Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/196

174 Strato, the natural philosopher, when he heard that Menedemus, his concurrent, had many more scholars by far than he: What marvel is that (quoth he) if there be more that desire to be washed and bathed than are willing to be anointed and rubbed? Aristotle, writing to Antipater: It is not meet (quoth he) that Alexander alone should think highly of himself, in that he is able to command so many men; but they also have good cause to be as well conceited of themselves, who have the grace to believe of the gods as they ought. For surely they that thus can make the best use of their own estate, shall never be vexed, nor at their neighbour's welfare pine away for very envy. Which of us now doth require or think it fit that the vine-tree should bear figs, or the olive grapes? and yet we ourselves, if we may not have all at once, to wit, the superiority and pre-eminence among rich men, among eloquent orators and learned clerks, both at home and abroad, in the schools among philosophers, in the field among warriors; as well among flattering claw-backs as plain-spoken and tell-truth friends: to conclude unless we may go before all-pinching penny-fathers in frugality; yea, and surpass all spendthrifts in riot and prodigality; we are out of our little wits; we accuse ourselves daily like sycophants; we are unthankful; we repine and grumble as if we lived in penury and want. Over and besides, do we not see that nature herself doth teach us sufficiently in this point? For like as she hath provided for sundry kinds of brute and wild beasts, divers sorts of food: for all feed not upon flesh, all peck not upon seeds and grains of plants, neither do all live upon roots which they work from under the ground; even so she hath bestowed upon mankind many means to get their living, while some live by grazing and feeding of cattle, others by tillage, some be fowlers, others fishers: and therefore ought every man to chuse that course of life which sorteth best with his own nature, and wholly to apply and set his mind thereto; leaving unto others that which pertaineth to them, and not to reprove and convince Hesiodus when he thus speaketh, although not to the full and sufficiently to the point:

The potter to potter doth bear envy. One carpenter to another hath a spightful eye.

For jealous we are not only of those who exercise the same art and follow that course of life which we do, but the rich also do envy the learned and eloquent; noble men the rich; advocates and lawyers, captious and litigious sophisters; yea, and (that