Nimia familiaritas parit contemptum

Familiarité engendre mépris. Familiarity breeds contempt. «E tribus optimis rebus», Plutarch says, «tres pessimae oriuntur», from three excellent endowments, three of the worst of our affections are produced. Truth begets hatred, familiarity contempt, and success envy. The contrary to this may be, «Omne ignotum pro magnifico est». We are apt rather to extol those persons whom we know only by report, but with whose merit, or real characters, we are not acquainted. A prophet is not without honour, we are told, save in his own country. Great men should not associate too familiarly with the world, ever more ready to blazon their defects, which reduce them to their own standard, than to admire those talents and qualities which they are incapable of imitating. To posterity they must look for justice, which never fails paying to their genius and abilities, the homage that had been refused them by their own age and country. «Suum cuique decus posteritas rependet». Posterity will give to everyone the portion of commendation, to which he was entitled by his merit. Or the adage may be thus interpreted: What is mentioned in the gross often fills the mind with surprise, which in detail would excite no emotion. If we should say of any man that he ordinarily walked between two and three thousand miles in a year, the account would seem to be exaggerated; but if we should say, he walked six or seven miles in a day, which would amount to the same number of miles in the year, no surprize would be excited.