Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay scot and lot[131] as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for a small frugality.  The borrower runs in his own debt.  Has a man gained anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none?  Has he gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor’s wares, or horses, or money?  There arises on the deed the instant acknowledgment of benefit on the one part, and of debt on the other; that is, of superiority and inferiority.  The transaction remains in the memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction alters, according to its nature, their relation to each other.  He may soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to have ridden in his neighbor’s coach, and that “the highest price he can pay for a thing is to ask for it.”

A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that it is the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart.  Always pay; for, first or last, you must pay your entire debt.  Persons and events may stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a postponement.  You must pay at last your own debt.  If you are wise, you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more.  Benefit is the end of nature.  But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is levied.  He is great who confers the most benefits.  He is base—­and that is the one base thing in the universe—­to receive favors and render none.  In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom.[132] But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody.  Beware of too much good staying in your hand.  It will fast corrupt and worm worms.[133] Pay it away quickly in some sort.

Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws.  Cheapest, say the prudent, is the dearest labor.  What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want.  It is best to pay in your land a skillful gardener, or to buy good sense applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, serving; in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and affairs.  So do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself throughout your estate.  But because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be no cheating.  The thief steals from himself.  The swindler swindles himself.  For the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs.  These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen.  These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives.  The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative.  The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power:  but they who do not the thing have not the power.