The Generosity of Noble Hearts

There was a man of great generosity but little wealth; his means fell short of his kindness. May the lowly never come to fortune, and may the noble never fall into poverty. The one whose ambition reaches high rarely finds his wishes caught in his grasp. Like a stream rushing down the mountainside, that never settles on the heights. You gave beyond what your resources allowed, so of course you ended up in want. A poor man wrote him a brief note: You of good ends and fine nature, help me with a certain sum of coins, for I have been in prison for some time now. The amount meant nothing in his eyes, yet he did not have a single penny in hand. So he sent word to the creditors who held the man: You good and free-hearted people, hold back your hands from him for a while; and if he runs off, the debt is on me. Then he told the prisoner: Get up, and flee this city as fast as you can. Like a sparrow that sees the cage door open, he could not rest a single breath. He bolted like the morning wind, so fast the wind itself could not catch his dust. At once they seized the generous man: Produce this silver, or the man himself. In helplessness he took the road to prison, for a bird once flown from the cage cannot be caught. I heard he stayed locked up a long while, yet wrote no complaint and cried out to no one. He found no rest by day and no sleep by night; a devout man passed by and said: I do not think you are one to devour others' wealth; what happened to land you in prison? He answered: You blessed companion, I never took anyone's money by trickery. I saw a helpless man wounded by his chains, and saw no way to free him but by binding myself. It did not sit right with my conscience: I at ease while another lay shackled. In the end he died, and carried away a good name; how fine a life whose name did not die. A body with a living heart, asleep beneath the soil, is better than a world of the living who are dead at heart. A living heart never perishes; if the body of one with a living heart dies, what does it matter?