So there often flits before me a vision of his face, as he grumbles, it may be, that my part in the treatise is more liberally sustained than his; a charge which you will perceive to be untrue[183]." Cicero, then, feared Varro's temper, and perhaps his knowledge and real critical fastidiousness. Before these explanations Atticus had concluded that Cicero was afraid of the effect the work might produce on the public. This notion Cicero assured him to be wrong; the only cause for his vacillation was his doubt as to how Varro would receive the dedication[184]. Atticus would seem to have repeatedly communicated with Varro, and to have assured Cicero that there was no cause for fear; but the latter refused to take a general assurance, and anxiously asked for a detailed account of the reasons from which it proceeded[185]. In order to stimulate his friend, Atticus affirmed that Varro was jealous of some to whom Cicero had shown more favour[186]. We find Cicero eagerly asking for more information, on this point: was it Brutus of whom Varro was jealous? It seems strange that Cicero should not have entered into correspondence with Varro himself. Etiquette seems to have required that the recipient of a dedication should be assumed ignorant of the intentions of the donor till they were on the point of being actually carried out. Thus although Cicero saw Brutus frequently while at Tusculum, he apparently did not speak to him about the _De Finibus_, but employed Atticus to ascertain his feeling about the dedication[187].