Honored Herr Magister

I do not hold it against you that you are my rival or that you have enjoyed your new friend for weeks during all of which I only saw him for a few scattered hours, like a phantom or even more like a clever scout. I shall however bear this grudge against your friend, that he ventured to import you even into my seclusion; and that he not only tempted me to let you see my sensitivity, wrath, and jealousy but even exposed you to the danger of getting quite close to a man whom the disease of his passions has given an intensity of thinking and of feeling that a healthy person does not possess. This is what I wanted to say to your sweetheart right into his face when I was thanking you for the honor of your first visit.

If you are Socrates and your friend wants to be Alcibiades, then for your instruction you need the voice of a daimon. And that role is one I was born for; nor can I be suspected of pride in saying this – an actor lays aside his royal mask, no longer walks and speaks on stilts, as soon as he leaves the stage – allow me therefore to be called “daimon” and to speak to you as a daimon out of the clouds, for as long as I have to write this letter.