Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

To a writer.
Letter CCCXXXIV.
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, 3265 like Theseus in the story following Ariadne’s thread. 3266 Write straight, and
do not confuse our mind by your slanting and irregular writing.
3265 Of the use of this word to indicate the lines in mss., cf. Aristoph., Thesm. 782, and Anth., Pal. vi. 82.
3266 i.e. in the Labyrinth of Crete. Ope virginea, nullis iterata priorum, Janua difficilis filo est inventa relecto.
Ov., Metam. viii. 172.
To a writer.
900