Letter 1071: You want to know what I think about the people who've provoked me.

You ask to know what we think about those who provoke us. I do not want you to await the counsel of an angry man, nor to labor toward the harm of one whom you see to abound in faults. He will himself furnish the occasions, occasions that you will not seem to have wished for. But on that matter I consider that I have said enough. Let me come to where my affection leads me. It is monstrous how much you fall short in writing, and you do not fear that we may bite you back with the retaliation of silence. What will winter do, which by land and sea will delay the passage of travelers? Consider the obligation of your duty as the counterpart of our anxiety, and take up that same diligence which you in turn demand of us. Farewell.