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Even before this time, Apollonius, I felt for you in your sorrow and trouble,
when I heard of the untimely passing from life of your son, who was very
dear to us all—a youth who was altogether decorous and modest, and
unusually observant of the demands of religion and justice both toward the
gods and toward his parents and friends. In those days, close upon the time
of his death, to visit you and urge you to bear your present lot as a mortal
man should would have been unsuitable, when you were prostrated in both body
and soul by the unexpected calamity ; and, besides, I could not help sharing
in your feeling. For even the best of physicians do not at once apply the
remedy of medicines against acute attacks of suppurating humours, but allow
the painfulness of the inflammation, without the application of external
medicaments, to attain some assuagement of itself.1
1 Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 29 (63), and Pliny, Letters, v. 16.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. 2.
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