Letter 1059: So you boast of your leisure and your hunting.

You boast of leisure and of the hunt. This is indeed a pleasant boast, yet it has been put forward by you in jest rather than in earnest. For your relaxed seasons, free from public business, you gladly spend in chewing over the books of the ancients. To others, therefore, you will give empty words, who knew you only at first meeting. But I, both from the affairs which night and day you keep among your cares, and likewise from the daily nourishment of your talent drawn from letters, which you grant to me, infer the savor of your learning. Unless perhaps you have touched upon Apollo in the woods, like that shepherd Hesiod, whom the family of the Camenae [the Muses] crowned with the poetic laurel. For whence comes this newness of meaning and oldness of words in your letters, if, forgetful of all that is better, you affect only knotty nets, or the scarecrow-feathers [used to frighten game], and keen-scented dogs, and the whole business of hunting? Wherefore, when you write, remember to set a limit to your eloquence. Let the things you say be rustic and uncultivated, so that you may be believed to be a hunter. Farewell.