Friendly Missive of an Adept of Hermetic Science and Art

-ch nobleman (who had translated into French and published the Introduction to True Physics original: Introitum ad veram Physicam, which had been printed in Latin in Batavia modern-day Jakarta, Indonesia in the East Indies by an English Knight, Mr. von Helbig Johann Otto von Helbig (1654–1698), a German-born physician and alchemist who served the Dutch East India Company, with the corrections of the famous Mr. Robert Boyle) named Mons. le Page de Comershill, with whom I entered into a particular intimacy.

French courtesy—consisting of a heap of choice and unnecessary boastful words, with which, and many strange physical gestures, these people seek to force themselves into the intimate company of others—is, without doubt, not unknown to you. And precisely this kept me also that same evening in the presence of the aforementioned nobleman longer than is my usual custom