Of Bashfulness (11-15)

Again, Plato writing to Dionysius, by Helicon of Cyzicus, gives the bearer a good character for honesty and moderation, but withalin the postscript tells him, Yet this I write of a man, who, as such, is by nature an animal subject to change. Xenocrates, though a man of rigid morals, was prevailed upon by this kind of modesty to recommend to Polysperchon a person, as it proved in the end, not so honest as he was reputed. For when the Macedonian in compliment bade him call for whatever he wanted, he presently desired a talent of silver. Polysperchon ordered it accordingly to be paid him, but despatched away letters immediately to Xenocrates, advising him for the future to be better acquainted with those he recommended. Now all this came to pass through Xenocrates’s ignorance of his man; but we oftentimes give testimonials and squander away our money to advance such as we are very well satisfied have no qualification or desert to recommend them, and this too with the forfeiture of our reputation, and without the pleasure that men have who are profuse upon whores and flatterers, but all the while in an agony, and struggling with that impudence which does violence to our reason. Whereas, if at any time, that verse can here be properly used,—

I know the dreadful consequence, and fear,

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All passions of the mind have repentance still pursuing them closely, but it overtakes this of bashfulness in the very act. For we give with regret, and we are in confusion

But to proceed to another head, we must perform all reasonable and good offices to those that deserve them, not forced thereto by fear of shame, but cheerfully and readily. But where any thing prejudicial or unhandsome is required of us, we ought to remember the story that is related of Zeno. Meeting a young man of his acquaintance that slunk away under a wall, as if he would not be seen, and having learned from him that he withdrew from a fiend that importuned him to perjure himself, What, replied he, you novice! is that fellow not afraid or ashamed to require of thee what is unreasonable and unjust, and darest thou not stand against him in that which is just and honest? For he that first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defence against a knave, was but an ill teacher, advising us to keep off wickedness by imitating it. But for such as presume upon our modesty, to keep them off with their own weapons, and not gratify their unreasonable impudence with an easy compliance, is but just and good, and the duty of every wise man.

Neither is it a hard matter to put off some mean and ordinary people, which will be apt to prove troublesome to you in that nature. Some shift them off with a jest or a smart repartee; as Theocritus, being asked in the bath to lend his flesh-brush by two persons, whereof one was a stranger to him, and the other a notorious thief, made answer: You, sir, I know not well enough, and you I know too well. And Lysimache, the priestess of Minerva Polias in Athens, when the muleteers that brought the provision for the festival desired her to let them drink, replied, No; for I fear it may grow into a custom. So again, when a captain’s son, a young fluttering bully but a great coward, petitioned Antigonus for promotion, the latter answered: Sir, it is my way to reward my soldiers for their valor, not their parentage.

But if he that is importunate with us prove a man of great honor or interest (and such persons are not easily answered with excuses, when they come for our vote in the senate or judicial cases), at such a time perhaps it will be neither easy nor necessary to behave ourselves to them as Cato did towards Catulus. Catulus, a person of the highest rank among the Romans, and at that time censor, once waited on Cato, who was then quaestor and still a young man, on behalf of a friend whom Cato had fined; and when he had used a great deal of importunity to no purpose, yet would not be denied, Cato grew out of patience, and told him, It would be an unseemly sight to have the censor dragged hence by my officers. Catulus at this went away, out of countenance and very angry. But consider whether the answers of Agesilaus and Themistocles have not in them much more of candor and equity. Agesilaus, being bidden by his own father to give sentence contrary to law, replied: I have been always taught by you to be observant of the laws, and I shall endeavor to obey you at this time,by doing nothing contrary to them. And Themistocles, when