Letter 2026: Since you are always kind enough to care about my affairs out of mutual love, I report to your attentive devotion...

26. RURICIUS TO HIS OWN APOLLINARIS, GREETING. Since out of mutual affection you deign always to take care for our concerns, I make known to your watchful devotion and devout watchfulness that we have undertaken a task that is indeed not small, but, with God favoring it, has come back to us as a source of delight, one that could profit us very greatly, if only natural talent were to follow either the application of understanding or understanding itself. For it is to no purpose that a blind man awaits the rising of the sun. That sun, to be sure, always rises for those who see, but for those who do not perceive its radiance it is forever hidden as though by clouds. For our Sollius [Sidonius Apollinaris], our lord and our common father, whom I had said I gave to your Sublimity to be transcribed, I have received back to be read. The reading of him, just as it restores in me my old affection, so, on account of the obscurity of his sayings, does not kindle my talent, although that very man, even after so long a span of time, we now and then rouse up with sighing breaths -- a little fire of affection somehow still glowing amid the ashes of forgetfulness with its own sparks -- and at times we water it with sweet tears of ours; yet that fire, drenched by such a shower, the more it is wetted, the more it is set ablaze, because through the abundance of tears the flame of longings and affections grows, it does not fail. This man, therefore, if the Lord shall be granted as the favorer of your devout resolve, I hasten to review thoroughly while you are present, and to be made a pupil from a master, because I am not ashamed even at this age, nor does it irk me, to take up the diligence of a pupil, provided only that I attain the discipline of an art I aspire to. For anyone ought first to learn before he teaches, since he too prematurely usurps the haughty brow of a teacher who has not first undertaken the service of a pupil. For what is more just than that you yourself should be the interpreter of your father's eloquence -- you who can bring forth all that he wrote, not so much from the parchment of a book as from the page of your heart? That you are his sons you prove not only by the nobility of your lineage, but also by the flower of your eloquence and every kind of virtue -- goods which not so much learning conferred upon you as nature, since a stream bursting forth from a spring, although by flowing it gains strength and by running acquires fullness, nevertheless owes both its renown and its merit to that source from which it takes its name. And if divine mercy had willed him to survive up to this present time, then, just as even then he rejoiced in your imitation of him, so now he would rejoice in your perfection, when he would perceive that hope had arrived at its reality, and he would not begrudge one equal to himself the man he had wished to be better.

XXVI. RURICIUS APOLLINARI SUO SALUTEM. Quia nostri curam semper gerere pro mutua caritate dignamini, indico sollicitae pietati et piae sollicitudini uestrae, nos non paruum quidem, sed deo propitio uoluptuosum a nobis reuersum sumpsisse negotium, quod nobis plurimum prodesse posset, si aut intentionem intellectus aut intellectum sequeretur ingenium. sine causa enim solis ortum caecus expectat. ille quidem uidentibus semper exoritur, non cernentibus uero iubar ipsius quasi nubibus semper operitur. Sollium enim nostrum domnum patremque communem, quem transcribendum sublimitati uestrae dedisse me dixeram, legendum recepi. cuius lectio, sicut mihi antiquum restaurat affectum, ita prae obscuritate dictorum non accendit ingenium, quamlibet ipsum post 1 respirari S uagare S 2 at Sl(?), ut 82 7 deberis S 8 ianuum S 9 dilicias S 11 dices v perquires scripsi, perquiris S 12 uenia S 13 parsioni v in textu, portioni uel personae v in notis 14 pactum c. r. factum v 15 cui Kr., cuius S, quibus v in notis 19 pia S 20 reuersu:is umsisse S*, reuersu sumsisse 82 22 possit S 23 cecus S 24 iubari S tam longi temporis spatium caritatis igniculum scintillis suis inter obliuionis fauillas utcumque relucentem nonnumquam et suspiriosis flatibus excitemus et interdum dulcibus nobis fletibus inrigemus, quo tamen ille imbre perfusus, quanto magis inficitur, tanto magis incenditur, quia per lacrimarum copiam desideriorum atque affectuum crescit flamma, non deficit. hunc ergo, si dominus piae definitioni uestrae tribuetur fautor, effectum uobis praesentibus percensere festino et effici discipulus de magistro, quia non me pudet etiam in hac aetate nec piget discipuli adripere industriam, dummodo affectatae artis consequar disciplinam. prius enim quilibet debet discere quam docere, quia praepropere doctoris usurpat supercilium, nisi discipuli susceperit ante famulatum. quid enim iustius, quam ut ipse sis paterni interpres eloquii, qui uniuersa, quae ille conscripsit, non tam de codicis membrana, quam de cordis potes pagina proferre? cuius uos esse filios non solum generositate prosapiae, uerum etiam et eloquentiae flore et omni uirtutum genere conprobatis, quae bona uobis non tam doctrina contulit, quam natura, quia riuus de fonte prorumpens, licet fluendo proficiat et plenitudinem currendo conquirat, auctori tamen, unde sumit uocabulum, debet et meritum. quem si diuina clementia usque ad hoc tempus superesse uoluisset, sicut iam tum de uestra imitatione laetabatur, ita nunc de perfectione gauderet, cum spem ad rem cerneret peruenisse nec sibi inuideret aequalem, quem optauerat esse meliorem.