"What is after all the wrong the ingrate does you? You have lost your good deed. But there remains to you the most precious part of it: the merit of having done it. There are services one should learn how to render without hope of returns, to people one may presume will be ungrateful, and whom one even knows to have been so. If, for example, I can save from a great peril the children of one who has been ungrateful to me, I shall not hesitate to do so." (I., x.) 3. There must be degrees in benefactions, and, having to choose, one must first give the _necessary_, then the _useful_, then the _agreeable_. "The necessary," says Seneca, "is divided into three classes: the first comprises the things without which one cannot live (for example, to rescue a man from the sword of the enemy, from the rage of tyrants, from proscription, etc.); the second, those without which one should not live (such as liberty, honor, virtue); finally (3d class), our children, our wives, our household gods are objects dearer to us than life.--After the necessary comes the useful; it may be subdivided into a great number of species; it comprises money, honors, and above all the progress in the science of virtue.--Finally come the agreeable things which are innumerable.... Let us seek things which please because they are to the purpose; that are not common; that recall the donor; let us above all beware of useless presents." (I., xi.) 4. The manner of granting a benefit is more important than the benefit itself. "The simplest rule to follow is to give as we should ourselves wish to be given to. "One must above all give heartily, without hesitation ... after a refusal nothing so hard as irresolution.... The most agreeable kindnesses are those one does not expect, which flow naturally; which anticipate their need. It is better to anticipate the request. To forestall this trouble is doubling the good deed. "There are people who spoil their greatest kindnesses by their silence, their slowness to speak which comes from constraint and moodiness; they promise with the same air with which they would refuse.... Their knit brows, their harangues, their disdain make one regret having obtained the promised thing. "Nothing more disagreeable than to be a long time in suspense. There are persons who prefer giving up hope to languishing in expectation.... Promptness then enhances the good deed, and tardiness diminishes it." (II., ii-vi.) 5. One must not reproach good deeds.