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However, suppose by great chance all should agree to crave assistance in the same affair, whether at a consult, exercise of a public trust in the government, canvassing for preferment, entertaining guests, or the like; yet it is exceeding hard to satisfy all. But now if they are engaged in diverse concerns at the very same moment of time, and every one should make his particular request to you, one to take a voyage with him, another to assist in pleading his cause, a third to prosecute a criminal, a fourth to help in managing his trade, another to celebrate his wedding, and another to attend a funeral,— And the whole city’s filled with incense smoke, And songs of triumph mixt with groans resound; Sophocles, Oed. Tyr. 4. I say, in this case, it is utterly impossible to answer the requests of all, to gratify none is absurd, and to serve only one and disoblige the rest is a thing grievous and intolerably rude;—for no one, when he loves a friend, will bear to be neglected. From Menander. If indeed you could persuade that inadvertency was the cause of the omission, you might more easily hope a pardon; and to plead forgetfulness is a sort of excuse which perhaps might pass without much angering your friend; but to allege I could not be advocate in your cause, being of counsel for another, or I could not visit you in a fever, because I was invited to a feast elsewhere, while it is thus confessed that we neglect one friend to pay our respects to another, is so far from extenuating the offence, that it highly aggravates it, and adds all the jealousies of rivalry.
