be so after receiving a second. Has he forgotten two kindnesses?
perhaps by a third he may be brought to remember the former ones
also.

III. He who is quick to believe that he has thrown away his
benefits, does really throw them away; but he who presses on and
adds new benefits to his former ones, forces out gratitude even
from a hard and forgetful breast. In the face of many kindnesses,
your friend will not dare to raise his eyes; let him see you
whithersoever he turns himself to escape from his remembrance of
you; encircle him with your benefits. As for the power and property
of these, I will explain it to you if first you will allow me to
glance at a matter which does not belong to our subject, as to why
the Graces are three in number, why they are sisters, why hand in
hand, and why they are smiling and young, with a loose and
transparent dress. Some writers think that there is one who bestows
a benefit, one who receives it, and a third who returns it; others
say that they represent the three sorts of benefactors, those who
bestow, those who repay, and those who both receive and repay them.
But take whichever you please to be true; what will this knowledge
profit us? What is the meaning of this dance of sisters in a
circle, hand in hand? It means that the course of a benefit is from
hand to hand, back to the giver; that the beauty of the whole chain
is lost if a single link fails, and that it is fairest when it
proceeds in unbroken regular order. In the dance there is one.
esteemed beyond the others, who represents the givers of benefits.
Their faces are cheerful, as those of men who give or receive
benefits are wont to be. They are young, because the memory of
benefits ought not to grow old. They are virgins, because benefits
are pure and untainted, and held holy by all; in benefits there