Letter 5062: You ask how I am and what I am doing.

You ask how I am keeping, or what I am doing. I answer your inquiry, which springs from affection. I take delight in the quiet of the countryside. This affords me both the healthfulness of the fields and the nourishment of reading. Often I feast my eyes on the cultivations that the winter's labor keeps at work. I most heartily congratulate you that your health is favorable and that the memory of our friendship lives on in you. But the excuse for my silence is not an unjust one; for nothing was at hand that I might write, and at the same time, since you are occupied with the hearing of cases, I was afraid to break in upon you, lest the talkativeness of a man at leisure should add a burden to your many affairs.