acious commendation of them! To cure your friend of being
slow to ask a favour of you, you may join to your gift the familiar
rebuke, "I am angry with you for not having long ago let me know what
you wanted, for having asked for it so formally, or for having made
interest with a third party." "I congratulate myself that you have been
pleased to make trial of me; hereafter, if you want anything, ask for it
as your right; however, for this time I pardon your want of manners."
By so doing you will cause him to value your friendship more highly
than that, whatever it may have been, which he came to ask of you. The
goodness and kindness of a benefactor never appears so great as when on
leaving him one says, "I have to-day gained much; I am more pleased at
finding him so kind than if I had obtained many times more of this, of
which I was speaking, by some other means; I never can make any adequate
return to this man for his goodness."

IV. Many, however, there are who, by harsh words and contemptuous
manner, make their very kindnesses odious, for by speaking and acting
disdainfully they make us sorry that they have granted our requests.
Various delays also take place after we have obtained a promise; and
nothing is more heartbreaking than to be forced to beg for the very
thing which you already have been promised. Benefits ought to be
bestowed at once, but from some persons it is easier to obtain the
promise of them than to get them. One man has to be asked to remind our
benefactor of his purpose; another, to bring it into effect; and thus a
single present is worn away in passing through many hands, until hardly
any gratitude is left for the original promiser, since whoever we are
forced to solicit after the giving of the promise receives some of the
gratitude which we owe to the giver. Take care, therefore, if you
wish your gifts to be esteemed, that they reach those to whom they are
promised entire, and, as the saying is, without any deduction. Let no
one intercept them or delay them; for no one can take any share of the
gratitude due for your gifts without robbing you of it.

V. Nothing is more bitter than long uncertainty; some can bear to have
their hopes extinguished better than to have them deferred. Yet many
men are led by an unworthy vanity into this fault of putting off the
accomplishment of their promises, merely in order to swell the crowd of
their suitors, like the ministers of royalty, who delight in prolonging