Page:On Friendship (Howe, 1915).pdf/44

 each seeks, more than aught else, to do good to the other, he who furnishes the occasion is the liberal one, giving his friend the satisfaction of effecting through him what he most desires. When the philosopher Diogenes had need of money, he used to say that he asked it back from his friends, not that he merely asked it. And to show how this is really practiced, I will recount a curious antique example. Eudamidas the Corinthian had two friends, Charixenus a Sicyonian and Areteus a Corinthian: being about to die, and being poor, and his two friends rich, he made this will: “I give and bequeath to Areteus to keep my mother and to care for her in her old age; to Charixenus to have my daughter marry and to give her the largest dowry he can: and in case one of them should die, I substitute the survivor in his place.” Those that first saw this will made fun of it; but when his heirs had been notified they accepted with peculiar satisfaction: and as one of them, Charixenus, expired five days later, the substitution being effected in favour of Areteus, he took the nicest care of the mother; and of five talents he had in his possession, he gave two and a half in marriage with his only