Letter 60: Procopius says Epiphanius's letter preserved the sound of his beloved voice.

If you are silent when I speak but write when I am silent, I am afraid to write, since in every case I must either speak to voiceless people or hear people who are silent. And yet humans invented letter-writing, as is reasonable, so that they might preserve for the absent an imitation of the present, and say something in letters just as if they were together. When I read your letter, I even wept from pleasure. I seemed to hear you present, just as you used to be, and breathing with sweetness I said, "This is it, that dearest voice." By love itself and by that friendship, if you still know it and remember it, do not go abroad from me in your letters. Do not take away my only consolation, in case I soon come to envy people who never love at all, since it does not happen to them to suffer such things and lament them.

Ἐπιφανίῳ Εἰ λαλούντων μὲν ἡμῶν σιωπᾷς, γράφεις δὲ σιωπώντων, δέδοικα γράφων εἴγε δέῃ πάντως ἢ λαλεῖν ἀφώνοις ἢ σιωπῶντας ἀκούειν. καίτοιγε τὸ ἐπιστέλλειν ὡς εἰκὸς ἐμηχανήσαντο ἄνθρωποι, ὅπως ἀποῦσι μίμημα σώζοιεν παρόντων καὶ λέγοιέν τι τοῖς γράμμασιν ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ καὶ συνόντες. ἐγὼ δέ σου τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἀναγνοὺς ὑφ' ἡδονῆς καὶ ἐδάκρυσα, καί σου παρόντος ὥσπερ εἰώθεις ἐδόκουν ἀκούειν, καὶ ἡδύ τι πνεύσας «τοῦτο» εἶπον «ἐκεῖνο, ἡ φιλτάτη φωνή». ἀλλ' ὦ πρὸς ἔρωτος αὐτοῦ καὶ φιλίας ἐκείνης, εἴ που ταύτην ἔτι οἶσθα καὶ μέμνησαι, μή μοι τοῖς γράμμασιν ἀποδήμει, μηδὲ τὴν μόνην ἀφέλῃ παραμυθίαν, μήποτε τάχα ζηλώσω τοὺς μηδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐρῶντας, οὓς μηδὲ συμβαίνει τοιαῦτα παθόντας ὀδύρεσθαι.