Letter 64

64. To Hesychius.

There were many things from the first that bound me to your honour: the common love for letters, often spoken of by those who have made trial of you, and our long-standing friendship with that admirable man Terentius. But when that man who is best in all things, and who fulfils for us every name of close kinship, the most reverend brother Elpidius, came to speak with us, and recounted each of the good qualities in you — and he is most able, if anyone is, both to understand a man's virtue and to set it forth in words — he so kindled in us the longing for you, that we pray you may one day come to our old hearth, so that not by hearsay only but by experience we may enjoy the good qualities in you.