Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/330

308 will be ready to enter the trial with us of all manner of fortune, and of whom every one will be prest and willing:

For neither is a ship shot or haled into the sea against so many storms and tempests; nor men do set and pitch so many stakes in a palisado for the defence of any place; or in havens raise banks and oppose dams against the like dangers, or in fear of so many perils, as friendship promiseth succour and refuge for, if it be founded surely and aright upon good proof and sufficient experience. As for such as before trial and experiment made do intrude themselves, coming and going for friends, such, when they be put to the trial and touch indeed, and then found like evil money, counterfeit or light, they that go without them be glad in their mind, and as many as have them wish with all their heart and pray to God for to be rid of them. But surely this is a troublesome and cumbrous thing, neither is it an easy matter to void and cast off such a friendship as this, so displeasant and offensive: for like as if some kind of bad meat do trouble and offend the stomach, a man can neither retain and hold it still, but it will put him to pain and breed hurt and corruption, nor yet put it off and send it out in such sort as it went in, but all filthy and loathsome, as being furred over with slime, and mixed confusedly with other humours, and wholly altered from the former state; even so an ill friend either tarrieth with us still to his own grief and ours both, or else away he goeth perforce with evil will, malice and enmity, like bitter choler that is vomited out of the stomach.

It is not good, therefore, to receive and admit of friends over-lightly and over-soon, nor to set our minds and knit our affections to those that come next hand and present themselves first, nor yet love those incontinently that seek to us and follow us; but rather to seek after them and follow them ourselves that are worthy of friendship: for we must not always choose that which is easy to be had and willing to be gotten; for we put by gorse and furzen bushes; we tread under foot briars and brambles though they catch hold of us and hang unto us as we walk whether we will or no; whereas we go forward to the olive-tree and the vine; and even so it is not always decent and good to entertain into our familiarity one that is ready to embrace and hang about us; but rather such ought we ourselves affectionately to embrace whom we have tried to be profitable unto us, and who