owed, Not Lent_

Among the many different mistakes made by those who take life as it
comes, and do not pause to consider, I should say that scarcely anything
is so detrimental as this, that we do not know either how to confer or
how to receive a benefit. The consequence is that benefits are bad
investments, and turn out bad debts; and in the cases where there is no
return, it is too late to complain, for they were lost when we conferred
them. I should find it hard to say whether it is meaner for a receiver
to repudiate a benefit, or for a giver to press for its repayment,
inasmuch as a benefit is a sort of loan, whose return absolutely depends
on the spontaneous action of the debtor.

We find many men ungrateful; yet we make more men so, because at one
time we are insistent and harsh in our claims for return; at another
time we are fickle enough to regret our generosity. By such conduct we
spoil the whole favour, not merely after giving, but at the very moment
of giving. No one is glad to owe what he has not so much received as
wrung out of his benefactor.

Can anyone be grateful to a man who has contemptuously tossed him a
favour, or flung it at him in vexation, or out of sheer weariness given
simply to rid himself of trouble? A benefit is felt to be a debt in the
same spirit in which it is bestowed, and it ought not, therefore, to be
bestowed recklessly, for a man thanks himself for what he obtains from
an undiscerning giver.

Let us bestow benefits, not lend them on interest. He who, in the act of
giving, has thoughts about repayment, deserves to be deceived. Well,
then, what if the benefit has turned out ill? Why, children or wives
often disappoint our expectations, but we bring children up, we marry
all the same; and so determined are we in the teeth of experience, that
when baffled we fight better, when shipwrecked we take to sea again.

How much more seemly it is to be persistent in bestowing benefits! If a
man does not give because he does not receive, he must have given in
order to receive, and that justifies ingratitude. How many are there who
are unworthy of the light of day, and nevertheless the sun rises.

This is the property of a great and good mind, to seek not the fruit of
good deeds but good deeds themselves, and to search for a good man even
after having met with bad men. If there were no cheats, what nobility
would there be in showing bounty to many? As it is, goodness lies in
giving benefits f