Gleanings in Dialectics

I do not, by Hercules, believe that nature has separated eloquence from wisdom as if they were distinct in function. Yet I am not of the opinion that it is good to stain the fine arts with barbaric elocution. But rather, the sentiment of the divine Plato pleases me, that it is not right for the pure to touch the impure. However, one should not take such account of adorning a speech that we abandon those whom we intended to help with our ideas, to whom we should also be of service with our style. But if I cannot at present provide the eloquence that my friends are demanding of our writings, I should not for that reason deny my opinion, although I had decided with myself to adorn them as soon as I obtained some leisure. Therefore, lest I take on the name of a false man, or appear to many to have been dissembling by making promises, and to have mocked the friends to whom I had promised long ago, and to whom I was liberally going to give better things, I have decided to edit these things now, dictated long ago in a common and almost vulgar style, so that those who read them may recognize that they have perceived the reasons rather than the words. For this reason, I wrote this letter to you, asking and beseeching that of our studies you would make only these public now, and that you would excuse me before Roman men for not having written elegantly, and that you would promise them in your letters that I will publish nothing hereafter unless it speaks in the Roman tongue. You know by what right you can advocate for me in this matter before the studious. Farewell.