The truth would seem to be just the opposite of this. What really commanded the allegiance of all that was best and most effective in Erasmus' makeup was his study and writing. His proper medium of self-expression was his pen, and until he took his pen in hand he was not his best self. If he was capable of any sincere utterance he was sincere when he said to Ammonius that he felt himself moved by an almost divine inspiration when he got going on his Jerome. A few more glimpses at the working of his mind at Cambridge and we will pass on to see what he accomplished there in the way of contributions to learning. Besides Ammonius his other most important correspondent during this time was his old friend, John Colet, now definitely settled in London as dean of St. Paul's and greatly absorbed in the work which was to be his most lasting monument, the new school for boys. The correspondence seems to have begun by a begging letter from Erasmus in which he had gone beyond the limits of good taste, and to which Colet had replied with some heat. It is not beyond our belief that Erasmus may have given his letter a jocose form, and that Colet, Englishman as he was, had not seen the joke. At all events, Erasmus writes: "You answer seriously a letter written in jest. Perhaps I ought not to have joked with so great a patron, yet it pleased my fancy just then to try a little 'Attic salt' on such a very dear friend, being mindful rather of your gentle character than of your high position. It will be the part of your friendliness to make allowances for my awkwardness. You write that I am in your debt whether I like it or not. Indeed, my dear Colet, it is hard, as Seneca says, to be an unwilling debtor, but I know no man to whom I would more willingly be in debt than to you. You have always had such kind feelings towards me that, even if no good offices had been added, still I should have been greatly your debtor; but now you have added so many services and kindnesses that if I did not acknowledge them I should be the most ungrateful of men. As to your embarrassments I both believe in them and grieve for them, but my own difficulties were so much more pressing that I was compelled to take advantage of yours. How unwilling I was to do this you may gather from the fact that I was so long in asking what you had long since promised. I don't wonder that you, occupied as you are with so many affairs, should have forgotten your promise; but when we were in your garden talking about the _Copia_,[92] I proposed to dedicate some juvenile work to our youthful prince, and you asked me to dedicate the new work to your new school. I answered with a smile that your new school was a trifle poverty-stricken and what I needed was someone who would pay cash down. Then you smiled. Then, when I had told over many reasons for expense, you said with some hesitation that you could not give me as much