Letter 1051: I was overjoyed to hear that your health has been restored — your well-being is always my highest wish.

We are filled with joy that your good health has returned to your favor; for your wellbeing is always the chief object of our prayer. Now, if by the will of the gods your restored strength of mind has recovered its full vigor, see to it that your letters are enlarged with manifold pages. We hate stinginess of good words. For brevity in writing is closer to disdain than to dutifulness. We do not want letters that trickle from the tip of the lips; we ask for those that do not know how to run dry, those that are drawn from the innermost spring of the heart. We remember that Spartan brevity was once a thing of praise; but we plead our case with you under Roman laws and, if you so wish, under Attic ones, to which such glory came from eloquence that the Spartans seem to us, for fear of the comparison, to have set their pursuits in the opposite direction. We should wish for more, but you must be constrained according to your own measure. At the same time it is a precaution with us, lest too much discourse should offend you. Therefore we set a limit to our own practice, while we obey yours. From which you will understand that you have been brought to such ill will and such a condition that it is as though you wish few things to be written by us, unless you write back many. Farewell.