t do not give us besides earth, and fire, and water, opportunity,
love, reverence, and objects of veneration.

4. He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad
or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I
think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a
gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes
from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported;
and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the
donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not
him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me,
correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level,
then my goods pass to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine
his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil, or this flagon
of wine, when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this
gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things
for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the
beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons,[466]
not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the
greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the
beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord, Timon. For, the
expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the
total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to
get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill
luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,[467] this of
being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A
golden text for these gentlemen is that which I admire in the
Buddhist,[468] who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your
benefactors."

5. The reason of these discords I conceive to be, that there is no
commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything
to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts
you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend
is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend
stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve
his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my
friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.
Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so
incidental an