_ GIFTS.
Gifts of one who loved me,--
'T was high time they came;
When he ceased to love me,
Time they stopped for shame.
V. GIFTS.
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. _