Letter 7012: Here is the little volume which I have constructed on the plan you suggested to me, in order that your friend - or...

To Minicius. Here is the little volume which I have constructed on the plan you suggested to me, in order that your friend - or rather our friend, for have we not all things in common ? - might make use of it if occasion demanded. I have purposely delayed in sending it to you that you might not have time to emend it, or rather pull it to pieces. Yet you will have time after all, but whether to emend or pull it to pieces I do not know, for you master critics always strike out the finest passages. However, even if you do, I will turn it to good account, for I will later on take an opportunity of appropriating your criticisms as if they were my own, and I will benefit and gain applause for the niceness of your taste, as I will do for the passages you will find with notes against them in the margin and those which have an alternative version written in above them. For wherever I fancied that you would consider a passage rather pompous - owing to its being couched in a lofty and swelling strain - I thought it would be as well to prevent you beating your breast by at once adding a version of a terser and less ornate character, which would commend itself to your judgment, though to me it seems to want spirit and is much inferior to the other. I don't see why I should not make game of you and attack you for your poverty-stricken ideas of style. I have written in this strain to give you the chance of a laugh in the midst of your press of work, but here is a point on which I am serious. Take care you do not fail to remit to me the expense, to which I have put myself, of hiring a special messenger, though I know very well that when you read this you will condemn not only a few passages, but the whole volume itself, and will declare that it is not worth anything at all when you are asked to pay its expenses. Farewell.

L To Minicius. Here is the little volume which I have constructed on the plan you suggested to me, in order that your friend - or rather our friend, for have we not all things in common ? - might make use of it if occasion demanded. I have purposely delayed in sending it to you that you might not have time to emend it, or rather pull it to pieces. Yet you will have time after all, but whether to emend or pull it to pieces I do not know, for you master critics always strike out the finest passages. However, even if you do, I shall turn it to good account, for I shall later on take an opportunity of appropriating your criticisms as if they were my own, and I shall benefit and gain applause for the niceness of your taste, as I shall do for the passages you will find with notes against them in the margin and those which have an alternative version written in above them. For wherever I fancied that you would consider a passage rather pompous - owing to its being couched in a lofty and swelling strain - I thought it would be as well to prevent you beating your breast by at once adding a version of a terser and less ornate character, which would commend itself to your judgment, though to me it seems to want spirit and is much inferior to the other. I don't see why I should not make game of you and attack you for your poverty-stricken ideas of style. I have written in this strain to give you the chance of a laugh in the midst of your press of work, but here is a point on which I am serious. Take care you do not fail to remit to me the expense, to which I have put myself, of hiring a special messenger, though I know very well that when you read this you will condemn not only a few passages, but the whole volume itself, and will declare that it is not worth anything at all when you are asked to pay its expenses. Farewell.