Letter 343: IF these are the words of an untrained tongue, what would you be if you would polish them? On your lips live fountains of words better than the flowing of springs. I, on the contrary, if I am not daily watered, am silent.
If this is what an untrained tongue produces, what would you achieve if you actually worked at it? Your words flow like a natural spring — better than anything I could manage. I, on the other hand, dry up completely if I'm not fed new material every day.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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