Letter 1027: After your long silence, I was hoping — no, expecting — a letter of generous length.

After your long silence I was no less desiring than expecting a more generous letter. For by these alternations human affairs are varied, so that abundance succeeds upon scarcity. That expectation held me in vain; since indeed a short page, recently set out from you, reached my hands. It was, to be sure, sprinkled with Attic wit and fragrant with thyme, but too sparing, the sort that would wipe away fastidiousness rather than break hunger. What of it? If I had demanded sumptuous dinners and a Salian banquet [a feast of priestly extravagance], then portions of sacrificial meat and a full repast, would you set before me only a second course and the dainties of a meager dish? Bring to mind what the Greek saying declares on this matter: by small nourishments, it says, although we are defended against death, we yet advance nothing toward robust health. Do you suppose that I will keep silent about your occupations? You are quaestor, I recall; a sharer in the royal council, I know; an arbiter of petitions and a founder of laws, I acknowledge; add to these a thousand other matters: it will never come about that labor wears down your talent, that care bends your kindness, that use exhausts your eloquence. Even if you never break up your daily business with rest, surely you indulge in no sleep before dawn. Let some time be granted to your duties to friends! Or does it seem to you too little an example in the comic poet, when he says: how I would wish it were also the custom that service be rendered to friends by night! But why do I, poor in conversation, keep barking on any longer? I must imitate your recent letter, as in the rest of your habits. Perhaps, being busy, you decline a longer letter. That this is so, I rightly conjecture. For I see how unwilling you are to read much, you who scarcely have the leisure to dictate a few words.