promise; and nothing is more heartbreaking than to be forced to beg
for the very thing which you already have been promised. Benefits
ought to be bestowed at once, but from some persons it is easier to
obtain the promise of them than to get them. One man has to be
asked to remind our benefactor of his purpose; another, to bring it
into effect; and thus a single present is worn away in passing
through many hands, until hardly any gratitude is left for the
original promiser, since whoever we are forced to solicit after the
giving of the promise receives some of the gratitude which we owe
to the giver. Take care, therefore, if you wish your gifts to be
esteemed, that they reach those to whom they are promised entire,
and, as the saying is, without any deduction. Let no one intercept
them or delay them; for no one can take any share of the gratitude
due for your gifts without robbing you of it.

V. Nothing is more bitter than long uncertainty; some can bear to
have their hopes extinguished better than to have them deferred. Yet
many men are led by an unworthy vanity into this fault of putting
off the accomplishment of their promises, merely in order to swell
the crowd of their suitors, like the ministers of royalty, who
delight in prolonging the display of their own arrogance, hardly
thinking themselves possessed of power unless they let each man see
for a long time how powerful they are. They do nothing promptly, or
at one sitting; they are indeed swift to do mischief, but slow to do
good. Be sure that the comic poet speaks the most absolute truth in
the verses:--

"Know you not this? If you your gifts delay,
You take thereby my gratitude away."