marry--and bring up children, and are so obstinate in the face of
experience that we fight after we have been beaten, and put to sea
after we have been shipwrecked. How much more constancy ought we to
show in bestowing benefits! If a man does not bestow benefits
because he has not received any, he must have bestowed them in
order to receive them in return, and he justifies ingratitude,
whose disgrace lies in not returning benefits when able to do so.
How many are there who are unworthy of the light of day? and
nevertheless the sun rises. How many complain because they have
been born? yet Nature is ever renewing our race, and even suffers
men to live who wish that they had never lived. It is the property
of a great and good mind to covet, not the fruit of good deeds, but
good deeds themselves, and to seek for a good man even after having
met with bad men. If there were no rogues, what glory would there
be in doing good to many? As it is, virtue consists in bestowing
benefits for which we are not certain of meeting with any return,
but whose fruit is at once enjoyed by noble minds. So little
influence ought this to have in restraining us from doing good
actions, that even though I were denied the hope of meeting with a
grateful man, yet the fear of not having my benefits returned would
not prevent my bestowing them, because he who does not give,
forestalls the vice of him who is ungrateful. I will explain what I
mean. He who does not repay a benefit, sins more, but he who does
not bestow one, sins earlier.

"If thou at random dost thy bounties waste,
Much must be lost, for one that's rightly placed."

II. In the former verse you may blame two things, for one should
not cast them at random, and it is not right to waste anything,