Be not bashful and mealy-mouthed in refusing him that you are satisfied
has a pique against you; but never reject him that seemeth to put his
trust in you. For if you invite, you must expect to be invited again;
and some time or other your entertainment will be repaid you, if
bashfulness have once softened or turned the edge of that diffidence
which ought to be your guard.
5. To the end therefore that we may get the better of this disease,
which is the cause of so many evils, we must make our first attempts
(as our custom is in other things) upon matters of no great difficulty.
As, if one drink to you after you have taken what is sufficient, be
not so foolishly modest to do violence to your nature, but rather
venture to pass the glass. Another, it may be, would tempt you to play
at dice while drinking; be not over-persuaded into a compliance, for
fear of being the subject of his drollery, but reply with Xenophanes,
when Lasus of Hermione called him coward because he refused to play
at dice: Yes, said he, I confess myself the greatest coward in the
world, for I dare not do an ill thing. Again, you light upon an
impertinent talker, that sticks upon you like a burr; don’t be bashful,
but break off the discourse, and pursue your business. These evasions
and repulses, whereby our resolution and assurance are exercised in
matters of less moment, will accustom us to it by degrees in greater
occasions. And here it will be but seasonable to give you a passage,
as it is recorded of Demosthenes. The Athenians having one time been
moved to send succors to Harpalus, and themselves to engage in a war
against Alexander, it happened that Philoxenus, Alexander’s admiral,
unexpectedly arrived on their coast; and the people being so astonished
as to be speechless for very fear, Demosthenes cried out: How would
they endure the sun, who are not able to look against a lamp! Or how
would you comport yourself in weightier concerns, while your prince or
the people had an awe over you, if you cannot refuse a glass of wine
when an acquaintance offers it, or turn off an impertinent babbler,
but suffer the eternal trifler to walk over you without telling him,
Another time, good sir, at present I am in haste.
6. Besides all this, the exercising such a resolution is of great use
in praising others. If one of my friend’s harpers play lewdly, or a
comedian he has hired at a great rate murder a piece of Menander in the
acting, although the vulgar clap their hands and admire, I think it
no moroseness or ill-breeding to sit silently all the while, without
servilely joining in the common applauses contrary to my judgment.
For if you scruple to deal openly with him in these cases, what will
you do, should he repeat to you an insipid composition of his own,
or submit to your revisal a ridiculous oration? You will applaud,
of course, and enter yourself into the list of common parasites and
flatterers! But how then can you direct him impartially in the greatest
administrations of his life? how be free with him where he fails in any
duties of his trust or marriage, or neglects the offices incumbent on
him as a member of the community? I must confess, I cannot by any means
approve of the reply Pericles made to a friend who besought him to give
false evidence, and that too upon oath, when he thus answered: As far
as the altar I am wholly at your service. Methinks he went too far. But
he that has long before accustomed himself not to commend any thing
against his judgment, or applaud an ill voice, or seem pleased with
indecent scurrilities, will never suffer things to come to that issue;
nor will any one be so bold as to solicit him in this manner: Swear on
my side, give false evidence, or bring in an unjust verdict.
7. After the same manner we may learn to refuse such as come to borrow
considerable sums of us, if we have used to deny in little matters
where refusal is easy. As Archelaus, king of Macedon, sat at supper,
one of his retinue, a fellow who thought there was nothing so honest
as to receive, begged of him a golden cup. But the king commanded a
waiter to give it immediately to Euripides: For you, sir, said he, are
fit indeed to ask any thing, but to receive nothing; and he deserves to
receive, though he lacks the confidence to ask. Thus wisely did he make
his judgment, and not bashful timidity, his guide in bestowing favors.
Yet we oftentimes, when the honesty, nearness, and necessities of our
friends and relations are not motives sufficient to prevail with us to
their relief, can give profusely to impudence and importunity, not out
of any willingness to bestow our money so ill, but merely for want of
confidence and resolution to deny. This was the case of Antigonus the
elder. Being wearied out with the importunity of Bias, Give, said he
to his servants, one talent to Bias and necessity. Yet at other times
he was as expert at encountering such addresses as any prince, and
dismissed them with as remarkable answers. Thus a certain Cynic one
day begging of him a groat, he made answer, That is not for a prince
to give. And the poor man replying, Then bestow a talent, he reparteed
briskly, Nor that for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive. Diogenes
went about begging to all the statues in the Ceramicus; and his answer
to some that wondered at his fancy in it was, he was practising how
to bear a repulse. But indeed it chiefly lies upon us to exercise
ourselves in smaller matters to refuse an unreasonable request, that
we may not be at loss how to refuse on occasions of greater magnitude.
For no one, as Demosthenes says, who has spent all the money that he
had in unnecessary expenses, will have plenty of money that he has
not for his necessary expenses.[35] And our disgrace is increased many
fold, if we want what is necessary or decent, and abound in trifles and
fopperies.
8. Yet bashfulness is not only a bad steward of our estate, but even
in weightier concerns it refuses to hearken to the wholesome advice
of right reason. Thus, in a dangerous fit of sickness, we send not to
the ablest physician, for fear of giving offence to another of our
acquaintance. Or, in taking tutors and governors for our children, we
make choice of such as obtrude themselves upon us, not such as are
better qualified for that service. Or, in our lawsuits, we regard not
to obtain counsel learned in the law, because we must gratify the
son of some friend or relation, and give him an opportunity to show
himself in the world. Nay, lastly, you shall find some that bear the
name of philosophers, who call themselves Epicureans or Stoics, not out
of choice, or upon the least conviction, but merely to oblige their
friends or acquaintance, who have taken advantage of their modesty.
Since then the case is so with us, we ought to prepare and exercise
ourselves in things that we daily meet with and of course, not so much
as indulging that foolish weakness in the choice of a barber or fuller,
or in lodging in a paltry inn when better accommodation is to be had,
to oblige the landlord who has cringed to us. But if it be merely
to break ourselves of such follies, in those cases still we should
make use of the best, though the difference be but inconsiderable; as
the Pythagoreans were strict in observing not to cross their right
knee with the left, or to use an even number with an odd, though all
things else were indifferent. We must observe also, when we celebrate
a sacrifice or keep a wedding or make a public entertainment, to
deny ourselves so far as not to invite any that have been extremely
complacent to us or that put themselves upon us, before those who
are known for their good-humor or whose conversation is like to prove
beneficial. For he that has accustomed himself thus far will hardly be
caught and surprised, nay, rather he shall not so much as be tempted,
in greater instances.
9. And thus much may suffice concerning exercising ourselves. My
first use of what has been said is to observe, that all passions and
distempers of the mind are still accompanied with those very evils
which by their means we hoped to avoid. Thus disgrace pursues ambition;
pain and indisposition, sensuality; softness and effeminacy are fretted
with troubles; contentiousness with disappointment and defeats.
But this is nowhere more conspicuous than in bashfulness, which,
endeavoring to avoid the smoke of reproach, throws itself into the
fire. Such men, wanting confidence to withstand those that unreasonably
importune them, afterwards feel shame before those who justly accuse
them, and for fear of a slight private rebuke incur more public
disgrace. For example, not having the heart to deny a friend that
comes to borrow, in short time they are reduced to the same extremity
themselves, and exposed openly. Some again, after promising to help
friends in a lawsuit, are ashamed to face the opposite party, and are
forced to hide their heads and run away. Many have been so unreasonably
weak in this particular as to accept of disadvantageous proposals of
marriage for a daughter or sister, and upon second thoughts have been
forced to bring themselves off with an arrant lie.
10. One made this observation of the people of Asia, that they were
all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that
syllable No; but he spake only in raillery. But now the bashful man,
though he be not able to say one word, has but to raise his brows or
nod downward, as if he minded not, and he may decline many ungrateful
and unreasonable offices. Euripides was wont to say, Silence is an
answer to a wise man;[36] but we seem to have greater occasion for
it in our dealings with fools and unreasonable persons, for men of
breeding and sense will be satisfied with reason and fair words. Upon
this account we should be always provided with some notable sayings
and choice apothegms of famous and excellent men, to repeat to the
bashful,—such as that of Phocion to Antipater, You cannot have me for
both a friend and a flatterer; and that of his to the Athenians, when
they called upon him to come in for his share to defray the expenses of
a festival; I am ashamed, said he, pointing to Callicles his creditor,
to contribute towards your follies, without paying this man his due.
For, as Thucydides says, It is an ill thing to be ashamed of one’s
poverty, but much worse not to make use of lawful endeavors to avoid
it.[37] But he that is so foolishly good-natured that he cannot answer
one that comes to borrow,—