To celebrate your seventieth birthday, I your grateful and devoted admirer, have written some words of sympathy and congratulation, and published them in the issue of June 2nd of the paper I am editing just now, viz. the 'Deutsche Presse,' the official organ of the league of German authors (Deutschen Schriftsteller-Verband).1 I trust I may be able some day to devote to you and your work a serious essay better suited to do justice to your genius than was possible in that aphoristic article. However, those few lines will at least serve as an unambiguous testimony of my deep and true devotion to you, and as it may give you pleasure to hear of an unknown German friend of yours, I take the liberty to send you that birthday paper, hoping you will look upon it in kind and indulgent eyes.2
Ever yours sincerely and affectionately Edward BertzCorrespondent:
Edward Bertz
(1853–1931), also spelled "Eduard," was a German writer and translator
from Potsdam, who became involved with social democracy movements and signed a
petition against the criminalization of homosexuality in Germany. For more
information on Bertz, see Grünzweig, Walter, "Bertz, Eduard (1853–1931)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).