Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/246

 66 please, and have nothing of Ill Nature, Luxury, or Trifling in your Humour : Don't you see how much you may do if you have a mind to't; and how the Plea of Incapacity is out of doors? And yet you don't Push, and manage as you should do : What then ! Does any Natural Defect force you upon Grumbling, Miserableness, or laying your Faults upon your Constitution, upon Flattery, or Ostentation; upon uncertainty of Temper, and rolling from one Folly to another ? Can you say you are so weakly made, as to be driven upon these Practices ? The immortal Gods know to the contrary ! No, you might have stood clear of all This long since : And after all, if your Parts were somewhat low, and your Understanding heavy, your way had been to have taken the more pains with your self, and not to have lain Fallow, and doted upon your own dullness.

VI. Some Men when they do you a Kindness, are presently for Ringing the Obligation in your Ears; others are more modest than this comes to : However, they remember the Favour, and look upon you as their Debtor. A third sort shall be every jot as much Benefactors, and yet scarce know any thing of the matter : These are much like a Vine, which is satisfied by being fruitful in its Kind, and Rh