Letter 141
To Herculian
Do not be surprised that I am giving two letters for you to the same messenger. First consider yourself undergoing punishment for your unreasonable reproach, and replenish yourself with my garrulity; in the next place, I wish my second missive to fulfill another object. I beg you to give me back the brief composition in iambics, in which the author holds converse with his own soul. I thought that I should be able to piece this together again from memory, but now there seems every chance of its not resembling the one in question at all, and of my using my invention rather than my memory in attempting to write it down. Perhaps it would be worse or perhaps better, but no one should not in any case bring the same offspring twice into the world, when one may have the thing that has already been born. Send me back, then, a copy of the quatrain, in the name of the very soul that the sheet of paper seeks to adorn. But do this as quickly and as safely as possible, that is to say, by one of those who are certain to deliver it, for in erring in either way you will accomplish nothing at all. If you are slow in sending it, it will no longer find me here; and the same thing will happen if you give it to one who will not deliver it at all.
Letter 142
To Herculian
On reading over your letter, I recognize Odysseus at once. Many traits of character therein recall that hero to my memory, but I do not recognize Proteus. It is not improbable that a man like you might approach the demigods; but for my part, although wise in a way, although knowing myself, in accordance with the Delphic injunction, I condemn the feebleness of my own character, and I disclaim an affinity with heroes. My whole ambition would be rather to imitate their taciturnity, the very thing which, like the Spartan Menelaus, you have muddled; so well indeed that you seem to belong no longer to Odysseus alone, but to a pair of heroes. But enough of all this. While you blame your own lack of taste for writing, you have no right to ask me for an abundance of letters that would only weary you. I have therefore reduced the length of this one, so that you may not give yourself more trouble by reading more. Take care of your health and live on in cheerfulness. Work at philosophy, my admirable friend, and it will conduct you to the divine. Give my regards to the noble Count; we have not allowed ourselves a personal interview with him; for the words of the poem are:
Commence, you are the younger.
Thus he allows the younger the right to begin war and strife, and the elder benevolence. But the man is honoured by me and is in every way worthy, for he alone of our time has conducted to the same goal education and military science, once walled off from each other by formidable barriers, and has discovered some ancient affinity in these callings. Proud as no other soldier, he turns away from the arrogance that dwells on the border of pride. Such a man as this I love, even if I do not write to him, and if I do not court him, I honour him.