Letter 51
I was overjoyed to hear that your health has been restored — your well-being is always my highest wish. Now, if the gods are willing and your recovered strength has revived your mental vigor, I insist that your letters start running to multiple pages. I hate verbal stinginess when the words are good. Brevity in writing is closer to contempt than to courtesy.
I don't want letters that drip from the tip of your tongue. I want the kind that never run dry — drawn from the deepest well of your heart.
I remember when Spartan brevity was once considered a virtue. But I'm dealing with you under Roman rules — or Athenian ones, if you prefer — and the Athenians owed so much of their greatness to eloquence that I suspect the Spartans adopted their terse style out of fear of the comparison.
I'd say more, but you need to be dosed with your own medicine. Besides, I have to be careful that a long letter from me doesn't offend you. So I'll stop here, obeying your standard while violating my own.
And from that you should understand the bind you've put yourself in: you can't expect me to write briefly unless you write at length. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
Domnio, a Roman (called in Letter XLV. the Lot of our time), had written to Jerome to tell him that an ignorant monk had been traducing his books against Jovinian. Jerome, in reply, sharply rebukes the folly of his critic and comments on the want of straightforwardness in his conduct.