I long, ye Gods, to cheer the hounds
Close-pressing on the dappled deer,
whereas he feels no interest whatever in the animal, but is setting his toils to catch the huntsman himself. If his next quarry is a young man with a taste for study and intellectual improvement, he is all for books, and grows a beard down to his feet; it is a case of wearing the philosopher’s cloak and his air of ‘indifference’,[[50]] and of prating about Plato’s ‘numbers’ and ‘right-angled triangles’. If, next, there happens along some easy-going bibulous person with plenty of money,
Then forthwith are his rags cast off by the wily Odysseus.
|D| Away goes the cloak; shorn off is the beard—’tis a crop that bears no corn: to the fore are wine-coolers and wine-cups, laughter in the streets and mockery of the philosophic student.
We are told, for instance, that at Syracuse, when Plato visited the place and Dionysius was seized with a mania for philosophy, the host of geometricians turned the palace into a perfect whirl of dust.[[51]] But when Dionysius came to logger-heads with Plato, had had enough of philosophy, and abandoned himself to drink and women and to silly talk and wanton |E| behaviour, in a moment it was as if Circe had transformed them every one, and there came a reign of vulgarity, oblivion, and folly. Examples are also to be found in the conduct of time-servers on a large scale, such as demagogues. Greatest was Alcibiades. At Athens he joked, kept horses, and lived like a wit and a man of the world. At Lacedaemon he cropped his hair close, wore a short cloak, and bathed in cold water. In Thrace he fought and drank. But when he attached himself to Tissaphernes, he indulged in luxury, effeminacy, and ostentation, and sought to win the good graces of his company by adapting himself in all cases to their likeness and becoming one of them. Not so Epaminondas or Agesilaus. Despite |F| all their intercourse with so many persons, communities, and standards of conduct, they everywhere maintained—in dress, way of life, speech, and behaviour—their own proper character. So with Plato. He was the same at Syracuse as at Athens, the same to Dionysius as to Dion.
Our easiest method of exposing the polypus-like changes of the time-server is to make a show of frequent changes on our own part, finding fault with conduct of which we formerly approved, and all of a sudden countenancing actions, conduct, |53| or talk which used to fill us with disgust. We shall then perceive that he has no sort of settled and specific character; that his loves, hatreds, pleasures, and pains are not matters of his own feeling; that he is merely a mirror reflecting extraneous moods, principles, and emotions. For observe the man’s ways. Should you speak disparagingly to him of one of your friends, he will remark: ‘You have been slow in finding the fellow out; I never did like him.’ If, on the contrary, you change your tone and speak in his praise, he will declare that he is ‘right glad and thankful on the man’s behalf’, because he ‘believes in him’. If you propose to adopt a different mode of life—if, for example, |B| you are converted from a political career to a life of quiet inactivity—he will say, ‘We ought to have got quit of brawlings and jealousies long before this.’ If, on the other hand, you appear eager for office and the platform, he seconds you with, ‘A very proper spirit! A quiet life is pleasant, no doubt, but it lacks honour and distinction.’ We ought immediately to answer that kind of man with the words:
‘Different, sir, dost thou show thyself now from the man thou wert erstwhile.
I do not want a friend who shifts his ground when I do and who nods when I nod—my shadow can do that better—but one who helps me to truth and sound judgement.’
|C| Such is one way of applying a test. There is a second point of difference to be watched, as against the points of resemblance. It is not in all matters that a genuine friend is prompt to copy or commend us, but only in the best.