Some who bestow immense benefits spoil them by their silence or reluctant words, which give the impression of austerity and sternness, and, though they promise a gift, have the air of refusing it. How much better to add kindly words to kindly actions, and grace the gifts you bestow with humane and generous speech! In order that the recipient may reproach himself because he was slow to ask, you might add the familiar rebuke I am angry with you because, when you needed something, you were not willing to let me know long ago, because you took so much pains in putting your request, because you invited a witness to the transaction. Truly I congratulate myself because you were moved to put my friendliness to the test; next time you will demand by your own right whatever need — this once I pardon your bashfulness. The result of this will be that he will value your friendliness more than your gift, no matter what it was that he had come to seek. The bestower attains the highest degree of merit, the highest degree of generosity, only when it will be possible for the man who has left him to say: “Great is the gain that I have made today; but I would rather have found the giver to be the sort of man he was than to have had many times the amount that we were talking about come to me in some other way; for the spirit he has shown I can never return enough gratitude.