ice, he will then be in my opinion in all respects an
excellent fellow." For he who receives pardon on small matters is
content that his friend should rebuke him on matters of more moment: but
the man who is ever on the scold, everywhere sour and glum, knowing and
prying into everything, is scarcely tolerable to his children or
brothers, and insufferable to his slaves.

Sec. XXXVI. But since "neither," to use the words of Euripides, "do all
troubles proceed only from old age,"[489] nor from the stupidity of our
friends, we ought to observe not only the shortcomings but also the good
points of our friends, aye, by Zeus, and to be ready to praise them
first, and only censure them afterwards. For as iron receives its
consistency and temper by first being submitted to fire and so made soft
and then dipped into cold water, so when friends have been first warmed
and melted with praises we can afterwards use gentle remonstrance, which
has a similar effect to that of dipping in the case of the metal. For an
opportunity will offer itself to say, "Are those actions worthy to be
compared with these? Do you see what fruits virtue yields? These are the
things we your friends ask of you, these become you, for these you are
designed by nature; but all that other kind of conduct we must reject
with abhorrence, 'cast it away on a mountain, or throw it into the
roaring sea.'"[490] For as a clever doctor would prefer to cure the
illness of his patient by sleep and diet rather than by castor or
scammony, so a kind friend and good father or teacher delight to use
praise rather than blame to correct the character. For nothing makes
rebuke less painful or more beneficial than to refrain from anger, and
to inveigh against wrong-doing mildly and kindly. And so we ought not
sharply to drive home the guilt of those who deny it, or prevent their
making their defence, but even contrive to furnish them with specious
excuses, and if they seem reluctant to give a bad motive for their
action we ought ourselves to find for them a better, as Hector did for
his brother Paris,

"Unhappy man, thy anger was not good,"[491]

suggesting that his absconding from the battle was not running away or
cowardice, but only anger. And Nestor says to Agamemnon,

"You only yielded to your lofty passion."[492]

For it has, I think, a better moral tendency to say "You forgot," or
"You did it inadvertently," than to say "You acted unfairly," or "You
behaved shamefu