Sec. V. As then this disease is the cause of much mischief, we must try and exterminate it by assiduous effort, beginning first, as people are wont to do in other matters, with small and easy things. For example, if anyone pledge you to drink with him at a dinner when you have had enough, do not be bashful, or do violence to nature, but put the cup down without drinking. Again, if somebody else challenge you to play at dice with him in your cups, be not bashful or afraid of ridicule, but imitate Xenophanes, who, when Lasus of Hermione called him coward because he would not play at dice with him, admitted that he was a great coward and had no courage for what was ignoble. Again, if you meet with some prating fellow who attacks you and sticks to you, do not be bashful, but get rid of him, and hasten on and pursue your undertaking. For such flights and repulses, keeping you in practice in trying to overcome your bashfulness in small matters, will prepare you for greater occasions. And here it is well to record a remark of Demosthenes. When the Athenians were going to help Harpalus, and to war against Alexander, all of a sudden Philoxenus, who was Alexander's admiral, was sighted in the offing. And the populace being greatly alarmed, and speechless for fear, Demosthenes said, "What will they do when they see the sun, if they cannot lift their eyes to face a lamp?" And what will you do in important matters, if the king desires anything, or the people importune you, if you cannot decline to drink when your friend asks you, or evade the onset of some prating fellow, but allow the trifler to waste all your time, from not having nerve to say, "I will see you some other time, I have no leisure now."[649]