Letter 134: You may conjecture from what it contains, what pleasure you have given me by your letter. The pureness of heart, from which such expressions sprang, was plainly signified by what you wrote. A streamlet tells of its own spring, and so the manner of speech marks the heart from which it came.

How much your letter delighted us you can no doubt guess from the very words you wrote. So clearly was the purity of the heart from which those words proceeded revealed by the letter itself. For a channel of water shows forth its own spring, and the nature of speech characterizes the heart that produced it. And so I confess that I have experienced something strange and far removed from what one would expect. For though I was always eager to receive a letter from your Perfection, when I took the letter into my hands and read it, I was not so much pleased by what was written as I was pained, reckoning up how great a loss we had suffered during the time of your silence. But since you have begun to write, do not leave off doing so. For you will bring us more delight than those who send great sums of money to the lovers of wealth. As for scribes, none was available to me — neither copyists nor shorthand writers. For of those I happened to have trained, some ran back to their former way of life, and the rest have given out under their labors, broken down by prolonged illnesses.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA To the presbyter Pœonius. You may conjecture from what it contains, what pleasure you have given me by your letter. The pureness of heart, from which such expressions sprang, was plainly signified by what you wrote. A streamlet tells of its own spring, and so the manner of speech marks the heart from which it came. I must confess that an extraordinary and improbable thing has happened to me. For deeply anxious as I always was to receive a letter from your excellency, when I had taken your letter into my hand and had read it, I was not so much pleased at what you had written, as annoyed at reckoning up the loss I had suffered in your long silence. Now that you have begun to write, pray do not leave off. You will give me greater pleasure than men can give by sending much money to misers. I have had no writer with me, neither caligraphist, nor short-hand. Of all those whom I happen to employ, some have returned to their former mode of life, and others are unfit for work from long sickness.

[Πρός: Παιονίῳ πρεσβυτέρῳ] Ὅσον ηὔφρανας ἡμᾶς τοῖς γράμμασιν εἰκάζεις που πάντως αὐτοῖς οἷς ἐπέστειλας· οὕτω τὸ καθαρὸν τῆς καρδίας, ἀφʼ ἧς προῆλθεν ἐκεῖνα τὰ ῥήματα, ἀκριβῶς ἐκ τῶν γραμμάτων κατεμηνύετο. καὶ γὰρ ὁλκὸς μὲν ὕδατος δείκνυσι τὴν οἰκείαν πηγήν, λόγου δὲ φύσις τὴν προενεγκοῦσαν αὐτὸν καρδίαν χαρακτηρίζει. ὥστε ἄτοπόν τε καὶ πολὺ τοῦ εἰκότος παρηλλαγμένον πεπονθέναι ὁμολογῶ. σπουδάζων γὰρ ἀεὶ γράμμασιν ἐντυγχάνειν τῆς τελειότητός σου, ἐπειδὴ ἔλαβον εἰς χεῖρας τὴν ἐπιστολὴν καὶ ἀνέγνων αὐτήν, οὐχ ἥσθην μᾶλλον τοῖς ἐπεσταλμένοις, ἢ ἠνιάθην τὴν ζημίαν, ὁπόση γέγονεν ἡμῖν κατὰ τὸν τῆς σιωπῆς χρόνον, διαλογιζόμενος. Ἀλλʼ ἐπειδὴ ἤρξω γράφειν, μὴ διαλίπῃς τοῦτο ποιῶν. εὐφρανεῖς γὰρ πλέον ἢ οἱ τὰ πολλὰ χρήματα τοῖς φιλοπλούτοις διαπεμπόμενοι· τῶν δὲ γραφέων οὐδείς μοι παρῆν, οὔτε τῶν καλλιγραφούντων οὔτε τῶν ταχυγράφων. οὓς γὰρ ἔτυχον ἐξασκήσας, οἱ μὲν ἀνέδραμον ἐπὶ τὴν πρώτην τοῦ βίου συνήθειαν, οἱ δὲ ἀπειρήκασι πρὸς τοὺς πόνους, χρονίαις ἀρρωστίαις κεκακωμένοι.