But if you will be persuaded by me, first of all I will associate with you, not attending to present pleasure, but future advantage, not overcome by love, but controlling myself, not conceiving violent enmities for trifling offences, but slowly indulging slight anger for great offences, pardoning involuntary faults, and endeavouring to divert you from such as are voluntary; for these are the marks of a friendship that will endure for along time. If, however, it has occurred to you that it is not possible for affection to be strong unless one is in love, you should consider that in that case we should not be very fond of our children or our fathers and mothers, nor acquire faithful friends, who have become such not from desire of this kind, but from other useful qualities. 19. Moreover, if it is right to gratify those most who most need it, it is right also with respect to others to benefit, not the best men, but the most needy; for, being delivered from the greatest evils, they will feel the deepest gratitude towards us. And besides this, in private entertainments it will not be proper to invite our friends, but mendicants and those who are in need of a hearty meal; for these will greet and follow us, and will come to our doors, and be highly delighted, and feel the utmost gratitude, and pray for many blessings upon us. 20. But surely it is right to gratify those not who are exceedingly needy, but who are best able to repay a kindness, nor those who love only, but those who deserve this favour; nor such as will enjoy the bloom of your youth, but who, when you are old, will share their own fortune with you; nor those who, when they have effected their object, will boast of it to others, but who, out of modesty, will be silent towards all men; nor those who are devoted to you for a short time, but who will be greatly attached to you throughout life; nor who, when their desire has ceased, will seek a pretext for quarrelling, but who, when your bloom is gone, will then exhibit their own excellence. 21. Do you, then, remember what I have said, and consider this, that friends admonish lovers that their course of life is a bad one, but no one ever yet found fault with those who are not in love, as if, on that account, they consulted ill for their own interests. Perhaps, however, you may ask me whether I advise you to gratify all who are not in love. But I think that not even a lover would exhort you to be thus affected towards all your lovers: for neither if one considers the matter reasonably is such a course deserving of equal gratitude, nor if you wished it, is it equally possible to keep it secret from others; but it is requisite that no harm should result from the business; on the contrary, advantage to both. I, for my part, think that enough has been said, but if you require any thing more, under the impression that it has been omitted, question me.” ----- Footnote 117: Youth. -----