Honoured friend,
Rest assured that I was most comforted to have you remember me on my last birthday and that ever since then it has been my repeated desire to let you know how deep an impression your kind remembrance had left behind. The fact that I do so today - after so long a delay! - is - I freely admit - the result more especially of my remembrance of Nietzsche. How could I ever forget this friend of mine who was driven from me so forcefully? Although I constantly had the feeling that, at the time of his association with me, Nietzsche’s life was ruled by a mental spasm, and although it was bound to strike me as odd that this spasm could have produced so spiritually radiant and heart-warming a fire as was manifest in him to the astonishment of all, and although, finally, the ultimate decision which he reached in the inner development of his life filled me with the utmost horror when I saw how intolerable a pressure that spasm was finally causing him - I must no doubt also admit that in the case of so powerful a psychic process it is simply not possible to argue along moral lines and that one’s only response can be a shocked silence.
It saddens me, however, to be so completely excluded from any part in Nietzsche’s life and difficulties. Would it be indiscreet of me to ask you to send me news of our friend? I was particularly anxious to beg this favour of you.
Once again - or, rather, for the first time, I would entreat you to accept my deeply felt thanks for your sincere good wishes on the occasion of my last birthday, and at the same time ask you to convey my wife’s kindest regards to your own dear spouse and, finally, to accept my own good wishes for your continuing prosperity.
With sincere respect,
Your most obedient servant,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 474