to use attention tomorrow, how
much better is it to do so today? if tomorrow it is in your interest to
attend, much more is it today, that you may be able to do so tomorrow
also, and may not defer it again to the third day.

* * * * *

AGAINST OR TO THOSE WHO READILY TELL THEIR OWN AFFAIRS.--When a man has
seemed to us to have talked with simplicity (candor) about his own
affairs, how is it that at last we are ourselves also induced to
discover to him our own secrets and we think this to be candid behavior?
In the first place, because it seems unfair for a man to have listened
to the affairs of his neighbor, and not to communicate to him also in
turn our own affairs; next, because we think that we shall not present
to them the appearance of candid men when we are silent about our own
affairs. Indeed, men are often accustomed to say, I have told you all my
affairs, will you tell me nothing of your own? where is this done?
Besides, we have also this opinion that we can safely trust him who has
already told us his own affairs; for the notion rises in our mind that
this man could never divulge our affairs because he would be cautious
that we also should not divulge his. In this way also the incautious are
caught by the soldiers at Rome. A soldier sits by you in a common dress
and begins to speak ill of Caesar; then you, as if you had received a
pledge of his fidelity by his having begun the abuse, utter yourself
also what you think, and then you are carried off in chains.

Something of this kind happens to us also generally. Now as this man has
confidently intrusted his affairs to me, shall I also do so to any man
whom I meet? (No), for when I have heard, I keep silence, if I am of
such a disposition; but he goes forth and tells all men what he has
heard. Then, if I hear what has been done, if I be a man like him, I
resolve to be revenged, I divulge what he has told me; I both disturb
others, and am disturbed myself. But if I remember that one man does not
injure another, and that every man's acts injure and profit him, I
secure this, that I do not anything like him, but still I suffer what I
do suffer through my own silly talk.

True, but it is unfair when you have heard the secrets of your neighbor
for you in your turn to communicate nothing to him. Did I ask you for
your secrets, my man? did you communicate your affairs on certain terms,
that you should in return hear mine also? If you