Letter 7009: I'm delighted that your letters sparkle with sharp observations and clever turns of phrase.

It delights us that your letters sparkle with sharp points and pithy sayings; for it is fitting that a youthful ardor should speak the more exuberantly. But we wish that, while in other subjects you employ the barbs of eloquence, in this kind of writing you should mix in something mature and lighthearted [literally, comic]; which we believe your own rhetorician also instructs you to do. For just as in the clothing of men and in the rest of life's adornment things are chosen that are suited to the place and the occasion, so the variety of talents in familiar writings ought to imitate a certain negligence, but in forensic ones to brandish the weapons of eloquence. But of these matters we will not go on at greater length. Press on meanwhile to where the impulse of your age and the ardor of your nature drive you. The chief of our prayer is that you may fare well and may grow rich beyond your years in the endowment of letters. [Book X; dated 399-402.]

Scintillare acumiDibus atque sententiis epistulas tuas gaudeo; decet enim loqui exultantius iuvenalem calorem. sed volo , ut in aliis materiis aculeis orationis utaiis, 5 huic autem generi scriptionis maturum aliquid et comicum misceas; quod tibi etiam rhetorem tuum credo praecipere. nam ut in vestitu hominum ceteroque vitae cultu loco ac tempori apta sumuntur, ita ingeniorum varietas in familiaribus scriptis negle- gentiam quandam debet imitari, in forensibus vero quatere arma facundiae. sed de his non ibo longius. perge interim, quo te aetatis impetus et naturae ardor inpellit. 10 mei voti caput est, ut bene valeas et supra annos tuos litterarum dote ditescas. X a. 399—402.