ROME, March 9th, 1867
Mr. Cand. Mag. Clemens Petersen:
ALTHOUGH I have confined myself — for nearly a year now — to expressing to you by means of a third person my thankfulness for your review of “Brand” and the advantages thereby secured to me, it is certainly not from a lack of appreciation of your services; but you once took occasion to write a word about undue intimacy after short and hasty acquaintance, and that word has made me somewhat shy. I feel very sure, however, that there has been no such “affectation” in my appeals to you; yet the characteristic, such as you interpret it, is at any rate so truly Norwegian that I can easily see that it was a Norwegian who gave you opportunity for the observation and the remark.
In spite of this I still venture to send you my thanks for the review — both for the written criticism and for the one which lies in what is not expressed. The first has been a great personal joy to me and to my advantage with the public, the latter has surely not been any joy to me, but has, thereby, been all the more helpful as against a self-analysis that may not be shirked with impunity.
But I have more to thank you for than the review of “Brand” and my other works. I want to thank you for every word you have written besides, and I hope that in my new work (Peer Gynt) you will acknowledge that I have taken an essential step forward.
I have been told that you once said that you did not believe it would be of any use to review my works, as I would probably not follow suggestions for improvement. I would certainly not be able to follow directions upon the strength of mere authority, for thus I would become untrue in my own sight, and such a blind following of your suggestions would, I am quite sure, afford you no satisfaction either. But this step forward that I have mentioned consists in just this fact, that hereafter there can be no question of “want to be,” but of “must be”; and across that yawning gulf you have helped me, and therefore it is that I now thank you and always shall thank you.
Hoping that in these lines you will not see anything more or less than our certainly remote acquaintance grants me the privilege of writing, I am,
Your ever thankful
HENRIK IBSEN