Dearest friend,

What do you think of my negligence in corresponding? What does your mentor, Herr Mendelssohn and what does Professor Lambert think of it? These brave people must certainly imagine me to be a very rude person for reciprocating so badly the trouble they have taken in their letters. I could hardly blame them if they decided never again to allow themselves to be coaxed into troubling to answer a letter from me. But if only the inner difficulty one personally feels could be as perspicuous to other eyes, I hope that they would sooner take anything in the world to be the cause of my silence, rather than indifference or lack of respect. I beg you therefore to forestall or disabuse these worthy men of any such suspicion; for even now I feel the same hindrance that kept me from answering them for so long. My delay however really has two causes, not counting the bad habit of thinking that tomorrow is always a more convenient day to post a letter than today. The sort of letters with which these two scholars have honored me always lead me to a long series of investigations. You know very well that I am inclined not only to try to refute intelligent criticisms but that I always weave them together with my judgments and give them the right to overthrow all my previously cherished opinions.