Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 2 Haines 1920.djvu/141

 those days when, as you yourself shew, you were sufficiently assured of my love for you. Look, I beseech you, that you do not rob yourself, and of your own accord demand a diminution of love, for I would have you believe that you are so much more fully loved by me now, as in all things a present certain fruition exceeds an uncertain hope in the future. Shall not I, who loved the native quality of your genius even then, when in bud and in leaf and in flower, love now far far more deeply the very fruit of your matured excellence? Then should I be deemed the most blockish of all country swains and all ploughmen, if I valued what was sown above what was harvested. I indeed, being granted all that I wished and prayed for, have been cast and fined in my very wishes and prayers: to meet that fine I put in my doubled love for you, not, as was the custom in old time for fines to be inflicted, at the rate of half less a thousand (asses). A dry-nurse commonly loves a baby more than an older child; a foolish nurse is even prone to be angry with adolescence for taking away her boy from her arms and giving him over to the playground or the forum. Your instructors of youth too love their pupils more while they learn boyhood's lessons and pay their fees. When I was called to the care and cultivation of your natural powers, I hoped you would be what you now are; I carried my love on to these your present days. Conspicuous in your boyhood was your innate excellence; even more conspicuous was 125