the other. By looking through it again and again we shall either find
that it is not worth publication or we shall render it worthy by the way
we revise it.

What makes me doubtful is rather the subject-matter than the actual
composition. It is perhaps a shade too laudatory and ostentatious. And
this will be more than our modesty can carry, however plain and
unassuming the style in which it is written, especially as I have to
enlarge on the munificence of my relatives as well as on my own. It is
a ticklish and dangerous subject, even when one can flatter one's self
that there was no way of avoiding it. For if people grow impatient at
hearing the praises of others, how much more difficult must it be to
prevent a speech becoming tedious when we sing our own praises or those
of our family? We look askance even at unpretentious honesty, and do so
all the more when its fame is trumpeted abroad. In short, it is only
the good action that is done by stealth and passes unapplauded which
protects the doer from the carping criticism of the world. For this
reason I have often debated whether I ought to have composed the speech,
such as it is, simply to suit my own feelings, or whether I should have
looked beyond myself to the public. I am inclined to the former
alternative by the thought that many actions which are necessary to the
performance of an object lose their point and appositeness when that
object is attained. I will not weary you with examples further than to
ask whether anything could have been more appropriate than my gracing in
writing the reasons which prompted my generosity. By so doing, the
result was that I grew familiar with generous sentiments; the more I
discussed the virtue the more I saw its beauties, and above all I saved
myself from the reaction that often follows a sudden fit of open-
handedness. From all this there gradually grew up within me the habit
of despising money, and whereas nature seems to have tied men down to