Letter 7009: I'm delighted that your letters sparkle with sharp observations and clever turns of phrase.
I'm delighted that your letters sparkle with sharp observations and clever turns of phrase. A young man's energy ought to express itself in high spirits. But I want you to save those rhetorical barbs for other kinds of writing. In personal letters like these, you should blend in something more measured and conversational -- and I expect your rhetoric teacher is telling you the same thing.
Just as people choose their clothes and their whole manner of living to suit the place and the occasion, so the versatility of a good mind should aim for a certain studied carelessness in personal correspondence, while saving the full arsenal of eloquence for the courtroom. But I won't belabor the point. Keep going where the momentum of your age and the fire of your nature are carrying you. My chief wish is that you stay healthy and keep enriching yourself with learning beyond your years.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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