loading him with other gifts, had set him free from the necessity
of making himself ridiculous by labouring at a profession in which
he never could succeed.

Greed does not permit any one to be grateful; for what is given is
never equal to its base desires, and the more we receive the more
we covet, for avarice is much more eager when it has to deal with
great accumulations of wealth, just as the power of a flame is
enormously greater in proportion to the size of the conflagration
from which it springs. Ambition in like manner suffers no man to
rest satisfied with that measure of public honours, to gain which
was once the limit of his wildest hope; no one is thankful for
becoming tribune, but grumbles at not being at once promoted to the
post of praetor; nor is he grateful for this if the consulship does
not follow; and even this does not satisfy him if he be consul but
once. His greed ever stretches itself out further, and he does not
understand the greatness of his success because he always looks
forward to the point at which he aims, and never back towards that
from which he started.

XXVIII. A more violent and distressing vice than any of these is
jealousy which disturbs us by suggesting comparisons. "He gave me
this, but he gave more to that man, and he gave it to him before
me;" after which he sympathises with no one, but pushes his own
claims to the prejudice of every one else. How much more
straightforward and modest is it to make the most of what we have
received, knowing that no man is valued so highly by any one else
as by his own, self! "I ought to have received more, but it was not
easy for him to give more; he was obliged to distribute his
liberality among many persons. This is only the beginning; let me