Letters181 Letter CLXXXI. To THE CHANCELLOR HAIMERIC. He protests his gratitude for the benefits he has received. (Circa A.D. 1136)

If I wished to repay you in words for the good deeds with which you overwhelm me it would be as if one, attacked with arrows, should defend himself with straws; except that this last would seem a mere game, the other deceit. Deeds ought to be repaid by deeds. But such return is difficult for me who am poor and in low station. Poor I am in goods and strength, but not in good wishes. Your kindnesses, then, which I cannot repay with good deeds I will with prayers. I am rich in good wishes, I abound in affection. And surely a true benefactor asks no more. For in what way is a man beneficent if he is not also benevolent? Besides, the benevolent man thinks nothing dearer to himself than the very benevolence from which he is called benevolent and is beneficent. Again, the fruit of beneficence is benevolence, unless perchance any one think that to be a benefit bestowed which he has sown in hope or lost through fear. But who does not see that this last is abandoned, the other sold, neither given? A benefit, therefore, to be real must be gratuitous. And so, to be repaid anything by the receiver, cannot be so pleasing to the giver as to have gratitude felt for what he has gratuitously given. And this benevolence in the mind of the receiver springs from the benevolence in that of the giver, a beneficent act intervening. In this benevolence I confess myself rich; this I offer to my benefactor from a full heart as a worthy return; this I devoutly send up to the Creator of all as a sacrifice of praise for the salvation of my benefactor.