IT is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy; that the world
owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into
chancery and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which
involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of the
difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year and other times, in
bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, though
very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the choosing.
If at any time it comes into my head that a present is due from me to
somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone.
Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a
proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the
world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of
ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house.
Nature does not cocker us; we are children, not pets; she is not fond;
everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal
laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference
of love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery even though
we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance
enough to be courted. Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us:
what am I to whom these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable
gifts, because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of
fantastic values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to
come a hundred miles to visit him and should set before me a basket of
fine summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the
labor and the reward.
For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, and
one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option; since if the man
at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could
procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat
bread, or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always
a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does
everything well. In our condition of universal dependence it seems
heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give
all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be a fantastic
desire, it is better to leave to others the office of punishing him. I
can think of many parts I should prefer playing to that of the Furies.
Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift, which one of my
friends prescribed, is that we might convey to some person that which
properly belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him
in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most
part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for
gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me.
Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer,
corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his
picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and
pleasing, for it restores society in so far to its primary basis, when
a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an
index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to
the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and
talent, but a goldsmith's. This is fit for kings, and rich men who
represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold
and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of
black-mail.
The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful
sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive gifts.
How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not quite
forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being
bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of
receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow.
We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems something
of degrading dependence in living by it:--
"Brother, if Jove to thee a present make,
Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take."
We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society if
it do not give us, besides earth and fire and water, opportunity, love,
reverence, and objects of veneration.
He is a good man who can receive a gift well. We are either glad or
sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence I think
is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a gift. I
am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes from such
as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; and if the
gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the donor should
read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not him. The gift,
to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to
my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, then my goods pass
to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine his. I say to him, How
can you give me this pot of oil or this flagon of wine when all your oil
and wine is mine, which belief of mine this gift seems to deny? Hence
the fitness of beautiful, not useful things, for gifts. This giving is
flat usurpation, and therefore when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as
all beneficiaries hate all Timons, not at all considering the value of
the gift but looking back to the greater store it was taken from,--I
rather sympathize with the beneficiary than with the anger of my lord
Timon. For the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually
punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great
happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who has
had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business,
this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a
slap. A golden text for these gentlemen is that which I so admire in
the Buddhist, who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your
benefactors."
The reason of these discords I conceive to be that there is no
commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything to
a magnanimous person. After you have served him he at once puts you in
debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend is trivial
and selfish compared with the service he knows his friend stood in
readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend,
and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit
it is in my power to render him seems small. Besides, our action on each
other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random that we can
seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for
a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a
direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom
have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit which is directly
received. But rectitude scatters favors on every side without knowing
it, and receives with wonder the thanks of all people.
I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is the
genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to prescribe.
Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There are persons
from whom we always expect fairy-tokens; let us not cease to expect
them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our municipal rules.
For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought and sold. The best
of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the will, but in fate. I
find that I am not much to you; you do not need me; you do not feel me;
then am I thrust out of doors, though you proffer me house and lands. No
services are of any value, but only likeness. When I have attempted to
join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,--no
more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love
them, and they feel you and delight in you all the time.
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