Letter 9029: Just as it is preferable to do one thing really well than many things only fairly well, so it is better to attain...
To Rusticus.
Just as it is preferable to do one thing really well than many things only fairly well, so it is better to attain moderate proficiency, if one cannot produce a masterpiece. That is the principle I have gone on in experimenting with various kinds of literary studies, owing to the fact that I do not feel sure of myself in any one of them. So, when you read either one piece or another, I hope you will judge each leniently, remembering that I have written many more. In other arts, excuses are made for failure, when a number of examples are produced, and surely there ought not to be any harder standard in literature, especially as success is more difficult of accomplishment in that art than in any other, but why do I talk about making allowances, like a thankless, ungrateful person? If you receive my last volume as kindly as you did my previous ones, I ought rather to hope for praise than beg you to make allowances for shortcomings. However, I will be quite content with the latter. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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