Dear friend,
Eight days ago we received your new work from the bookdealer and have deliberately devoted three evenings to the reading of the same. I wished to write to you while we were reading it, but the worst thing about it was that the thoughts thereby suggested at once mounted into the hundreds of thousands, until they finally reached the proportions of a veritable dissertation and could not be disposed of within the limitations of a letter.
There was one thing, however, which I should have liked to call out to you briefly. That was, that I am made very proud by the thought of being relieved of the necessity of saying anything in the future, but can now leave everything to you. Everything "in the future"? Yes, one takes fright at the very thought, but nevertheless it is a comfort to know that the subject has been approached in the right way.
You certainly do not expect praise from me! It would be a fine thing, indeed, for me to presume to praise your wit and your fire. My wife always finds just the right tone for anything of that sort, for else why should she be a woman? She will not fail to let you hear from her on the subject.
Now may God bless us all together! Nor will He have a very big task, as there are so few of us.
My big affair will soon be in shape. It will take place in 1876. Full rehearsals next year, as it is imperative that we give ourselves plenty of time.
Our own house will be ready in May, and then your room will always be at your disposal. I hope that sometime you will come here for a good, long rest; there are plenty of mountains nearby. My wife will write very soon; at present she is suffering with her eyes. That seems to be the fashion nowadays. Overbeck is the only one who pleases me, because he does not wear glasses. Give him my best regards, but Gersdorff will always be revered as the absolute ideal.
Cordial greetings.
Source: The Nietzsche-Wagner Correspondence, ed. Elizabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, trans. Caroline V. Kerr (Boni and Liveright, 1921), No. 42