[Sidenote: C] In shunning a vice, Philopappus, our object should always be virtue, not the contrary vice. Some people think they escape being shamefaced by being shameless; that they escape being rustic by being ribald; that their behaviour becomes furthest from timidity and cowardice when they appear nearest to impudence and insolence. Some plead to themselves that they would rather be irreligious than superstitious, rather [Sidenote: D] knaves than simpletons. Their character may be likened to a piece of wood, which, through lack of the skill to straighten it, they crook to the opposite side. The ugliest way of refusing to flatter is to give useless pain. Our social intercourse must be boorishly ignorant of all the rules of good feeling when it is by being harsh and disagreeable that we avoid any creeping humbleness in our friendship, just as if we were the freedman in the comedy, who thinks that, to be properly enjoyed, ‘speech on equal terms’ means abusive speech. Since, therefore, it as an ugly thing when our striving to be agreeable lands us in flattery, and an ugly thing when, in the avoidance of flattery, all the spirit of friendly sympathy is ruined by immoderate plain-speaking; and since we ought to commit neither mistake, but—in candour as in other things—draw ‘success from moderation’, mere logical sequence seems to [Sidenote: E] dictate the conclusion to our treatise. Plain-speaking, we find, is liable to be, as it were, tainted in various ways. The first thing is to divest it of its selfish aspect, by taking the greatest care not to let it appear as if your reproaches were due to a kind of injury or grievance of your own. When the speaker is concerned about himself, we regard his words as the outcome of anger, not of goodwill; as grumbling, not as reproof. For whereas candour is a mark of friendliness which compels respect, grumbling is petty and selfish. We therefore respect and admire the person who is frank, while a fault-finder provokes recrimination and contempt. Though Achilles [Sidenote: F] imagined he was speaking with but reasonable frankness, Agamemnon lost his temper; but when Odysseus attacked him bitterly in the words _Madman, thou shouldst have commanded some other, some pitiful army_, he patiently gave way, the friendly purpose and good sense of the speech causing him to draw in his horns. The reason was that, while the plain-speaking of Odysseus, who had no private [Sidenote: 67] grounds for anger, was only for the sake of Greece, the vexation of Achilles was thought to be chiefly on his own account. Nay, Achilles himself, though possessed of no sweet or gentle temper, but _A terrible man, who must blame, e’en though it be blaming the blameless_, silently permitted Patroclus to give him many such hard blows: