Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/242

220 or omitting some other business which hardly will afford excuse, they are to lay the fault and blame upon his very nature and disposition, as being more meet and fitted for other matters. And hereto accordeth well that speech of Agamemnon in Homer:

Even so one good brother may excuse another and say: He thought I should have done it, and left this duty for me to do: neither are fathers themselves strait-laced, but willingly enough to admit such translations and gentle inversions of names as these; they can be content to believe their children, when they term the supine negligence of their brethren plain simplicity, their stupidity and blockishness, upright dealing and a good conscience; their quarrelous and litigious nature, a mind loth to be trodden under foot and utterly despised.

In this manner he that will proceed with an intent only to appease his father's wrath shall gain thus much moreover; That not only his father's choler will thereby be much diminished toward his brother, but his love also much more increased unto himself: howbeit, afterwards when he hath thus made all well, and satisfied his father to his good contentment, then must he turn and address himself to his brother apart, touch him to the quick, spare him never a whit, but with all liberty of language tell him roundly of his fault and rebuke him for his trespass; for surely it is not good to use indulgency and connivancy to a brother, no more than to insult over him too much, and tread him under foot if he have done amiss, for as this bewrayeth a joy that one taketh at his fall, so that implieth a guiltiness with him in the same transgression: but in this rebuke and reproof such measure would be kept that it may testify a care to do him good, and yet a displeasure for his fault; for commonly he that hath been a most earnest advocate and affectionate intercessor for him to his father and mother, will be his sharpest accuser afterwards when he hath him alone by himself. But put the case, that a brother having not at all offended, be blamed notwithstanding and accused to father and mother, howsoever in other things it is the part of humanity and dutiful kindness to sustain and bear all anger and froward displeasure of parents; yet in this case the allegations and defences of one brother in the justification of another, when he is innocent, unjustly traduced, and hardly used or wronged by his parents, are not to be blamed,