And the following lines, the expression of virtuous pain--a high-
spirited man's misery,--

"What thou doest, do quickly;"

and:--

"Nothing in the world
Is worth this trouble; I had rather you
Refused it to me now."

When the mind begins through weariness to hate the promised
benefit, or while it is wavering in expectation of it, how can it
feel grateful for it? As the most refined cruelty is that which
prolongs the torture, while to kill the victim at once is a kind of
mercy, since the extremity of torture brings its own end with it--
the interval is the worst part of the execution--so the shorter
time a benefit hangs in the balance, the more grateful it is to the
receiver. It is possible to look forward with anxious disquietude
even to good things, and, seeing that most benefits consist in a
release from some form of misery, a man destroys the value of the
benefit which he confers, if he has the power to relieve us, and
yet allows us to suffer or to lack pleasure longer than we need.
Kindness always eager to do good, and one who acts by love
naturally acts at once; he who does us good, but does it tardily
and with long delays, does not do so from the heart. Thus he loses
two most important things: time, and the proof of his good will to
us; for a lingering consent is but a form of denial.

VI. The manner in which things are said or done, my Liberalis,