Cicero opens a new topic with the following thought:
quod scribis, etiam si cuius animus in te esset offensior, a me recolligi opertere, quid dicas neque id neglexi, sed est miro quodam modo adfectus
I’ve made sense of most of the passage. Something along the lines of “Concerning what you wrote, “even if someone is has a mind to be somewhat upset with you, it is best for me to make amends with him”, I have not neglected what you say, but…”
I’m stuck here. I can’t find a way to make sense of sed est miro quodam modo adfectus. I have seen it translated as “I understand to what you allude”, but I don’t really see where that idea is coming from. The best I can come up with is “but it is a somewhat astonishing disposition,” taking_miro quodam modo_ as an ablative of description, but that doesn’t seem right to me. Any thoughts on the grammar and a sensible translation would be greatly appreciated.
This is a tough one. I think quid dicas is the subject of recolligi. Perhaps est … adfectus is referring to the person whose animus was offensior?
Something like this:
“As for what you write, that even if someone were to become upset with you, the things you say should have been brought up by me–I did not neglect that either, but he got really upset.”
But then the switch from the indefinite “someone” to a specific “he” is puzzling, so I don’t now 
Hi Japonicus. That’s really cool that you’re reading Cicero’s letters!
Which edition are you reading, and with any commentary?
SPOILER ALERT
I’m going to answer by giving you Shackleton Bailey’s translation and commentary. If you’d rather tough out the passage without that, skip this.
To begin with, I’m going to give you the Latin text as printed in Shackleton Bailey’s edition, including his punctuation, which I find preferable.
quod scribis etiam si cuius animus in te esset offensior a me recolligi opertere, quid dicas neque id neglexi; sed est miro quodam modo adfectus. ego autem quae dicenda fuerent de te non praeterii; …
His translation:
You say that even if a certain person were out of humour with you I ought to bring him round. I understand your meaning and have not been remiss, but he is marvelously hipped. I did not fail to say the proper things about you, …
(Some of) SB’s comments:
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cuius Cuius alludes to L. Lucceius Q. Avoidance of personal names, especially in delicate contexts, is a feature of Cicero’s letters.
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etiam si, Lehmann’s punctuation is no improvement (this seems to be the edition you are reading?).
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miro…adfectus Cf. Terence Hec. 325 quonam modo … nunc te offendam adfectam? Cicero Fam. XIV. 17 ego autem quo modo sim adfectus ex Lepta et Trebatio poteris cognoscere. adfectus is a neutral word, coloured by context.
If you want a specific label for the kind of ablative quodam modo is, someone else will have to supply that - I suppose I’d call it an ablative of manner. modo with a qualification is very frequent and idiomatic, and you can see from SB’s citations it is common with adfectus.
I have to confess I need a translation of the translation “marvelously hipped”. As an aging American hipster, I know what “hipped” means in now outdated American slang (“He hipped me to a great drummer player playing with Mingus at the Village Vanguard this week”), but “informed” is not the meaning here in Cicero. I’ve looked at a long list of meanings in the Oxford English Dictionary, some of which could apply were it not for SB’s comment that adfectus is a neutral word.
Thanks for the great response. That certainly sheds some more light on the passage and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks this is tricky.
I’ve been reading these in a Latin Letters reader intended for the intermediate level by Caecelia Luschnig. While it’s not definitive, it provides a nice selection of letters by Cicero and Pliny with some useful commentary. I’m a little surprised at the lack of commentary on difficult and idiomatic passages such as this though.
I found a definition for “hipped” as being “obsessed or infatuated.” Although it’s not necessarily neutral, I think SB’s translation adapted into more modern English makes perfect sense: “I understand your meaning and have not been remiss, but he (Lucceius) is in quite a state.” Perhaps being “coloured by context” allows for such a translation. In any case, the grammar certainly makes more sense to me now, so thank you for clearing that up.
Re Luschnig - That’s great. I think Cicero’s and Pliny’s letters are a great Latin read as well as being important historically (I would assume the collection includes Pliny’s famous letter to Tacitus describing the volcanic eruption at Vesuvius and his uncle’s death).
For the record, the Shackleton Bailey translation and commentary I was quoting from is from his complete orange & black set of Cicero’s letters in the Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries series. Shackleton Bailey also has a single-volume selection of Cicero’s letters in the green & yellow Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. The latter is a judicious (one assumes) selection of 79 letters, with commentary but no translation. The commentary (for example, on Att. 1.5, which is the first letter in the selection) is not as extensive as that in the complete collection, for example, nothing on miro quodam modo adfectus.
Walsh in the Oxford World’s Classics 2008 writes:
"As for your claim that even if a certain person* feels rather resentful towards you, I ought to make him more amenable, I take on board what you say and have not fallen down on the task, but he is surprisingly irked.
a certain person: probably Lucceius; see Letter .."
I think that the suggestion that “adfectus is a neutral word coloured by the context” means here that one has to look to offensio to provide the colour. “OLD 6. b. the taking of offence, resentment..”
Maybe the sense here is he is resentful towards you and when I spoke to him is still surprisingly/very resentful.
A cautionary tale to consider one’s potential audience when translating texts.