Well, but after all, who is this flatterer then, whom
we ought so industriously to avoid?
I answer: He who neither professes nor seems to flatter;
who never haunts your kitchen, is never observed to watch
the dial that he may nick your supper-time; who won't
drink to excess, but will keep his brains about him; who
is prying and inquisitive, would mix in your business, and
wind himself into your secrets: in short, he who acts the
friend, not with the air of a comedian or a satirist, but
with the port and gravity of a tragedian. For, as Plato
says, It is the height of injustice to appear just and be
really a knave. So are we to look upon those flatterers
as most dangerous who walk not barefaced but in disguise, who make no sport but mind their. business; for
these often personate the true and sincere friend so exactly, that it is enough to make him fall under the like
suspicion of a cheat, unless we be extremely curious in
remarking the difference betwixt them. It is storied of
Gobryas (one of the Persian nobility, who joined with
Darius against the Magi), that he pursued one of them
into a dark room, and there fell upon him; during the
scuffle Darius came in and drew upon the enemy, but durst
not push at him, lest perhaps he might wound his confederate Gobryas with the thrust; whereupon Gobryas
bade him, rather than fail, run both through together.
But since we can by no means admit of that vulgar saying,
Let my friend perish, so my enemy perish with him, but
had rather still endeavor at the discovery of a parasite
from a friend, notwithstanding the nearness of the resemblance, we ought to use our utmost care, lest at any time
we indifferently reject the good with the bad, or unadvisedly retain the bad with the good, the friend and flatterer
[p. 105]
together. For as those wild grains which usually
grow up with wheat, and are of the same figure and bigness with it, are not easily winnowed from it,—for they
either cannot pass through the holes of the sieve, if narrow, or pass together with the wheat, if larger,—so is it
infinitely difficult to distinguish flattery from friendship,
because the one so exquisitely mixes with all the passions,
humors, interests, and inclinations of the other.
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