ought to be bestowed, and how it ought to be received. These are
the limits of this action; when I dwell upon it further I am not
obeying the orders, but the caprices of my subject which ought to
be followed whither it leads, not whither it allures us to wander;
for now and then something will arise, which, although it is all
but unconnected with the subject, instead of being a necessary part
of it, still thrills the mind with a certain charm. However, since
you wish it to be so, let us go on, after having completed our
discussion of the heads of the subject itself, to investigate those
matters which, if you wish for truth, I must call adjacent to it,
not actually connected with it; to examine which carefully is not
one worth one's while, and yet is not labour in vain. No praise,
however, which I can give to benefits does justice to you, Aebutius
Liberalis, a man of excellent disposition and naturally inclined to
bestow them. Never have I seen any one esteem even the most
trifling services more kindly; indeed, your good-nature goes so far
as to regard whatever benefit is bestowed upon anyone as bestowed
upon yourself; you are prepared to pay even what is owed by the
ungrateful, that no one may regret having bestowed benefits. You
yourself are so far from any boastfulness, you are so eager at once
to free those whom you serve from any feeling of obligation to you,
that you like, when giving anything to any one, to seem not so much
to be giving a present as returning one; and therefore what you
give in this manner will all the more fully he repaid to you: for,
as a rule, benefits come to one who does not demand repayment of
them; and just as glory follows those who avoid it, so men receive
a more plentiful harvest in return for benefits bestowed upon those
who had it in their power to be ungrateful. With you there is no
reason why those who have received benefits from you should not ask
for fresh ones; nor would you refuse to bestow others, to overlook