Vienna, September 18, 1874

Dear Friend,

Before I accept your thanks for my consignment of books, I must apologize for making you pay as dearly for the pleasure of borrowing an English book as the book itself would have cost you. I was firmly resolved to put stamps on the little parcel if the excess postage came to more than half a guilder.1 It now turns out that it far exceeded the limit I set and I, who am only at home with the lowlands of currency, could not conceive of the altitude of the flight. Really, nothing can justify the payment of a fine for the effrontery of sending a trifle to a friend a few miles away, as if, in deciding to disregard the