Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/119

Rh well advised, who incurreth the envy of men for matters of greatest weight and importance; even so we say: That if a friend will adventure the danger and heavy load and ill will for blaming his friends, he must make choice of such matters as be of great moment and much consequence: for if he will take exceptions at every trifle and little thing indifferent; if he will seem evermore to be finding fault, and carry himself not like a kind and affectionate friend, but a precise, severe, and imperious schoolmaster, to spy all faults, and correct every point and tittle; certes, he shall find afterwards, that his admonitions, even for the greatest offences, shall not be regarded, nor any whit effectual: for that he hath used already to no purpose, his frank reprehension (the sovereign remedy for gross and main faults) in many others that are but slight, and not worthy reproof: much like unto a physician, who hath employed and spent a medicine that is strong and bitter, howbeit, necessary and costly, in small infirmities, and of no reckoning to speak of. A friend therefore is to look unto this; That it be not an ordinary matter with him to be always quarrelsome, and desirous to find one fault or other. And if peradventure he meet with such a companion as is apt to search narrowly into all light matters, to cavil and wrangle for everything, and ready to raise calumniations like a petty sycophant for toys and trifles, he may take the better advantage and occasion thereby for to reprove him again, in case he chance to fail in greater and more gross faults.

Philotimus the physician answered prettily unto one, who having an impostume grown to suppuration about his liver, shewed unto him a finger that was sore, and troubled with some blister or whitflaw, and desired his counsel for the same: My good friend (quoth he), the disease that you are to look unto is not a whitflaw nor about your nail root; even so, there may be occasion and opportunity offered unto a friend, to say unto one that ever and anon is finding fault, and reproving small errors not worth the noting, to wit, sports and pastimes, feasting and merry meeting, or such-like trifling tricks of youth: Good sir, let us find the means rather, that this man whom you thus blame may cast off the harlot that he keeps, or give over his dice-playing; for otherwise he is a man of excellent and wonderful good parts. For he that perceiveth how he is tolerated or winked at, yea, and pardoned in small matters, will not be unwilling that a friend should use his liberty in reproving his greater vices: whereas he that is evermore urgent upon one, pressing and lying hard unto him; always bitter and unpleasant,