sees mine, who has not only a wish but
a longing to help, who thinks that he receives a benefit when he
bestows one, who gives as though he would receive no return, receives a
repayment as though he had originally given nothing, and who watches for
and seizes an opportunity of being useful. On the other hand, as I said
before, those gifts which are hardly wrung from the giver, or which drop
unheeded from his hands, claim no gratitude from us, however great they
may appear and may be. We prize much more what comes from a willing
hand, than what comes from a full one. This man has given me but little,
yet more he could not afford, while what that one has given is much
indeed, but he hesitated, he put it off, he grumbled when he gave it,
he gave it haughtily, or he proclaimed it aloud, and did it to please
others, not to please the person to whom he gave it; he offered it to
his own pride, not to me.

VIII. As the pupils of Socrates, each in proportion to his means, gave
him large presents, Aeschines, a poor pupil, said, "I can find nothing
to give you which is worthy of you; I feel my poverty in this respect
alone. Therefore I present you with the only thing I possess, myself. I
pray that you may take this my present, such as it is, in good part, and
may remember that the others, although they gave you much, yet left for
themselves more than they gave." Socrates answered, "Surely you have
bestowed a great present upon me, unless perchance you set a small value
upon yourself. I will accordingly take pains to restore you to yourself
a better man than when I received you." By this present Aeschines outdid
Alcibiades, whose mind was as great as his Wealth, and all the splendour
of the most wealthy youths of Athens.

IX. You see how the mind even in the straitest circumstances finds the
means of generosity. Aeschines seems to me to have said, "Fortune, it
is in vain that you have made me poor; in spite of this I will find a
worthy present for this man. Since I can give him nothing of yours, I
will give him something of my own." Nor need you suppose that he held
himself cheap; he made himself his own price. By a stroke of genius this
youth discovered a means of presenting Socrates to himself. We must not
consider how great presents are, but in what spirit they are given.

A rich man is well spoken of if he is clever enough to render himself
easy of access to men of immoderate ambition, and although he intends to
do nothing t