we us, refreshing their memory from time to
time, because no one can be grateful who forgets a kindness, and he
who remembers it, by so doing proves his gratitude. We ought neither to
receive benefits with a fastidious air, nor yet with a slavish humility:
for if a man does not care for a benefit when it is freshly bestowed--a
time at which all presents please us most--what will he do when its
first charms have gone off? Others receive with an air of disdain, as
much as to say. "I do not want it; but as you wish it so very much, I
will allow you to give it to me." Others take benefits languidly, and
leave the giver in doubt as to whether they know that they have received
them; others barely open their lips in thanks, and would be less
offensive if they said nothing. One ought to proportion one's thanks
to the importance of the benefit received, and to use the phrases, "You
have laid more of us than you think under an obligation," for everyone
likes to find his good actions extend further than he expected. "You do
not know what it is that you have done for me; but you ought to know
how much more important it is than you imagine." It is in itself
an expression of gratitude to speak of one's self as overwhelmed by
kindness; or "I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently; but, at
any rate, I will never cease to express everywhere my inability to thank
you."

XXV. By nothing did Furnius gain greater credit with Augustus, and make
it easy for him to obtain anything else for which he might ask, than
by merely saying, when at his request Augustus pardoned his father for
having taken Antonius's side, "One wrong alone I have received at your
hands, Caesar; you have forced me to live and to die owing you a greater
debt of gratitude than I can ever repay." What can prove gratitude
so well as that a man should never be satisfied, should never even
entertain the hope of making any adequate return for what he has
received? By these and similar expressions we must try not to conceal
our gratitude, but to display it as clearly as possible. No words need
be used; if we only feel as we ought, our thankfulness will be shown in
our countenances. He who intends to be grateful, let him think how he
shall repay a kindness while he is receiving it. Chrysippus says that
such a man must watch for his opportunity, and spring forward whenever
it offers, like one who has been entered for a race, and who stands at
the starting-point waiting for