You will ask me then, What shall a man do with an
untoward brother? I answer, every kind and degree of
friendship is subject to abuse from the persons, and in that
respect has its taint, according to that of Sophocles:
Who into human things makes scrutinies,
He may on most his censures exercise.
For, if you examine the love of relations, the love of associates, or the more sensual passion of fond lovers, you will
find none of them all clear, pure, and free from all faults.
Wherefore the Spartan, when he married a little wife, said
that of evils he had to choose the least. But brothers
would do well to bear with one another's familiar failings,
rather than to adventure upon the trial of strangers. For
as the former is blameless because it is necessary, so the
other is blameworthy because it is voluntary. For it is not
to be expected that a sociable guest or a wild crony should
be bound by the same
Chains of respect, forged by no human hand,
as one who was nourished from the same breast and carries
the same blood in his veins. And therefore it would become a virtuous mind to make a favorable construction of
his brother's miscarriages, and to bespeak him with this
candor:
I cannot leave you thus under a cloud
Of infelicities,
1
whether debauched with vice or eclipsed with ignorance,
for fear my inadvertency to some failing that naturally
descends upon you from one of our parents should make
me too severe against you. For, as Theophrastus said. as
to strangers, judgment must rule affection rather than affection prescribe to judgment; but where nature denies judgment this prerogative, and will not wait for the bushel of
[p. 46]
salt (as the proverb has it) to be eaten, but has already
infused and begun in us the principle of love, there we
should not be too rigid and exact in the examining of
faults. Now what would you think of men when they can
easily dispense with and smile at the sociable vices of their
acquaintance, and in the mean time be so implacably incensed with the irregularities of a brother? Or when fierce
dogs, horses, wolves, cats, apes, lions, are so much their
favorites that they feed and delight in them, and yet cannot stomach only their brother's passion, ignorance, or ambition? Or of others who have made away their houses
and lands to harlots, and quarrelled with their brothers
only about the floor or corner of the house? Nay, further,
such a prejudice have they to them, that they justify the
hating them from the rule of hating every ill thing, maliciously accounting them as such; and they go up and down
cursing and reproaching their brothers for their vices, while
they are never offended or discontented therewith in others,
but are willing enough daily to frequent and haunt their
company.
