To blame an action when it is done is no more than we find enemies doing to each other. Diogenes used to say that, if you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you. But it is better to avoid errors by taking advice than to repent of an error because of abuse. For this reason [Sidenote: D] we must study tact even in the matter of candour. As it is the most effective drug that can be employed in friendship, so it stands in most need of unfailing discretion as to time and moderation as to strength. And, finally, since, as I have said, it is in the nature of plain-speaking that it should often cause pain to the person under treatment, we must take a pattern by the medical man. He does not use his lancet and then leave the part to suffer; he eases it with gentle lotions and fomentations. Similarly, if our admonitions are to be tactful, we do not administer a sharp sting and then run away. We adopt a different strain, and soothe [Sidenote: E] and calm the patient with courteous language, much as sculptors put smoothness and gloss upon a statue where they have chipped it with hammer and chisel. If we strike and gash a man with plain-speaking and then leave him in the rough—lumpy and uneven with anger—it is a hard matter afterwards to call him back and smooth him over. This, therefore, is a result against which the admonisher must be especially on his guard. He must not leave the patient too soon, nor allow the last words of his conversation to be such as pain and exasperate his intimate friend. Footnote 48: i.e. a rough and mountainous island. Footnote 49: A ‘satyric’ drama was a half-comic interlude or sequel to tragedies. Footnote 50: In the Stoic sense of _adiaphoria_. Footnote 51: Since diagrams were often drawn with sticks in the dust. Footnote 52: The Greek jest does not admit of translation. The same word may mean both ‘theft’ and a ‘stealthy act’. Footnote 53: The point lies in an ambiguity which is possible only in the Greek. The words may equally mean: ‘You issued no invitation when sacrificing your friends,’ and ‘when sacrificing, you did not invite your friends’. Footnote 54: Or what French would call the _gouverneur_. ON BRINGING UP A BOY[55] I propose to offer some remarks upon the bringing-up of [Sidenote: 1] free-born children, as a means of securing soundness of character. Perhaps the best starting-point is that at which they are brought into existence. Upon one who desires to become the father of reputable [Sidenote: B] children I would urge that he should be careful as to his consort. She must be no mistress or concubine. Base birth, whether on mother’s or father’s side, is an indelible reproach. It sticks to a man all the days of his life; it offers a handle to those who are minded to discredit or vilify him; and it is a wise saying of the poet that