Copenhagen May 23, 1888.
MY DEAR SIR,
For letter, portrait and music I send you my best thanks. The letter and the music were an unqualified pleasure, the portrait might have been better. It is a profile taken at Naumburg, characteristic in its attitude, but with too little expression. You must look different from this; the writer of Zarathustra must have many more secrets written in his own face.
I concluded my lectures on Fr. Nietzsche before Whitsuntide. They ended, as the papers say, in applause "which took the form of an ovation." The ovation is yours almost entirely. I take the liberty of communicating it to you herewith in writing. For I can only claim the credit of reproducing, clearly and connectedly, and intelligibly to a Northern audience, what you had originated.
I also tried to indicate your relation to various contemporaries, to introduce my hearers into the workshop of your thought, to put forward my own favourite ideas, where they coincided with yours, to define the points on which I differed from you, and to give a psychological portrait of Nietzsche the author. Thus much I may say without exaggeration: your name is now very popular in all intelligent circles in Copenhagen, and all over Scandinavia it is at least known. You have nothing to thank me for; it has been a pleasure to me to penetrate into the world of your thoughts. My lectures are not worth printing, as I do not regard pure philosophy as my special province and am unwilling to print anything dealing with a subject in which I do not feel sufficiently competent.
I am very glad you feel so invigorated physically and so well disposed mentally. Here, after a long winter, we have mild spring weather. We are rejoicing in the first green leaves and in a very well-arranged Northern exhibition that has been opened at Copenhagen. All the French artists of eminence (painters and sculptors) are also exhibiting here. Nevertheless, I am longing to get away, but have to stay.
But this cannot interest you. I forgot to tell you: if you do not know the Icelandic sagas, you must study them. You will find there a great deal to confirm your hypotheses and theories about the morality of a master race.
In one trifling detail you seem to have missed the mark. Gothic has certainly nothing to do with good or God. It is connected with giessen, he who emits the seed, and means stallion, man.
On the other hand, our philologists here think your suggestion of bonus—duonus is much to the point.
I hope that in future we shall never become entirely strangers to one another.