ungrateful; I remember your goodness to me." Why need I hesitate to
make such men as these better to themselves and to me? I would
prevent any one from doing wrong, if I were able; much more would I
prevent a friend, both lest he should do wrong, and lest he should
do wrong to me in particular. I bestow a second benefit upon him by
not permitting him to be ungrateful; and I should not reproach him
harshly with what I had done for him, but should speak as gently as
I could. In order to afford him an opportunity of returning my
kindness, I should refresh his remembrance of it, and ask for a
benefit; he would understand that I was asking for repayment.
Sometimes I would make use of somewhat severe language, if I had
any hope that by it he might be amended; though I would not
irritate a hopelessly ungrateful man, for fear that I might turn
him into an enemy. If we spare the ungrateful even the affront of
reminding them of their conduct, we shall render them' more
backward in returning benefits; and although some might be cured of
their evil ways, and be made into good men, if their consciences
were stung by remorse, yet we shall allow them to perish for want
of a word of warning, with which a father sometimes corrects his
son, a wife brings back to herself an erring husband, or a man
stimulates the wavering fidelity of his friend.

XXIII. To awaken some men, it is only necessary to stir them, not
to strike them; in like manner, with some men, the feeling of
honour about returning a benefit is not extinct, but slumbering.
Let us rouse it. "Do not," they will say, "make the kindness you
have done me into a wrong: for it is a wrong, if you do not demand
some return from me, and so make me ungrateful. What if I do not
know what sort of repayment you wish for? if I am so occupied by
business, and my attention is so much diverted to other subjects