--- title: "Letters and Select Works" author: "Basil of Caesarea" translator: "Blomfield Jackson" languages: [en] shelf: "Church Fathers" section: 98 of 102 url: https://scriptura.si/works/basil-of-caesarea-letters-and-select-works/98/ cite: "Basil of Caesarea, tr. Blomfield Jackson, Letters and Select Works, section 98. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/basil-of-caesarea-letters-and-select-works/98/" --- # Letters and Select Works *Basil of Caesarea, tr. Blomfield Jackson* Basil on the Holy Spirit, the six days of creation, and his letters. ## 98. To Pasinicus, the Physician Source: https://scriptura.si/works/basil-of-caesarea-letters-and-select-works/98/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/basil-of-caesarea-letters-and-select-works/98/#p-N ### To Philagrius Arcenus ### Letter CCCXXIII ### Letter CCCXXIV ### To Magninianus ### Letter CCCXXV ### Without address ### Letter CCCXXVI [¶7] [Monitory.] ### Without address ### Letter CCCXXVII [¶10] [Hortatory.] ### To Hyperectius ### Letter CCCXXVIII [¶13] [On Basil’s health.] ### To Phalirius ### Letter CCCXXIX [¶16] With thanks for a present of fish.] ### Letters CCCXXX., CCCXXXI., CCCXXXII., CCCXXXIII [¶18] [All short and without address. Letters from CCCXXIII. to CCCXXXIII. have no importance.] ### To a writer ### Letter CCCXXXIV [¶21] Write straight, and make the lines straight. Do not let your hand go too high or too low. Avoid forcing the pen to travel slantwise, like Æsop’s crab. Advance straight on, as if following the line of the carpenter’s rule, which always preserves exactitude and prevents any irregularity. The oblique is ungraceful. It is the straight which pleases the eye, and does not allow the reader’s eyes to go nodding up and down like a swing-beam. This has been my fate in reading your writing. As the lines lie ladderwise, I was obliged, when I had to go from one to another, to mount up to the end of the last: then, when no connexion was to be found, I had to go back, and seek for the right order again, retreating and following the furrow, like Theseus in the story following Ariadne’s thread. Write straight, and do not confuse our mind by your slanting and irregular writing. ### Basil to Libanius ### Letter CCCXXXV [¶24] I am really ashamed of sending you the Cappadocians one by one. I should prefer to induce all our youths to devote themselves to letters and learning, and to avail themselves of your instruction in their training. But it is impracticable to get hold of them all at once, while they choose what suits themselves. I therefore send you those who from time to time are won over; and this I do with the assurance that I am conferring on them a boon as great as that which is given by those who bring thirsty men to the fountain. The lad, whom I am now sending, will be highly valued for his own sake when he has been in your society. He is already well known on account of his father, who has won a name among us both for rectitude of life and for authority in our community. He is, moreover, a close friend of my own. To requite him for his friendship to me, I am conferring on his son the benefit of an introduction to you—a boon well worthy of being earnestly prayed for by all who are competent to judge of a man’s high character.