on some support, and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate
friendship.

24 But while Nature declares by so many tokens what she desires, craves,
needs, we--I know not how--grow deaf, and fail to hear her counsel.

Intercourse among friends assumes many different forms and modes, and
there frequently arise causes of suspicion and offence, which it is the
part of a wise man sometimes to avoid, sometimes to remove, sometimes to
bear. One ground of offence, namely, freedom in telling the truth, must
be put entirely away, in order that friendship may retain its
serviceableness and its good faith, for friends often need to be
admonished and reproved, and such offices, when kindly performed, ought
to be received in a friendly way. Yet somehow we witness in actual life,
what my friend [Footnote: Terence with whom Laelius was so intimate that
he was reported probably on no sufficient ground to have aided in the
composition of some of the plays that bear Terence's name. This verse is
from the _Andria._] says in his play of _Andria_--


"Complacency *[Footnote: _Obsequium_] wins friends, but truth gives
birth to hatred."

Truth is offensive, if hatred, the bane of friendship is indeed born of
it, but much more offensive is complacency, when in its indulgence for
wrong doing it suffers a friend to go headlong to ruin. The greatest
blame, however, rests on him who both spurns the truth when it is told
him and is driven by the complacency of friends to self-deception. In
this matter therefore there should be the utmost discretion and care,
first, that admonition be without bitterness, then, that reproof be