Letter 163

163. To Jovinus, the count

I saw your soul in your letter. For in truth no painter can take off the stamp of a body so exactly as speech can portray the secrets of the soul. For the word in your letter sufficiently delineated for me the steadiness of your character, the genuineness of your honour, and the integrity, in all things, of your mind; whence too it brought me a great consolation for your absence. Do not, then, leave off using every occasion that offers to write, and to grant me this converse across the distance; since the weakness of my body now makes me despair of meeting face to face. How great that weakness is the most God-beloved bishop Amphilochius will tell you, who has come to know it through having been long in my company, and is able to set before you in words what he has seen. And I wish my difficulties to be known not for any other reason than for pardon hereafter, that I may not incur a charge of negligence if I fail to visit you. And yet for this loss I need consolation rather than excuse. For if it were possible for me to be with your Gravity, I would have set this far above me before all that others busy themselves over.