"The loss of my own brother I bore with great equanimity; but I cannot overcome my longing for Froben. I do not rebel at my grief, reasonable as it is, but I am pained that it should be so great and so lasting. As it was not merely affection which bound me to him in life, so it is not merely that I miss him now that he is gone. For I loved him more on account of the liberal studies which he seemed given us by Providence to adorn and to promote, than on account of his kindness to me and his genial manners. Who would not love such a nature? He was to his friend just a friend, so simple and so sincere that even if he had wished to pretend or to conceal anything he could not do it, so repugnant was it to his nature; so ready and eager to help everyone that he was glad to be of service even to the unworthy, so that he was a natural and welcome prey to thieves and swindlers. He was as pleased to get back money from a thief or from bad debtors as others are with unexpected fortune. "He was of such incorruptible honour that never did anyone deserve better the saying 'He is a man you could throw dice with in the dark,' and, incapable of fraud himself, he could never suspect it in others though he was often deceived. What the disease of envy was he could no more comprehend than a man born blind can understand colour. Even serious offences, he pardoned before he asked who had committed them. He could never remember an injury, nor forget even the smallest service. And here, in my judgment, he was better than was fitting for the wise father of a family. I used to warn him sometimes that he should treat his sincere friends becomingly, but that while he used gentle language towards impostors he should protect himself and not at the same time get cheated and laughed at. He would smile gently, but I told my tale to deaf ears. The frankness of his nature was too much for all warnings. And as for me, what plots did he not invent, what excuses did he not hunt up to force some gift upon me? I never saw him happier than when he had succeeded by artifice or persuasion in getting me to accept something. Against the wiles of the man I had need of the utmost caution, nor did I ever need my skill in rhetoric more than in thinking up excuses to refuse without offending my friend; for I could not bear to see him sad. [One feels that Erasmus' rhetoric was running away with him a little at this point.] If by chance my servants had bought cloth for my clothes, he would find it out and pay the bill before I suspected it; and no entreaties of mine could make him take payment for it. So it was if I wanted to save him from loss; I had to make pretences and there was such a bargaining; quite different from the usual course, where one tries to get as much as possible and the other to give as little as possible.