Valued friend!
. . . I am glad to hear that you have been cheered by your sojourn on the shores of Lake Geneva. The same places which you mention in your letter are indelibly associated with various periods of my own life. At Hotel Byron in Villeneuve, I passed through one of the most extraordinary catastrophes of my whole life. In Montreux, I made an amazing discovery in regard to a young friend, and four and a half years ago, I sought a winter asylum in Vevey, where I took long walks with the Grand-duke of Baden and discussed German politics and other matters with him.
I now perceive that philology, "weird and gray," has again taken possession of you, and that even diverting excursions into the realm of "style" will be difficult for you. Therefore, let me be also silent on trivial things connected with my own work. By doing this I may possibly be able to deflect your mind from the confusing impressions that surged in upon you from a sphere in which another can, or must, feel himself called upon to give himself up, heart and soul, to the contemplation of this world of ideas.
I am working slowly but "surely" on my music dramas and take great comfort in the thought that when I wrote my Meistersinger, I came in contact with the opera and the theatre for the last time.
Cordial greetings to you.
Source: The Nietzsche-Wagner Correspondence, ed. Elizabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, trans. Caroline V. Kerr (Boni and Liveright, 1921), No. 10