Clarissime Domine Politice!

Because my stiff old bones are hardly capable any longer of peripatetic philosophy, and my moments for labyrinthine strolls do not always occur before meals but also occasionally between courses ab ovis ad poma, I must now take refuge in a macaronic quill, in order to convey my thanks to you for the enclosed Berlinsche Christmonath in the cantstyle, which the comic historian of comic literature has rendered as “Kantian style” per e, like an asmus cum puncto.

To the “Sapere aude!” there belongs also from the very same source the “Noli admirari!” Clarissime Domine Politice! You know how much I love our Plato and with what pleasure I read him; I will also gladly yield myself up to his guardianship for the guidance of my own understanding, though cum grano salis, without incurring any guilt through lack of heart.

To remind a professor of logic & critic of pure reason of the rules of explication [Erklärung] would be virtual high treason; since, moreover, you have taken your Hutchinson away from me without returning his Morals, I possess no other organon in my paltry supply of books.