re­ceived the im­pres­sion that my char­ac­ter re­quired im­prove­ment and dis­cip­line; and from him I learned not to be led astray to soph­istic emu­la­tion, nor to writ­ing on spec­u­lat­ive mat­ters, nor to de­liv­er­ing little hort­at­ory ora­tions, nor to show­ing my­self off as a man who prac­tises much dis­cip­line, or does be­ne­vol­ent acts in or­der to make a dis­play; and to ab­stain from rhet­oric, and po­etry, and fine writ­ing; and not to walk about in the house in my out­door dress, nor to do other things of the kind; and to write my let­ters with sim­pli­city, like the let­ter which Rus­ti­cus wrote from Sinuessa to my mother; and with re­spect to those who have of­fen­ded me by words, or done me wrong, to be eas­ily dis­posed to be pa­ci­fied and re­con­ciled, as soon as they have shown a read­i­ness to be re­con­ciled; and to read care­fully, and not to be sat­is­fied with a su­per­fi­cial un­der­stand­ing of a book; nor hast­ily to give my as­sent to those who talk over­much; and I am in­debted to him for be­ing ac­quain­ted with the dis­courses of Epic­t­etus, which he com­mu­nic­ated to me out of his own col­lec­tion.