Horace at your back iii

  

       

I should prefer to be thought 
a deluded and incompetent 
writer, provided my defects 
please or a least escape me, 
rather than to have my wits 
and bare my teeth in frustration.

And yet I shall also wish to know how much the open and genial giver is distinct from the spendthrift, and how much the man of thrift is at odds with the miser. For it makes a difference whether you scatter your money indiscriminately or whether, neither reluctant to incur expense nor eager to make more money, but rather as you used to do as a lad when Minerva's holiday came round, you snatch enjoyment of the brief but welcome time.

Horace
Epistles, II
Epistle to Florus
ca 35 BC
John Davie, translation
Oxford University Press, 2011©