1You are right to demand that we make this exchange of letters between us more frequent. 1Conversation does the most good, because it creeps into the mind little by little. 1Lectures prepared and poured out before a listening crowd have more noise, but less intimacy. 1Philosophy is good counsel; 1no one gives counsel at the top of his voice. 1Sometimes we must also use those harangues, so to speak, where someone who hesitates has to be pushed; 1but where the aim is not to make him wish to learn, but to make him learn, we must come to these quieter words. 1They enter more easily and stick fast; 1for we need not many words, but effective ones.
2They should be scattered like seed, which, however small it is, when it has found a suitable place, unfolds its strength and from the smallest beginnings spreads out into the greatest growth. 2Reason does the same; 2it does not extend widely, if you look at it: in the working it grows. 2The words spoken are few, but if the mind has received them well, they gain strength and spring up. 2The condition of precepts, I say, is the same as that of seeds; 2they achieve much. 2and yet they are small. 2Only, as I said, let a suitable mind take them in and draw them into itself. 2It too will in turn generate much, and give back more than it received.
2Farewell.