FullReads

Sec. V. As then this disease is the cause of much mischief, we must try and exterminate it by assiduous effort, beginning first, as people are wont to do in other matters, with small and easy things. For example, if anyone pledge you to drink with him at a dinner when you have had enough, do not be bashful, or do violence to nature, but put the cup down without drinking. Again, if somebody else challenge you to play at dice with him in your cups, be not bashful or afraid of ridicule, but imitate Xenophanes, who, when Lasus of Hermione called him coward because he would not play at dice with him, admitted that he was a great coward and had no courage for what was ignoble. Again, if you meet with some prating fellow who attacks you and sticks to you, do not be bashful, but get rid of him, and hasten on and pursue your undertaking. For such flights and repulses, keeping you in practice in trying to overcome your bashfulness in small matters, will prepare you for greater occasions. And here it is well to record a remark of Demosthenes. When the Athenians were going to help Harpalus, and to war against Alexander, all of a sudden Philoxenus, who was Alexander’s admiral, was sighted in the offing. And the populace being greatly alarmed, and speechless for fear, Demosthenes said, “What will they do when they see the sun, if they cannot lift their eyes to face a lamp?” And what will you do in important matters, if the king desires anything, or the people importune you, if you cannot decline to drink when your friend asks you, or evade the onset of some prating fellow, but allow the trifler to waste all your time, from not having nerve to say, “I will see you some other time, I have no leisure now.”[649]

Sec. VI. Moreover, the use and practice of restraining one’s bashfulness in small and unimportant matters is advantageous also in regard to praise. For example, if a friend’s harper sings badly at a drinking party, or an actor hired at great cost murders[650] Menander, and most of the party clap and applaud, I find it by no means hard, or bad manners, to listen silently, and not to be so illiberal as to praise contrary to one’s convictions. For if in such matters you are not master of yourself, what will you do if your friend reads a poor poem, or parades a speech stupidly and ridiculously written?[651] You will praise it of course, and join the flatterers in loud applause. But how then will you find fault with your friend if he makes mistakes in business? How will you be able to correct him, if he acts improperly in reference to some office, or marriage, or the state? For I cannot indeed assent to the remark of Pericles to his friend, who asked him to bear false witness in his favour even to the extent of perjury, “I am your friend as far as the altar.” He went too far. But he that has long accustomed himself never to go against his convictions in praising a speaker, or clapping a singer, or laughing at a dull buffoon, will never go to this length, nor say to some impudent fellow in such matters, “Swear on my behalf, bear false witness, pronounce an unjust verdict.”

Sec. VII. So also we ought to refuse people that want to borrow money of us, from being accustomed to say No in small and easily refused matters. Thus Archelaus, king of the Macedonians, being asked at supper for a gold cup by a man who thought Receive the finest word in the language, bade a boy give it to Euripides,[652] and gazing intently on the man said to him, “You are fit to ask, and not to receive, and he is fit to receive without asking.” Thus did he make judgement and not bashfulness the arbiter of his gifts and favours. Yet we oftentimes pass over our friends who are both deserving and in need, and give to others who continually and impudently importune us, not from the wish to give but from the inability to say No. So the older Antigonus, being frequently annoyed by Bion, said, “Give a talent to Bion and necessity.” Yet he was of all the kings most clever and ingenious at getting rid of such importunity. For on one occasion, when a Cynic asked him for a drachma, he replied, “That would be too little for a king to give;”[653] and when the Cynic rejoined, “Give me then a talent,” he met him with, “That would be too much for a Cynic to receive.”[654] Diogenes indeed used to go round begging to the statues in the Ceramicus, and when people expressed their astonishment said he was practising how to bear refusals. And we must practise ourselves in small matters, and exercise ourselves in little things, with a view to refusing people who importune us, or would receive from us when inconvenient, that we may be able to avoid great miscarriages. For no one, as Demosthenes says,[655] if he expends his resources on unnecessary things, will have means for necessary ones. And our disgrace is greatly increased, if we are deficient in what is noble, and abound in what is trivial.