Most esteemed Herr Professor,

You can't believe how I have been longing to have the time to answer your priceless letter. The various matters of business connected with starting up the Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung have kept me from writing.

You have probably seen a copy of your review of Herder by now. Everyone who has read it with impartial eyes thinks it a masterpiece of precision and – are you surprised? – many readers recognized that you must be the author. I can tell you that this review, since it came out in the trial issue of the journal, has certainly accounted for much of the favorable response to the A.L.Z.

They say that Herr Herder is very sensitive to the review. A young convert by the name of Reinhold who is staying in Wieland's house in Weimar and who has already sounded an abominable fanfare in the Merkur about Herder's piece intends to publish a refutation of your review in the February issue of that journal. I will send you the sheet as soon as I receive it. The directors of our journal would be delighted if you would undertake an answer to it right away. If it seems to you not worth the effort, I will try to find someone else to reply.

Good Heavens – it boggles my mind that you can write that you “would relinquish the honorarium, in case etc.,” that you could believe that a review like yours might not be acceptable! When I was reading what you said I could not keep the tears from coming to my eyes.