1The little speech which I composed, as you had demanded, for your friend — or rather ours, for what do we not have in common? 1— to use if the occasion required it, I have sent you rather late on purpose, so that you would not have time to correct it, that is, to ruin it. 2You will have time all the same — whether to correct it I do not know, but certainly to ruin it. 2For you purists strip out all the best parts. 3If you do so, I shall take it in good part. 3For later, on some occasion, I shall use those passages as my own, and I shall win praise myself thanks to your fastidiousness, as with the passage that you will find marked, and expressed differently in what is written above it.
4For since I suspected that it would seem to you too inflated, as it is rather sonorous and lofty, I thought it not out of place, to save you from tormenting yourself, to add at once something more concise and plain, or rather humbler and worse, but in your judgement more correct. 5For why should I not pursue and harass your plainness at every turn? 5This I say so that amid those occupations of yours you might have something to laugh at now and then; but this in earnest: see that you repay me the travelling expenses I paid out in sending a courier on purpose. 6I warrant that when you read this you will condemn not parts of the book but the whole book, and say it is worth nothing, since you are being asked to pay what it cost.
6Farewell.