Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/365

Rh authority with mighty men and grand seigniors, and instead of striving to enterprise and do some great matter by way of emulation, betaketh himself to envy only, and so sits still doing nothing, and loseth all his courage, surely he bewrayeth that he is possessed with naught else but an idle, vain, and enervate kind of envy.

But he that is not blinded with the regard and sight of him whom he hateth, but with a right and just eye doth behold and consider all his life, his manners, designs, words, and deeds, shall soon perceive and find that the most part of those things which he envieth were achieved and gotten by such as have them, with their diligence, wisdom, forecast, and virtuous deeds: he thereupon bending all his spirits and whole mind thereto, will exercise (I trow) and sharpen his own desire of honour, glory, and honesty, yea, and cut off contrariwise that yawning drowsiness and idle sloth that is in his heart. Set case, moreover, that our enemies by flattery, by cautelous shifts and cunning practices, by pleading of cases at the bar, or by their mercenary and illiberal service in unhonest and foul matters, seem to have gotten some power, either with princes in courts, or with the people in states and cities; let the same never trouble us, but contrariwise cheer up our hearts and make us glad in regard of our own liberty, the pureness of our life and innocency unreproachable, which we may oppose against those indirect courses and unlawful means. For all the gold that is either above ground or underneath (according as Plato saith) is not able to weigh against virtue. And evermore this sentence of Solon we ought to have in readiness:

much less then will we exchange the acclamations and shouts of a popular multitude in theatres, which are won with a feast; nor the honours and prerogatives to sit uppermost at a table near unto the chamberlains, minions, favourites, concubines or lieutenants-general of kings and princes. For nothing is desirable, nothing to be effected, nothing indeed honest that proceedeth from an unhonest cause: But he that loveth (according as Plato saith) is always blinded by the thing which is loved, and sooner do we perceive and mark any unseemly thing that