Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/260

238 unto such a man as is inquisitive and entereth into talk as touching the debate of brethren to sound and search into some secrets between them, one ought to answer thus: Surely there would be no quarrel between my brother and me if neither I nor he would give ear to carry-tales and pick-thanks between us.

But now it Cometh to pass (I wot not how), that when our eyes be sore and in pain, we turn away our sight unto those bodies and colours which make no reverberation or repercussion back again upon it; but when we have some complaint and quarrel, or conceive anger or suspicion against our brethren, we take pleasure to hear those that make all worse, and are apt enough to take any colour and infection, presented to us by them, where it were more needful and expedient at such a time to avoid their enemies and evil-willers, and to keep ourselves out of the way from them; and contrariwise to converse with their allies, familiars, and friends; and with them to bear company especially, yea, and to enter into their own houses for to complain and blame them before their very wives, frankly and with liberty of speech. And yet it is a common saying. That brethren when they walk together should not so much as let a stone to be betwixt them; nay, they are discontented and displeased in mind, in case a dog chance to run overthwart them; and a number of such other things they fear, whereof there is not one able to make any breach or division between brethren; but in the meanwhile they perceive not how they receive into the midst of them, and suffer to traverse and cross them, men of a currish and dogged nature, who can do nothing else but bark between, and sow false rumours and calumniations between one and another, for to provoke them to jar and fall together by the ears: and therefore to great reason and very well to this purpose said Theophrastus; That if all things (according to the old proverb) should be common among friends, then most of all they ought to entertain friends in common; for private familiarities and acquaintances apart one from another are great means to disjoin and turn away their hearts; for if they fall to love others, and make choice of other familiar friends, it must needs follow by consequence to take pleasure and delight in other companies, to esteem and affect others, yea, and to suffer themselves to be ruled and led by others. For friendships and amities frame the natures and dispositions of men; neither is there a more certain and assured sign of different humours and divers natures than the choice and election of different friends, in such sort as neither to eat and drink, nor to play, nor