Seneca's Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

and another, where the duties are known and common. There are some that will not receive a benefit but in private, nor thank you for it but in your ear, or in a corner; there must be nothing under hand and seal, no brokers, notaries, or witnesses, in the case: that is not so much a scruple of modesty as a kind of denying the obligation, and only a less hardened ingratitude. Some receive benefits so coldly and indifferently, that a man would think the obligation lay on the other side: as who should say, “Well, since you will needs have it so, I am content to take it.” Some again so carelessly, as if they hardly knew of any such thing, whereas we should rather aggravate the matter: “You cannot imagine how many you have obliged in this act: there never was so great, so kind, so seasonable a courtesy.” Furnius never gained so much upon Augustus as by a speech, upon the getting of his father’s pardon for siding with Antony: “This grace,” says he, “is the only injury that ever Cæsar did me: for it has put me upon a necessity of living and dying ungrateful.” It is safer to affront some people than to oblige them; for the better a man deserves, the worse they will speak of him: as if the possessing of open hatred to their benefactors were an argument that they lie under no obligation. Some people are so sour and ill-natured, that they take it for an affront to have an obligation or a return offered them, to the discouragement both of bounty and gratitude together. The not doing, and the not receiving, of benefits, are equally a mistake. He that refuses a new one, seems to be offended at an old one: and yet sometimes I would neither return a benefit, no, nor so much as receive it, if I might.

CHAPTER XVII.

       OF GRATITUDE.

       Table of Contents

      He that preaches gratitude, pleads the cause both of God and man; for without it we can neither be sociable nor religious. There is a strange delight in the very purpose and contemplation of it, as well as in the action; when I can say to myself, “I love my benefactor; what is there in this world that I would not do to oblige and serve him?” Where I have not the means of a requital, the very meditation of it is sufficient. A man is nevertheless an artist for not having his tools about him; or a musician, because he wants his fiddle: nor is he the less brave because his hands are bound; or the worse pilot for being upon dry ground. If I have only will to be grateful, I am so. Let me be upon the wheel, or under the hand of the executioner; let me be burnt limb by limb, and my whole body dropping in the flames, a good conscience supports me in all extremes; nay, it is comfortable even in death itself; for when we come to approach that point, what care do we take to summon and call to mind all our benefactors, and the good offices they have done us, that we leave the world fair, and set our minds in order? Without gratitude, we can neither have security, peace, nor reputation: and it is not therefore the less desirable, because it draws many adventitious benefits along with it. Suppose the sun, the moon, and the stars, had no other business than only to pass over our heads, without any effect upon our minds or bodies; without any regard to our health, fruits, or seasons; a man could hardly lift up his eyes towards the heavens without wonder and veneration, to see so many millions of radiant lights, and to observe their courses and revolutions, even without any respect to the common good of the universe. But when we come to consider that Providence and Nature are still at work when we sleep, with the admirable force and operation of their influences and motions, we cannot then but acknowledge their ornament to be the least part of their value; and that they are more to be esteemed for their virtues than for their splendor. Their main end and use is matter of life and necessity, though they may seem to us more considerable for their majesty and beauty. And so it is with gratitude; we love it rather for secondary ends, than for itself.

      No man can be grateful without contemning those things that put the common people out of their wits. We must go into banishment; lay down our lives; beggar and expose ourselves to reproaches; nay, it is often seen, that loyalty suffers the punishment due to rebellion, and that treason receives the rewards of fidelity. As the benefits of it are many and great, so are the hazards; which is the case more or less of all other virtues: and it were hard, if this, above the rest, should be both painful and fruitless: so that though we may go currently on with it in a smooth way, we must yet prepare and resolve (if need be) to force our passage to it, even if the way were covered with thorns and serpents; and fall back, fall edge, we must be grateful still: grateful for the virtue’s sake, and grateful over and above upon the point of interest; for it preserves old friends, and gains new ones. It is not our business to fish for one benefit with another; and by bestowing a little to get more; or to oblige for any sort of expedience, but because I ought to do it, and because I love it, and that to such a degree, that if I could not be grateful without appearing the contrary, if I could not return a benefit without being suspected of doing an injury; in despite of infamy itself, I would yet be grateful. No man is greater in my esteem than he that ventures the fame to preserve the conscience of an honest man; the one is but imaginary, the other solid and inestimable. I cannot call him grateful, who in the instant of returning one benefit has his eye upon another. He that is grateful for profit or fear, is like a woman that is honest only upon the score of reputation.

      As gratitude is a necessary and a glorious, so it is also an obvious, a cheap, and an easy virtue; so obvious, that wheresoever there is a life there is a place for it—so cheap that the covetous man may be grateful without expense—and so easy that the sluggard may be so, likewise, without labor. And yet it is not without its niceties too; for there may be a time, a place or occasion wherein I ought not to return a benefit; nay, wherein I may better disown it than deliver it.

      Let it be understood, by the way, that it is one thing to be grateful for a good office, and another thing to return it—the good will is enough in one case, being as much as the one side demands and the other promises; but the effect is requisite in the other. The physician that has done his best is acquitted though the patient dies, and so is the advocate, though the client may lose his cause. The general of an army, though the battle be lost, is yet worthy of commendation, if he has discharged all the parts of a prudent commander; in this case, the one acquits himself, though the other be never the better for it. He is a grateful man that is always willing and ready: and he that seeks for all means and occasions of requiting a benefit, though without attaining his end, does a great deal more than the man that, without any trouble, makes an immediate return. Suppose my friend a prisoner, and that I have sold my estate for his ransom; I put to sea in foul weather, and upon a coast that is pestered with pirates; my friend happens to be redeemed before I come to the place; my gratitude is as much to be esteemed as if he had been a prisoner; and if I had been taken and robbed myself, it would still have been the same case. Nay, there is a gratitude in the very countenance; for an honest man bears his conscience in his face, and propounds the requital of a good turn in the very moment of receiving it; he is cheerful and confident; and, in the possession of a true friendship, delivered from all anxiety. There is this difference betwixt a thankful man and an unthankful, the one is always pleased in the good he has done, and the other only once in what he has received. There must be a benignity in the estimation even of the smallest offices; and such a modesty as appears to be obliged in whatsoever it gives. As it is indeed a very great benefit, the opportunity of doing a good office to a worthy man. He that attends to the present, and remembers what is past, shall never be ungrateful. But who shall judge in the case? for a man may be grateful without making a return, and ungrateful with it. Our best way is to help every thing by a fair interpretation; and wheresoever there is a doubt, to allow it the most favorable construction; for he that is exceptious at words, or looks, has a mind to pick a quarrel. For my own part, when I come to cast up my account, and know what I owe, and to whom, though I make my return sooner to some, and later to others, as occasion or fortune will give me leave, yet I will be just to all: I will be grateful to God, to man, to those that have obliged me: nay, even to those that have obliged my friends. I am bound in honor and in conscience to be thankful for what I have received; and if it be not yet full, it is some pleasure still that I may hope for more. For the requital of a favor there must be virtue, occasion, means, and fortune.

      It is a common thing to screw up justice to the pitch of an injury. A man may be over-righteous; and why not over-grateful too? There is a mischievous excess, that borders so close upon ingratitude, that it is no easy