Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/120

98 prying and looking into every corner, and taking knowledge of all things: such an one (I say) there is neither child nor brother will endure; nay, he is intolerable to his very servants: But like as Euripides saith:

No more is the folly of friends so bad but that we may pick some goodness out of them: we ought therefore to observe diligently, not only when they do amiss, but also when they do well: and verily at the first to be willing and most ready to praise: but afterwards we must do as the smiths who temper iron: For when they have given it a fire, and made it by that means soft, loose, and pliable, they drench and dip it in cold water, whereby it becometh compact and hard, taking thereby the due temperature of stiff steel; even so, when we perceive that our friends be well heat and relaxed (as it were) by hearing themselves praised by us, then we may come upon them by little and little with a tincture (as I may so say) of reproof, and telling them of their faults. Then will it be a fit time to speak unto a friend thus: How say you, are these pranks worthy to be compared with those parts? See you not the fruits that come of virtue? Lo, what we your friends require of you: these are the duties and offices which are beseeming your person: for these hath nature made and framed you. As for those lewd courses, fie upon them: Send such away, confine them far, Unto the mountain wild, Or into roaring sea, from land Let them be quite exil'd.

For like as an honest-minded and discreet physician will choose rather to cure the malady of his patient by rest and sleep, or by good nutriture and diet, than by castoreum or scammonium: even so, a kind and courteous friend, a good father and gentle schoolmaster, taketh pleasure and joyeth more to use praises than reproofs, in the reformation of manners. For there is nothing that maketh the man who boldly findeth fault with his friends to be so little offensive unto them, or to do more good and cure them better, than to be void of anger, and to seem after a mild sort in all love and affectionate goodwill to address himself unto them, when they do amiss. And therefore neither ought he to urge them overmuch, and seem too eagerly to convince them if they deny the thing, nor yet to debar them