“But this good,” you say, “has in it also some element of profit.” What virtue, indeed, has not? But that is said to be desired because of itself which, although it possesses some outside advantages, still pleases even when these have been stripped of and removed. There is advantage in being grateful; yet I shall be grateful even if it harms me. And what is the aim of one who is grateful? Is it that his gratitude may win for him more friends, more benefits? What, then, if a man is likely to arouse disfavor by it, if a man knows that, so far from being likely to gain anything by it, he must lose much from the store that he has already acquired, does he not gladly submit to his losses? He is ungrateful who in the act of repaying gratitude has an eye on a second gift — who hopes while he repays. I call him ungrateful who sits at the bedside of a sick man because he is going to make his will, who finds room for an thought of an inheritance or a legacy. Though he should do everything that a good and thoughtful friend ought to do, if his mind is haunted by the hope of gain, he is only a fisher for legacies and is just dropping his hook. As birds of prey that feed upon carcasses keep watch near by the flocks that are spent with disease and are ready to drop, so such a man gloats over a death-bed and hovers about the corpse.