without any violent departure from my usual lazy ways. I was sitting by
the nets; I had by my side not a hunting spear and a dart, but my pen
and writing tablets. I was engaged in some composition and jotting down
notes, so that I might have full tablets to take home with me, even
though my hands were empty. You need not shrug your shoulders at study
under such conditions. It is really surprising how the mind is
stimulated by bodily movement and exercise. I find the most powerful
incentive to thought in having the woods all about me, in the solitude
and the silence which is observed in hunting. So when next you go
hunting, take my advice and carry your writing tablets with you as well
as your luncheon basket and your flask. You will find that Minerva
loves to wander on the mountains quite as much as Diana. Farewell.


1.VII.--TO OCTAVIUS RUFUS.

See on what a pinnacle you have placed me by giving me the same power
and royal will that Homer attributed to Jupiter, Best and Greatest:--
"One half his prayer the Father granted, the other half he refused."
For I too can answer your request by just nodding a yes or no. It is
open to me, especially as you press me to do so, to decline to act on
behalf of the Barbici against a single individual; but I should be
violating the good faith and constancy that you admire in me, if I were
to accept a brief against a province to which I am bound by many
friendly ties, and by the work and dangers I have often undertaken in
its behalf. So I will take a middle course, and of the alternative
favours you ask I will choose the one which will commend itself both to
your interest and your judgment. For what I have to consider is not so
much what will meet your wishes of the moment, but how to do that which
will win the steady approval of a man of your high character. I hope to