Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/62

40 And like as we do not commend such; no more can we praise and approve of those who measure friendship only by honesty and profit: thinking withal, that such as converse and company with them pleasantly are straightways to be attainted as flatterers, no less than if they were taken in the very act of flattery: For surely a friend should not be unpleasant and unsavoury, without any seasoning (as it were) of delightsome qualities: neither is friendship to be accounted venerable in this respect, that it is austere or bitter; but even that very beauty and gravity that it hath is sweet and desirable, and as the poet saith:

And not he only who is in calamity

according as Euripides saith, but true amity addeth no less grace, pleasure, and joy unto those that be in prosperity, than it easeth them of sorrow and grief who are in adversity. Evenus was wont to say that of all pleasant sauce, fire was the best and most effectual: And even so God having mingled friendship with this life of ours, hath made all things joyous, sweet, pleasant and acceptable, where a friend is present and enjoyeth his part. For otherwise a man cannot devise nor express how and in what sort a flatterer could insinuate himself and creep into favour, under the colour of pleasure, if he saw that friendship in the own nature never admitted anything that was pleasant and delectable. But like as false and counterfeit pieces of gold, which will not abide the touch, represent only the lustre and bright glittering of gold: So a flatterer resembling the sweet and pleasant behaviour of a friend, sheweth himself always jocund, merry and delightsome, without crossing at any time.

And therefore we ought not presently to suspect all them to be flatterers who are given to praise others: For otherwhiles to commend a man, so it be done in time and place convenient, is a property no less befitting a friend than to blame and reprehend: Nay, contrariwise, there is nothing so adverse and repugnant to amity and society than testiness, thwarting, complaining, and evermore fault-finding: whereas, if a man knoweth'the goodwill of his friend to be ever prest and ready to yield due praises, and those in full measure to things well done, he will bear more patiently and in better part another time his free reprehensions