Most revered master,
News reached me today from our Fritzsch in Leipzig, who has kept me in a state of complete mystification by his long silence. I did not know what was expected of me, and it is only now I learn that, even before receiving your words of recommendation, he had turned the manuscript over to one of his staff for critical judgment, and this man, who seems to have been a sad procrastinator, did not return it until November 16.
Now I hear that the printing is to be rushed as rapidly as possible, and Fritzsch makes me the most reassuring promises in regard to the book. There is one passage in his letter which you will have to explain to me. He says: "In the meantime you will have thought over the question of the financial arrangement, and it is possible that Herr Wagner may have made some suggestions to you in regard to this."
If you were here you would find me almost buried under a pile of ponderous tomes from which I am brewing a Latin epigraph for my students, or surrounded by hundreds of volumes of Plato, by the aid of which I hope to initiate my hearers into the study of this philosopher. Whenever I raise my head from this mountain of books, I immediately hear something that is taking place in Bologna, or is up for discussion in the city council of Bayreuth, or the Academy calls attention to itself by sending me an essay by Franz Hueffer, the pseudo-Englishman, or a review of Fuchs' Preliminaries of the Art of Music, or my eye falls upon an astounding advertisement signed by my friend Gersdorff, etc. In short, I only need to listen with half an ear in order to remain fully informed as to your movements and all the external tokens of your existence.
I hold my last visit to Tribschen in affectionate remembrance and realize full well how much I owe to my good geniuses; not long ago, I offered up a libation with a bottle of red wine, pronouncing the spoken words Χαίρετε δαίμονες. This solemn ceremony took place simultaneously in Basle, Kiel and Berlin, and it is safe to say that each one of us had you in mind, for what could we ask of our good geniuses, and what do we owe them, which is not closely and intimately associated with your name!
Source: The Nietzsche-Wagner Correspondence, ed. Elizabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, trans. Caroline V. Kerr (Boni and Liveright, 1921), No. 18