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Another seasonable opportunity of reproving your
friend for his vices is when some third person has already
mortified him upon the same account. For a courteous
and obliging man will dexterously silence his accuser, and
then take him privately to task himself, advising him—if
for no other reason, yet to abate the insolence of his enemies—to manage himself more prudently for the future.
For how could they open their mouths against you, what
could they have to reproach you with, if you would but
reform such and such vices which render you obnoxious to
their censure? And by this means the offence that was
given lies at his door who roughly upbraided him; whilst
the advantage he reaps is attributed to the person who candidly advised him. But there are some who have got yet a
genteeler way of chiding, and that is, by chastising others
for faults which they know their friends really stand guilty
of. As my master Ammonius, perceiving once at his afternoon lecture that some of his scholars had dined more
plentifully than became the moderation of students, immediately commanded one of his freedmen to take his own
son and whip him. For what? says he. The youngster,
forsooth, must needs have vinegar sauce to his meat; and
with that casting his eye upon us, he gave us to understand
that we likewise were concerned in the reprehension.
[p. 148]
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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