L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits
utterly forbid its being demanded; for repayment must often be extorted
from bad men, and even good men require to be reminded of it. Am I not
to point out a means of repayment to one who does not perceive it? Am I
not to explain my wants to one does not know them? Why should he (if
a bad man) have the excuse, or (if a good man) have the sorrow of not
knowing them? Men ought sometimes to be reminded of their debts, though
with modesty, not in the tone of one demanding a legal right.
XXIV. Socrates once said in the hearing of his friends: "I would have
bought a cloak, if I had had the money for it." He asked no one for
money, but he reminded them all to give it. There was a rivalry between
them, as to who should give it; and how should there not be? Was it not
a small thing which Socrates received? Yes, but it was a great thing
to be the man from whom Socrates received it. Could he blame them more
gently? "I would," said he, "have bought a cloak if I had had the money
for it." After this, however eager any one was to give, he gave too
late; for he had already been wanting in his duty to Socrates. Because
some men harshly demand repayment of debts, we forbid it, not in order
that it may never be done, but that it may be done sparingly.
XXV. Aristippus once, when enjoying a perfume, said: "Bad luck to those
effeminate persons who have brought so nice a thing into disrepute." We
also may say, "Bad luck to those base extortioners who pester us for a
fourfold return of their benefits, and have brought into disrepute
so nice a thing as reminding our friends of their duty." I shall
nevertheless make use of this right of friendship, and I shall demand
the return of a benefit from any man from whom I would not have scrupled
to ask for one, such a man as would regard the power of returning a
benefit as equivalent to receiving a second one. Never, not even when
complaining of him, would I say,
"A wretch forlorn upon the shore he lay,
His ship, his comrades, all were swept away;
Fool that I was, I pitied his despair,
And even gave him of my realm a share."
This is not to remind, but to reproach; this is to make one's benefits
odious to enable him, or even to make him wish to be ungrateful. It is
enough, and more than enough, to remind him of it gently and familiarly:
"If aught of mine hath e'er deserved thy thanks."
To this his answer would be, "Of course you have deserved my thanks; you
took me up, 'a wretch forlorn upon the shore.'"
XXVI. "But," says our adversary, "suppose that we gain nothing by this;
suppose that he pretends that he has forgotten it, what ought I to do?"
You now ask a very necessary question, and one which fitly concludes
this branch of the subject, how, namely, one ought to bear with the
ungrateful. I answer, calmly, gently, magnanimously. Never let any one's
discourtesy, forgetfulness, or ingratitude, enrage you so much that you
do not feel any pleasure at having bestowed a benefit upon him; never
let your wrongs drive you into saying, "I wish I had not done it." You
ought to take pleasure even in the ill-success of your benefit; he will
always be sorry for it, even though you are not even now sorry for it.
You ought not to be indignant, as if something strange had happened; you
ought rather to be surprised if it had not happened. Some are prevented
by difficulties, some by expense, and some by danger from returning your
bounty; some are hindered by a false shame, because by returning it,
they would confess that they had received it; with others ignorance of
their duty, indolence, or excess of business, stands in the way. Reflect
upon the insatiability of men's desires. You need not be surprised if no
one repays you in a world in which no one ever gains enough. What man is
there of so firm and trustworthy a mind that you can safely invest your
benefits in him? One man is crazed with lust, another is the slave of
his belly, another gives his whole soul to gain, caring nothing for the
means by which he amasses it; some men's minds are disturbed by envy,
some blinded by ambition till they are ready to fling themselves on the
sword's point. In addition to this, one must reckon sluggishness of
mind and old age; and also the opposites of these, restlessness and
disturbance of mind, also excessive self-esteem and pride in the
very things for which a man ought to be despised. I need not mention
obstinate persistence in wrong-doing, or frivolity which cannot remain
constant to one point; besides all this, there is headlong rashness,
there is timidity which never gives us trustworthy counsel, and the
numberless errors with which we struggle, the rashness of the most
cowardly, the quarrels of our best friends, and that most common evil
of trusting in what is most uncertain, and of undervaluing, when we have
obtained it, that which we once never hoped to possess. Amidst all these
restless passions, how can you hope to find a thing so full of rest as
good faith?
XXVII. If a true picture of our life were to rise before your mental
vision, you would, I think, behold a scene like that of a town just
taken by storm, where decency and righteousness were no longer regarded,
and no advice is heard but that of force, as if universal confusion
were the word of command. Neither fire nor sword are spared; crime
is unpunished by the laws; even religion, which saves the lives of
suppliants in the very midst of armed enemies, does not check those who
are rushing to secure plunder. Some men rob private houses, some public
buildings; all places, sacred or profane, are alike stripped; some burst
their way in, others climb over; some open a wider path for themselves
by overthrowing the walls that keep them out, and make their way to
their booty over ruins; some ravage without murdering, others brandish
spoils dripping with their owner's blood; everyone carries off his
neighbours' goods. In this greedy struggle of the human race surely you
forget the common lot of all mankind, if you seek among these robbers
for one who will return what he has got. If you are indignant at
men being ungrateful, you ought also to be indignant at their being
luxurious, avaricious and lustful; you might as well be indignant with
sick men for being ugly, or with old men for being pale. It is, indeed,
a serious vice, it is not to be borne, and sets men at variance with one
another; nay, it rends and destroys that union by which alone our human
weakness can be supported; yet it is so absolutely universal, that even
those who complain of it most are not themselves free from it.
XXVIII. Consider within yourself, whether you have always shown
gratitude to those to whom you owe it, whether no one's kindness has
ever been wasted upon you, whether you constantly bear in mind all the
benefits which you have received. You will find that those which you
received as a boy were forgotten before you became a man; that those
bestowed upon you as a young man slipped from your memory when you
became an old one. Some we have lost, some we have thrown away, some
have by degrees passed out of our sight, to some we have wilfully shut
our eyes. If I am to make excuses for your weakness, I must say in the
first place that human memory is a frail vessel, and is not large enough
to contain the mass of things placed in it; the more it receives, the
more it must necessarily lose; the oldest things in it give way to the
newest. Thus it comes to pass that your nurse has hardly any influence
with you, because the lapse of time has set the kindness which you
received from her at so great a distance; thus it is that you no longer
look upon your teacher with respect; and that now when you are busy
about your candidature for the consulate or the priesthood, you forget
those who supported you in your election to the quaestorship. If you
carefully examine yourself, perhaps you will find the vice of which
you complain in your own bosom; you are wrong in being angry with a
universal failing, and foolish also, for it is your own as well; you
must pardon others, that you may yourself be acquitted. You will make
your friend a better man by bearing with him, you will in all cases make
him a worse one by reproaching him. You can have no reason for rendering
him shameless; let him preserve any remnants of modesty which he may
have. Too loud reproaches have often dispelled a modesty which might
have borne good fruit. No man fears to be that which all men see that he
is; when his fault is made public, he loses his sense of shame.
XXIX. You say, "I have lost the benefit which I bestowed." Yet do we
say that we have lost what we consecrate to heaven, and a benefit well
bestowed, even though we get an ill return for it, is to be reckoned
among things consecrated. Our friend is not such a man as we hoped he
was; still, let us, unlike him, remain the same as we were. The loss did
not take place when he proved himself so; his ingratitude cannot be made
public without reflecting some shame upon us, since to complain of the
loss of a benefit is a sign that it was not well bestowed. As far as we
are able we ought to plead with ourselves on his behalf: "Perhaps he was
not able to return it, perhaps he did not know of it, perhaps he will
still do so." A wise and forbearing creditor prevents the loss of some
debts by encouraging his debtor and giving him time. We ought to do the
same, we ought to deal tenderly with a weakly sense of honour.
XXX. "I have lost," say you, "the benefit which I bestowed." You are a
fool, and do not understand when your loss took place; you have indeed
lost it, but you did so when you gave it, the fact has only now come
to light. Even in the case of those benefits which appear to be lost,
gentleness will do much good; the wounds of the mind ought to be
handled as tenderly as those of the body. The string, which might be
disentangled by patience, is often broken by a rough pull. What is
the use of abuse, or of complaints? why do you overwhelm him with
reproaches? why do you set him free from his obligation? even if he
be ungrateful he owes you nothing after this. What sense is there in
exasperating a man on whom you have conferred great favours, so as out
of a doubtful friend to make a certain enemy, and one, too, who will
seek to support his own cause by defaming you, or to make men say, "I do
not know what the reason is that he cannot endure a man to whom he
owes so much; there must be something in the background?" Any man can
asperse, even if he does not permanently stain the reputation of his
betters by complaining of them; nor will any one be satisfied with
imputing small crimes to them, when it is only by the enormity of his
falsehood that he can hope to be believed.
XXXI. What a much better way is that by which the semblance of
friendship, and, indeed, if the other regains to his right mind,
friendship itself is preserved! Bad men are overcome by unwearying
goodness, nor does any one receive kindness in so harsh and hostile a
spirit as not to love good men even while he does them wrong, when they
lay him under the additional obligation of requiring no return for their
kindness. Reflect, then, upon this: you say, "My kindness has met with
no return, what am I to do? I ought to imitate the gods, those noblest
disposers of all events, who begin to bestow their benefits on those who
know them not, and persist in bestowing them on those who are ungrateful
for them. Some reproach them with neglect of us, some with injustice
towards us; others place them outside of their own world, in sloth and
indifference, without light, and without any functions; others declare
that the sun itself, to whom we owe the division of our times of labour
and of rest, by whose means we are saved from being plunged in the