candle, to quote Mr. Sherlock Homes. He couldn’t
risk placing all his shares on the Market while Diego remained in
London, because if he did, it would be (Diego’s father) Matinez who
would end up blowing the candle out." – Page 325.
I checked the meaning of “worth the candle” on Google, and found the following definition in dictionary.reference.com.;
"The returns from an activity or enterprise do not warrant the time, money or effort required. This expression, which began as a translation of a term used by the French essayist Michel de Montaigne in 1580, alludes to gambling by candlelight, which involved the expense of illumination. If the winnings were not sufficient, they did not warrant the expense. Used figuratively, it was a proverb within a century.”
Jeffery Archer says it’s a quote from Sherlock Homes, namely Arthur Conan Doyle.
dictionary.reference.com, claims it’s the term invented by Michel de Montaigne.
Which is right?
If it’s from Montaigne’s “The Essay” (or Sherlock Homes stories), what is the English version of the original text of the passage including this phrase?
Best Answer
The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs confirms its French origin and de Montaigne as its first user. Conan Doyle just used it in later years.
According to The Wordsworth Dictionary of Idiom the saying is a translation from the French:
and the Allen's Dictionary of English Phrases confirms the same origin.
It may be the case that it was a common saying in medieval times that was registrered in writing at some point by some writer (apparently de Montaigne):
According World Wide Words it refer to a medieval saying:
And The Phrase Finder seems to confirm: