could do noble and praiseworthy actions; and when a servant of his once
loved the daughter of a rich Athenian, but could not hope to obtain her
by reason that in wealth and rank the maid was so far above him, lord
Timon freely bestowed upon his servant three Athenian talents, to make
his fortune equal with the dowry which the father of the young maid
demanded of him who should be her husband. But for the most part,
knaves and parasites had the command of his fortune, false friends whom
he did not know to be such, but, because they flocked around his
person, he thought they must needs love him; and because they smiled
and flattered him, he thought surely that his conduct was approved by
all the wise and good. And when he was feasting in the midst of all
these flatterers and mock friends, when they were eating him up, and
draining his fortunes dry with large draughts of richest wines drunk to
his health and prosperity, he could not perceive the difference of a
friend from a flatterer, but to his deluded eyes (made proud with the
sight) it seemed a precious comfort to have so many like brothers
commanding one another's fortunes (though it was his own fortune which
paid all the costs), and with joy they would run over at the spectacle
of such, as it appeared to him, truly festive and fraternal meeting.

But while he thus outwent the very heart of kindness, and poured out
his bounty, as if Plutus, the god of gold, had been but his steward;
while thus he proceeded without care or stop, so senseless of expense
that he would neither inquire how he could maintain it, nor cease his
wild flow of riot; his riches, which were not infinite, must needs melt
away before a prodigality which knew no limits. But who should tell him
so? his flatterers? they had no interest in shutting his eyes. In vain
did his honest steward Flavius try to represent to him his condition,
laying his accounts before him, begging of him, praying of him, with an
importunity that on any other occasion would have been unmannerly in a
servant, beseeching him with tears to look into the state of his
affairs. Timon would still put him off, and turn the discourse to
something else; for nothing is so deaf to remonstrance as riches turned
to poverty, nothing is so unwilling to believe its situation, nothing
so incredulous to its own true state, and hard to give credit to a
reverse. Often had this good steward, this honest creature, when all
the rooms of Timon's great