Ingratitude would be rarer if kindness were less often the investment of a usurer.  We love those who have done us a kindness; what a natural feeling!  Ingratitude is not to be found in the heart of man, but self-interest is there; those who are ungrateful for benefits received are fewer than those who do a kindness for their own ends.  If you sell me your gifts, I will haggle over the price; but if you pretend to give, in order to sell later on at your own price, you are guilty of fraud; it is the free gift which is beyond price.  The heart is a law to itself; if you try to bind it, you lose it; give it its liberty, and you make it your own.

When the fisherman baits his line, the fish come round him without suspicion; but when they are caught on the hook concealed in the bait, they feel the line tighten and they try to escape.  Is the fisherman a benefactor?  Is the fish ungrateful?  Do we find a man forgotten by his benefactor, unmindful of that benefactor?  On the contrary, he delights to speak of him, he cannot think of him without emotion; if he gets a chance of showing him, by some unexpected service, that he remembers what he did for him, how delighted he is to satisfy his gratitude; what a pleasure it is to earn the gratitude of his benefactor.  How delightful to say, “It is my turn now.”  This is indeed the teaching of nature; a good deed never caused ingratitude.

If therefore gratitude is a natural feeling, and you do not destroy its effects by your blunders, be sure your pupil, as he begins to understand the value of your care for him, will be grateful for it, provided you have not put a price upon it; and this will give you an authority over his heart which nothing can overthrow.  But beware of losing this advantage before it is really yours, beware of insisting on your own importance.  Boast of your services and they become intolerable; forget them and they will not be forgotten.  Until the time comes to treat him as a man let there be no question of his duty to you, but his duty to himself.  Let him have his freedom if you would make him docile; hide yourself so that he may seek you; raise his heart to the noble sentiment of gratitude by only speaking of his own interest.  Until he was able to understand I would not have him told that what was done was for his good; he would only have understood such words to mean that you were dependent on him and he would merely have made you his servant.  But now that he is beginning to feel what love is, he also knows what a tender affection may bind a man to what he loves; and in the zeal which keeps you busy on his account, he now sees not the bonds of a slave, but the affection of a friend.  Now there is nothing which carries so much weight with the human heart as the voice of friendship recognised as such, for we know that it never speaks but for our good.  We may think our friend is mistaken, but we never believe he is deceiving us.  We may reject his advice now and then, but we never scorn it.