and Ulysses in the tragedy called the Scyrians, speaking to Achilles,—
Dost thou, who sprang from a brave Grecian race
By spinning thy great ancestors disgrace?
34. It is in the next place very improper for a man immediately to
retort or recriminate upon his monitor; for this is the way to occasion
heats and animosities betwixt them, and will speak him rather impatient
of any reproof at all than desirous to recompensate the kindness of one
with another. And therefore it is better to take his chiding patiently
for the present; and if he chance afterwards to commit a fault worth
your remarking upon, you have then an opportunity of repaying him in
his own coin. For being reminded, without the least intimation of
a former pique or dissatisfaction, that he himself did not use to
overlook the slips of his friend, he will receive the remonstrance
favorably at your hands, as being the return of kindness rather than of
anger and resentment.
35. Moreover, as Thucydides[134] says that he is a wise man who
will not venture to incur odium except for matters of the highest
concernment, so, when we do undertake the ungrateful office of censor,
it ought to be only upon weighty and important occasions. For he
who is peevish and angry at everybody and upon every trivial fault,
acting rather with the imperious pedantry of a schoolmaster than the
discretion of a friend, blunts the edge of his reprehensions in matters
of an higher nature, by squandering, like an unskilful physician, that
keen and bitter but necessary and sovereign remedy of his reproofs
upon many slight distempers that require not so exquisite a cure. And
therefore a wise man will industriously avoid the character of being a
person who is always chiding and delights in finding faults. Besides
that, whosoever is of that little humor that animadverts upon every
trifling peccadillo only affords his friend a fairer occasion of being
even with him one time or another for his grosser immoralities. As
Philotimus the physician, visiting a patient of his who was troubled
with an inflammation in his liver, but showed him his forefinger,
told him: Sir, your distemper is not a whitlow. In like manner we may
take occasion now and then to reply upon a man who carps at trifles
in another,—his diversions, pleasantries, or a glass of wine,—Let the
gentleman rather, sir, turn off his whore and leave off his dicing;
for otherwise he is an admirable person. For he who is dispensed with
in smaller matters more willingly gives his friend the liberty of
reprimanding him for greater. But there is neither child nor brother
nor servant himself able to endure a man of a busy inquisitive
humor, who brawls perpetually, and is sour and unpleasant upon every
inconsiderable occasion.
36. But since a weak and foolish friend, as Euripides says of old age,
has its strong as well as its feeble part, we ought to observe both,
and cheerfully extol the one before we fall foul upon the other. For as
we first soften iron in the fire and then dip it in water, to harden
it into a due consistence; so, after we have warmed and mollified
our friend by a just commendation of his virtues, we may then safely
temper him with a moderate reprehension of his vices. We may then say,
Are these actions comparable to the other? Do you not perceive the
advantages of a virtuous life? This is what we who are your friends
require of you. These are properly your own actions, for which nature
designed you; but for the other,
Let them for ever from you banished be,
To desert mountains or the raging sea.[135]
For as a prudent physician had rather recover his patient with sleep
and good diet than with castor and scammony, so a candid friend, a
good father or schoolmaster, will choose to reform men’s manners by
commendations rather than reproofs. For nothing in the world renders
our corrections so inoffensive and withal so useful as to address
ourselves to the delinquent in a kind, affectionate manner. And
therefore we ought not to deal roughly with him upon his denial of the
matter of fact, nor hinder him from making his just vindication; but we
should rather handsomely help him out in his apology and mollify the
matter. As Hector to his brother Paris,