of infamy itself, I would yet be grateful. No man is greater in my esteem than he that ventures the fame to preserve the conscience of an honest man; the one is but imaginary, the other solid and inestimable. I cannot call him grateful, who in the instant of returning one benefit has his eye upon another. He that is grateful for profit or fear, is like a woman that is honest only upon the score of reputation.
As gratitude is a necessary and a glorious, so it is also an obvious, a cheap, and an easy virtue; so obvious, that wheresoever there is a life there is a place for it—so cheap that the covetous man may be grateful without expense—and so easy that the sluggard may be so, likewise, without labor. And yet it is not without its niceties too; for there may be a time, a place or occasion wherein I ought not to return a benefit; nay, wherein I may better disown it than deliver it.
Let it be understood, by the way, that it is one thing to be grateful for a good office, and another thing to return it—the good will is enough in one case, being as much as the one side demands and the other promises; but the effect is requisite in the other. The physician that has done his best is acquitted though the patient dies, and so is the advocate, though the client may lose his cause. The general of an army, though the battle be lost, is yet worthy of commendation, if he has discharged all the parts of a prudent commander; in this case, the one acquits himself, though the other be never the better for it. He is a grateful man that is always willing and ready: and he that seeks for all means and occasions of requiting a benefit, though without attaining his end, does a great deal more than the man that, without any trouble, makes an immediate return. Suppose my friend a prisoner, and that I have sold my estate for his ransom; I put to sea in foul weather, and upon a coast that is pestered with pirates; my friend happens to be redeemed before I come to the place; my gratitude is as much to be esteemed as if he had been a prisoner; and if I had been taken and robbed myself, it would still have been the same case. Nay, there is a gratitude in the very countenance; for an honest man bears his conscience in his face, and propounds the requital of a good turn in the very moment of receiving it; he is cheerful and confident; and, in the possession of a true friendship, delivered from all anxiety. There is this difference betwixt a thankful man and an unthankful, the one is always pleased in the good he has done, and the other only once in what he has received. There must be a benignity in the estimation even of the smallest offices; and such a modesty as appears to be obliged in whatsoever it gives. As it is indeed a very great benefit, the opportunity of doing a good office to a worthy man. He that attends to the present, and remembers what is past, shall never be ungrateful. But who shall judge in the case? for a man may be grateful without making a return, and ungrateful with it. Our best way is to help every thing by a fair interpretation; and wheresoever there is a doubt, to allow it the most favorable construction; for he that is exceptious at words, or looks, has a mind to pick a quarrel. For my own part, when I come to cast up my account, and know what I owe, and to whom, though I make my return sooner to some, and later to others, as occasion or fortune will give me leave, yet I will be just to all: I will be grateful to God, to man, to those that have obliged me: nay, even to those that have obliged my friends. I am bound in honor and in conscience to be thankful for what I have received; and if it be not yet full, it is some pleasure still that I may hope for more. For the requital of a favor there must be virtue, occasion, means, and fortune.
It is a common thing to screw up justice to the pitch of an injury. A man may be over-righteous; and why not over-grateful too? There is a mischievous excess, that borders so close upon ingratitude, that it is no easy matter to distinguish the one from the other: but, in regard that there is good-will in the bottom of it, (however distempered, for it is effectually but kindness out of the wits,) we shall discourse it under the title of Gratitude mistaken.
CHAPTER XVIII.
GRATITUDE MISTAKEN.
To refuse a good office, not so much because we do not need it, as because we would not be indebted for it, is a kind of fantastical ingratitude, and somewhat akin to that nicety of humor, on the other side, of being over-grateful; only it lies another way, and seems to be the more pardonable ingratitude of the two. Some people take it for a great instance of their good-will to be wishing their benefactors such or such a mischief; only, forsooth, that they themselves may be the happy instruments of their release.
These men do like extravagant lovers, that take it for a great proof of their affection to wish one another banished, beggared, or diseased, that they might have the opportunity of interposing to their relief. What difference is there betwixt such wishing and cursing? such an affection and a mortal hatred? The intent is good, you will say, but this is a misapplication of it. Let such a one fall into my power, or into the hands of his enemies, his creditors, or the common people, and no mortal be able to rescue him but myself: let his life, his liberty, and his reputation, lie all at stake, and no creature but myself in condition to succor him; and why all this, but because he has obliged me, and I would requite him? If this be gratitude to propound jails, shackles, slavery, war, beggary, to the man that you would requite, what would you do where you are ungrateful? This way of proceeding, over and above that it is impious in itself, is likewise over-hasty and unseasonable: for he that goes too fast is as much to blame as he that does not move at all, (to say nothing of the injustice,) for if I had never been obliged, I should never have wished it.
There are seasons wherein a benefit is neither to be received nor requited. To press a return upon me when I do not desire it, is unmannerly; but it is worse to force me to desire it. How rigorous would he be to exact a requital; who is thus eager to return it! To wish a man in distress that I may relieve him, is first to wish him miserable: to wish that he may stand in need of anybody, is against him; and to wish that he may stand in need of me, is for myself: so that my business is not so much a charity to my friend as the cancelling of a bond; nay, it is half-way the wish of an enemy. It is barbarous to wish a man in chains, slavery, or want, only to bring him out again: let me rather wish him powerful and happy, and myself indebted to him! By nature we are prone to mercy, humanity compassion; may we be excited to be more so by the number of the grateful! may their number increase, and may we have no need of trying them!
It is not for an honest man to make way to a good office by a crime: as if a pilot should pray for a tempest, that he might prove his skill: or a general wish his army routed, that he may show himself a great commander in recovering the day. It is throwing a man into a river to take him out again. It is an obligation, I confess, to cure a wound or a disease; but to make that wound or disease on purpose to cure it, is a most perverse ingratitude. It is barbarous even to an enemy, much more to a friend; for it is not so much to do him a kindness, as to put him in need of it. Of the two, let me rather be a scar than a wound; and yet it would be better to have it neither. Rome had been little beholden to Scipio if he had prolonged the Punic war that he might have the finishing of it at last, or to the Decii for dying for their country, if they had first brought it to the last extremity of needing their devotion. It may be a good contemplation, but it is a lewd wish. Æneas had never been surnamed the Pious, if he had wished the ruin of his country, only that he might have the honor of taking his father out of the fire. It is the scandal of a physician to make work, and irritate a disease, and to torment his patient, for the reputation of his cure. If a man should openly imprecate poverty, captivity, fear, or danger, upon a person that he has been obliged to, would not the whole world condemn him for it? And what is the difference, but the one is only a private wish, and the other a public declaration? Rutilius was told in his exile, that, for his comfort, there would be ere-long a civil war, that would bring all the banished men home again. “God forbid,” says he, “for I had rather my country should blush for my banishment than mourn for my return.” How much more honorable it is to owe cheerfully, than to pay dishonestly? It is the wish of an enemy to take a town that he may preserve it, and to be victorious that he may forgive; but the mercy comes after the cruelty; beside that it is an injury both to God and man; for the man must be first afflicted by Heaven to be
