Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/168

146 epitaphs or inscriptions of sepulchres? or what pain is it for us as we walk along the galleries, to pass over with our eyes the writings upon the walls; supposing thus much secretly within ourselves, as a maxim or general rule: That there is no goodness, no pleasure, nor profit at all in such writings: for there you may read, That some one doth remember another, and make mention of him by way of hearty commendations in good part; or such an one is the best friend that I have, and many other such-like mottoes are there to be seen and read, full of toys and vanities, which at first seem not to do any hurt if one read them, but in truth, secretly they do much harm, in that they breed in us a custom and desire to seek after needless and impertinent matters. For like as hunters suffer not their hounds to range out of order, nor to follow every scent, but keep them up and hold them in by their collars, reserving by that means their smelling pure and neat altogether for their proper work, to the end that they should be more eager and hot to trace the footing of their game, and as the poet saith:

even so, we ought to cut off these excursions and foolish trains that curious folk make to hear and see everything; to keep them short (I say) and turn them another way to the seeing and hearing only of that which is good and profitable. Also, as we observe in eagles and lions, that whiles they go upon the ground they draw their talons and claws inward, for fear lest they should dull the sharp edge and wear the points thereof; so considering that curiosity hath a certain quick conceit and fine edge (as it were), apt to apprehend and know many things, let us take heed that we do not employ and blunt the same in the worst and vilest of all others.

Secondly, we are to accustom ourselves as we pass by another man's door not to look in, nor to cast our eyes to anything whatsoever that there is: for that the eye is one of the hands that curiosity useth. But let us always have in readiness and think upon the apothegm of Xenocrates, who was wont to say that it skilled not, but was all one, whether we set our feet or eyes within the house of another man. For it is neither meet and just, nor an honest and pleasant sight, according to the old verse: