CHAPTER IV Detraction should especially be treated with contempt
CHAPTER IV
Detraction should especially be treated with contempt
What else then must he despise? Detraction and envy.
460. It is well neither immoderately to fear and dread, nor simply to overlook untimely accusations (and one in authority must needs endure unreasonable blame); but even if they are false, and are brought against us by common people, one must try to extinguish them at once.
461. For nothing will so increase a report, whether good or bad, as the unruly multitude: accustomed to hear and speak without examination, it will rashly utter all that reaches it, making no account of truth.
462. Therefore he must not disregard the multitude, but straightway put down base surmises when they originate, by persuading those who criminate others, though they should be the most unreasonable of men, and he must omit nothing which can remove an opinion that is not good. But if, when we have done everything, those who find fault will not be persuaded, it will then be time to treat them with contempt. Therefore if one is immediately dejected by such accidents, he will never be able to effect anything noble and admirable; because sadness and constant cares are enough to prostrate the power of the soul, and to reduce it to extreme debility.
463. So that the priest ought to bear himself towards those that are subject to him, just as a father would towards very young children: as we take no notice when they complain, and strike, and lament; and even when they laugh and are pleased with us, we never think much about it; so is it with these, we are not to be lifted up by their praises, nor depressed by their scoldings, when they are uttered by them out of season.
464. This, my dear friend, is difficult, and, I fancy, even impossible.
465. For I know not whether it has been the character of any man not to rejoice when he is praised. And it is reasonable that he who rejoices should desire to enjoy the cause, and that he who desires to enjoy this, must in defect of it be absolutely distressed and troubled.
466. For, as they who take pleasure in riches are sorrowful when they fall into poverty, and as they who have been accustomed to luxury cannot bear to live meanly, so also they who love applause are inwardly consumed as though by some famine, not only when they are censured without cause, but also while they are constantly lauded, and especially if they have been trained to this, or hear that others are commended.