From Alma Mahler’s Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters

Thomas Mann to Mahler (fact of interest to the project: Mann’s wife, Katia Pringsheim, was Jewish and converted to Lutheranism)

Bad Tölz, September 1910

My dear Sir,

I was incapable of saying, that evening in the hotel, how deeply indebted to you I was for the impressions of 12th September (the premiere of the 8th Symphony). It is an imperative necessity to make at least some small acknowledgement, and so I beg your acceptance of the book – my latest – which I send you herewith.

It is certainly a very poor return for what I received – a mere feather’s weight in the hand of the man who, as I believe, expresses the art of our time in its profoundest and most sacred form.

It is but a trifle.

Perhaps it may afford you tolerable entertainment for an idle hour or two.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Mann

(The book was his novel, Royal Highness)