Letter 1065: You urge me to cultivate our friendship through frequent correspondence.

You urge that we cultivate the good of our friendship with frequent letters. The exhortation that invites me to this devotion is pleasing, and, to confess the truth, this wish of yours is an honor to me: for the greatest love demands more. But as to what you say, that I rather, since I am free of public affairs, ought to be allotted a watchfulness of this kind, I disagree that it is fair. In the first place, because, as a man of unrestrained leisure, I take no pains to scrutinize the comings and goings of travelers, your office, if it does not find a conveyance for letters, creates one; and next, because for me an idle disuse silts up my talent, while for you, long engaged in tireless business, the practice of speaking is kept ready. Therefore, the greater the abundance with which you write, the more I deserve pardon for my infrequency. Do I seem sufficiently fortified by these reasons for the future? I would have you remember that whatever conversation you receive from me is the product of compliance, not of leisure.