[c. 1919]
Monsieur,
I was deeply touched by the kind words which you expressed for my preface to the book by Jacques Blanche. Coming from a Master such as you they were very precious to me. I only read the Mercure yesterday as I had just been, and still am, very seriously ill. The state of my health makes it very difficult for me to write. I wished however to thank you and to beg you to accept my feelings of admiration.
Marcel Proust.
Gustave Kahn (1859-1936) was a Symbolist poet and literary critic who had written an appreciation of Proust's preface to Jacques-Émile Blanche's Propos de peintre in the Mercure de France.