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Neither is it a hard matter to put off some mean
and ordinary people, which will be apt to prove troublesome to you in that nature. Some shift them off with a
jest or a smart repartee; as Theocritus, being asked in the
bath to lend his flesh-brush by two persons, whereof one
was a stranger to him, and the other a notorious thief,
made answer: You, sir, I know not well enough, and you
I know too well. And Lysimache, the priestess of Minerva
Polias in Athens, when the muleteers that brought the provision for the festival desired her to let them drink, replied,
No; for I fear it may grow into a custom. So again, when
a captain's son, a young fluttering bully but a great coward,
petitioned Antigonus for promotion, the latter answered:
Sir, it is my way to reward my soldiers for their valor, not
their parentage.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 1.
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