ven it; he may have looked at me with greater haughtiness than
he was wont to do; he may have been so slow in giving it, that he would
have done me a greater service if he had promptly refused it. How could
a judge estimate the value of these things, when words, hesitation, or
looks can destroy all their claim to gratitude?

IX. What, again, could he do, seeing that some things are called
benefits because they are unduly coveted, whilst others are not benefits
at all, according to this common valuation, yet are of even greater
value, though not so showy? You call it a benefit to cause a man to be
adopted as a member of a powerful city, to get him enrolled among the
knights, or to defend one who is being tried for his life: what do you
say of him who gives useful advice? of him who holds you back when you
would rush into crime? of him who strikes the sword from the hands of
the suicide? of him who by his power of consolation brings back to the
duties of life one who was plunged in grief, and eager to follow those
whom he had lost? of him who sits at the bedside of the sick man, and
who, when health and recovery depend upon seizing the right moment,
administers food in due season, stimulates the failing veins with wine,
or calls in the physician to the dying man? Who can estimate the value
of such services as these? who can bid us weigh dissimilar benefits one
with another? "I gave you a house," says one. Yes, but I forewarned
you that your own house would come down upon your head. "I gave you an
estate," says he. True, but I gave a plank to you when shipwrecked. "I
fought for you and received wounds for you," says another. But I saved
your life by keeping silence. Since a benefit is both given and returned
differently by different people, it is hard to make them balance.

X. Besides this, no day is appointed for repayment of a benefit, as
there is for borrowed money; consequently he who has not yet repaid a
benefit may do so hereafter: for tell me, pray, within what time a man
is to be declared ungrateful? The greatest benefits cannot be proved by
evidence; they often lurk in the silent consciousness of two men
only; are we to introduce the rule of not bestowing benefits without
witnesses? Next, what punishment are we to appoint for the ungrateful?
is there to be one only for all, though the benefits which they have
received are different? or should the punishment be varying, greater
or less according to the benefit whic