Waarde van Lennep

Londen, 4 juli 1834

Met vallen en opstaan, maar in bewonderenswaardig korte tijd leerde Van de Linde Engels. Hij oefende zich door in het Engels brieven aan Van Lennep te schrijven. Zijn eerste is aandoenlijk stuntelig.

My dear friend, I hope you will excuse my endeavours to write you an English letter, I am sure the tongue I write you in will have the double advantage to be as difficult to English people to understand as to foreigners; but: Fabricando fabrifimus¹ and I like to be faithfull to my promess, and to undertake with you a correspondence in the native language of Shakespeare and Byron, and I trust you will find me not guilty of having committed the crime of plagiarism, or stolen their beauties by imitating slavely the style of those eminent authors.

[...]

1 Fabricando fabrifimus: al doende leert men.