My revered master,
Scarcely an hour has elapsed since you left Basle, and a letter is already on the way to your wife, so that I have hopes of the good news reaching her by tomorrow morning.
It seems to me that the moment has come for tightening up the bow so long unstrung. But must this task also fall upon you! Must everything rest upon your shoulders! I feel that my present existence is a reproach, and I ask you frankly if you can make use of my services. Aside from this inquiry, I know of nothing worth reporting at the moment, but many things, very many things, that are worth wishing for and hoping for, my honored master.
Source: The Nietzsche-Wagner Correspondence, ed. Elizabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, trans. Caroline V. Kerr (Boni and Liveright, 1921), No. 26