out my telling you, to what I may call an immense bombardment of business. If I can once deal with this as I wish, I will really say a long good-bye to both forum and senate-house, and devote a great deal of time to you and our common friends, I mean your Cassius and our Dolabella—or rather I should call them both ours—who are fascinated with the same studies and find me a very indulgent listener. To carry this on we need your refined and polished judgment, and that deeper tinge of literature by which[1] you often make me feel somewhat diffident of myself while speaking. For I have quite made up my mind, if only Cæsar will either allow or order it, to lay aside that rôle in which I have often won even his approval, and to throw myself entirely into the obscurity of literature, and in company of other devotees of it to enjoy the most honourable kind of leisure. For you, I could have wished that you had not felt afraid of my being much bored[2] with reading your letter, if, as you say, you chance to send me a somewhat long one; and I should like you henceforth to make up your mind that the longer a letter from you is, the better I shall like it.
CCCCLXXIII (F IX, 20)
TO L. PAPIRIUS PÆTUS (AT NAPLES)
Rome (August)
I was doubly charmed by your letter, first because it made
me laugh myself, and secondly because I saw that you could
still laugh. Nor did I in the least object to being overwhelmed
with your shafts of ridicule, as though I were a light
skirmisher in the war of wits. What I am vexed at is that
I have not been able, as I intended, to run over to see you:
for you would not have had a mere guest, but a brother-in-*
