§ viii. But bashfulness is not only a bad and inconsiderate manager of money, but also in more important matters makes us reject expediency and reason. For when we are ill we do not call in the experienced doctor, because we stand in awe of the family one; and instead of the best teachers for our boys we select those that importune us;17 and in our suits at law we frequently refuse the aid of some skilled advocate, to oblige the son of some friend or relative, and give him a chance to make a forensic display; and lastly, you will find many so-called philosophers Epicureans or Stoics, not from deliberate choice or conviction, but simply from bashfulness, to have the same views as their friends and acquaintances. Since this is the case, let us accustom ourselves betimes in small and everyday matters to employ no barber or fuller merely from bashfulness, nor to put up at a sorry inn, when a better is at hand, merely because the innkeeper has on several occasions been extra civil to us, but for the benefit of the habit to select the best even in a small matter; as the Pythagoreans were careful never to put their left leg across the right, nor to take an even number instead of an odd, all other matters being indifferent. We must accustom ourselves also, at a sacrifice or marriage or any entertainment of that kind, not to invite the person who greets us and runs up to meet us, but the friend who is serviceable to us. For he that has thus practised and trained himself will be difficult to catch tripping, nay even unassailable, in greater matters.
§ ix. Let so much suffice for practice. And of useful considerations the first is that which teaches and reminds us, that all passions and maladies of the soul are accompanied by the very things which we think we avoid through them. Thus infamy comes through too great love of fame, and pain comes from love of pleasure, and plenty of work to the idle, and to the contentious defeats and losses of lawsuits. And so too it is the fate of bashfulness, in fleeing from the smoke of ill-repute, to throw itself into