. . . . . . . . But in lesser evils to act with composure is not difficult. For, indeed, in any case to resent an evil, even if it befall unexpectedly, is unseemly for a man who has tasted of education. But it is in joy that I should be more ready to overstep the bounds, for if we are to act unreasonably it is preferable to do so in reference to pleasure than to pain. But you are not even too old1 to rear other children. Every loss is grievous if hope be cut off with it, but easier to bear if hope of repairing it be left. And he that does not avail himself of this hope is mean-spirited and his own enemy, much more than Fortune. For Fortune takes away the present reality, but he deprives himself of hope as well. And I will tell you where you can most easily get consolation, as I have learnt by experience and not by learning. Often has it been my fate to suffer in my affections. At one time it was Athenodotus the philosopher, at another Dionysius the rhetor2 that I loved: and yet, when I reflected that he was preserved to me whom it was my fortune to love, I was less at the mercy of grief and circumstance. But if you as well as I love a noble youth,3 distinguished for virtue and learning and fortune and modesty, you cannot go wrong if you attach yourself to him and set in him all your assurance of good fortune, since as long as he remains to us—for I confess, and make no secret of it, that I am your rival in his love—everything else is remediable and of infinitely less importance than this.
? 144–145 A.D.
To my master.