VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, this seemeth so indeed. Howbeit, yet
methinketh that you say very sore in some things concerning such
persons as are in continual prosperity. And they are, you know, not
a few; and they are also those who have the rule and authority of
this world in their hand. And I know well that when they talk with
such great learned men as can, I suppose, tell the truth; and when
they ask them whether, while they make merry here in earth all
their lives, they may not yet for all that have heaven afterwards
too; they do tell them "Yes, yes," well enough. For I have heard
them tell them so myself.
ANTHONY: I suppose, good cousin, that no very wise man, and
especially none that is also very good, will tell any man fully of
that fashion. But surely such as so say to them, I fear me that
they flatter them thus either for lucre or for fear.
Some of them think, peradventure, thus: "This man maketh much of me
now, and giveth me money also to fast and watch and pray for him.
But so, I fear me, would he do no more, if I should go tell him now
that all that I do for him will not serve him unless he go fast and
watch and pray for himself too. And if I should add thereto and say
further that I trust my diligent intercession for him may be the
means that God should the sooner give him grace to amend, and fast
and watch and pray and take affliction in his own body, for the
bettering of his sinful soul, he would be wonderous wroth with
that. For he would be loth to have any such grace at all as should
make him go leave off any of his mirth, and so sit and mourn for
his sin." Such mind as this, lo, have some of those who are not
unlearned, and have worldly wit at will, who tell great men such
tales as perilously beguile them. For the flatterer who so telleth
them would, if he told a true tale, jeopard to lose his lucre.
Some are there also who tell them such tales for consideration of
another fear. For seeing the man so sore set on his pleasure that
they despair of any amendment of his, whatsoever they should say to
him; and then seeing also that the man doth no great harm, but of a
courteous nature doth some good men some good; they pray God
themselves to send him grace. And so they let him lie lame still in
his fleshly lusts, at the pool that the gospel speaketh of, beside
the temple, in which they washed the sheep for the sacrifice, and
they tarry to see the water stirred. And when his good angel,
coming from God, shall once begin to stir the water of his heart,
and move him to the lowly meekness of a simple sheep, then if
he call them to him they will tell him another tale, and help to
bear him and plunge him into the pool of penance over the hard
ears! But in the meanwhile, for fear lest if he would wax never the
better he would wax much the worse; and from gentle, smooth, sweet,
and courteous, might wax angry, rough, froward, and sour, and
thereupon be troublous and tedious to the world to make fair
weather with; they give him fair words for the while and put him in
good comfort, and let him for the rest take his own chance.
And so deal they with him as the mother doth sometimes with her
child, when the little boy will not rise in time for her, but will
lie slug-abed, and when he is up weepeth because he has lain so
long, fearing to be beaten at school for his late coming thither.
She telleth him then that it is but early days, and he shall come
in time enough, and she biddeth him, "Go, good son. I warrant thee,
I have sent to thy master myself. Take thy bread and butter with
thee--thou shalt not be beaten at all!" And thus, if she can but
send him merry forth at the door, so that he weep not in her sight
at home, she careth not much if he be taken tardy and beaten when
he cometh to school.
Surely thus, I fear me, fare many friars and state's chaplains too,
in giving comfort to great men when they are both loth to displease
them. I cannot commend their doing thus, but surely I fear me thus
they do.