Letter 2: To the Same.

To the Same. When people love deeply, I am not sure they can be impartial judges of those they love. Affection overrides justice. A father sees beauty in a homely son. A son overlooks his father's faults. A brother looks at his brother through the lens of feeling, not through the clear light of nature. I am afraid this is how Your Holiness has judged my writing — that your verdict was delivered by warmth of heart, not by a cool assessment of the work. The power of love is very great, and it often hides the considerable faults of those we care for. Because you are so full of it, you have garlanded what I wrote with your generous praise. All I can do is ask your piety to beseech our gracious Lord to make your commendation come true — to make the man you praised something like the portrait your kind words have painted of him.

Letter 2