Paulinus of Nola, always beflowered and elegant, wrote to Augustin: "Your letters are a luminous collyrium spread over the eyes of my mind." Augustin, who remonstrated with him upon the scarcity of his own letters, replies in language which our own _Précieuses_ would not have disowned: "What! You allow me to pass two summers--and two African summers!--in such thirst?... Would to God that you would allow enter to the opulent banquet of your book, the long fast from your writings which you have put me upon during all a year! If this banquet be not ready, I shall not give over my complaints, unless, indeed, that in the time between, you send me something to keep up my strength." A certain Audax, who begged the honour of a special letter from the great man, calls him "the oracle of the Law"; protests that the whole world celebrates and admires him; and finally, at the end of his arguments, conjures him in verse to "Let fall upon me the dew of thy divine word." Augustin, with modesty and benignity, returns his compliments, but not without slipping into his reply a touch of banter: "Allow me to point out to you that your fifth line has seven feet. Has your ear betrayed you, or did you want to find out if I was still capable of judging these things?"... Truly, he is always capable of judging these things, nor is he sorry to have it known. A young Greek named Dioscorus, who is passing through Carthage, questions him upon the philosophy of Cicero. Augustin exclaims at any one daring to interrupt a bishop about such trifles. Then, little by little, he grows milder, and carried away by his old passion, he ends by sending the young man quite a dissertation on this good subject.
Those are among his innocent whimsicalities. Then, alongside of letters either too literary, or erudite, or profound, there are others which are simply exquisite, such as the one he wrote to a young Carthage girl called Sapida. She had embroidered a tunic for her brother. He was dead, and she asked Augustin kindly to wear this tunic, telling him that if he would do this, it would be a great comfort for her in her grief. The bishop consented very willingly. "I accept this garment," he said to her, "and I have begun to wear it before writing to you...." Then gently he pities her sorrow, and persuades her to resignation and hope.