Letter 4025: If the old bond of affection that came down from our parents still holds any force, then our friendship is not...

If old diligence, which from my parents stored up abundant fruits from the harvest of grace toward your amplitude, were maintained around my person through the memory of faith, the frequency of letters would show it and speech, the witness of the heart, would disclose a love not yet buried. But now I perceive that you have forgotten me and retain none of the concord of a better age, since no writings that would reveal your solicitude are directed to me. But I have turned the impatience of my desire to words, knowing that new friendship has sweetness only if the old is preserved, and that what is purer in affection is what our ancestors have tested — knowing that if you retain Camillus in your mind, you will not omit Ennodius. For this reason, paying the gifts of greeting with epistolary care, I pray that you deign to receive my cleric, the bearer of this letter, whom the cause of both his own advantage and my commission has brought to Gaul. On his return, signify your prosperity by writing, so that if forgetfulness has caused any loss in our love, epistolary solicitude may restore it.