Schopenhauer and the Will to Style 57decide if it would be good enough for Richard" (2? 2,340; Nov. 9,1868).
He put it on in a "heightened mood of fiction."
At the Brockhaus home, Nietzsche encountered a cozy family circle.
Wagner walked up to him, made a series of complimentary remarks, and
inquired how the young man had become acquainted with his music.
The conversation quickly turned to philosophy. With "indescribable
warmth," Wagner spoke of Schopenhauer and called him the only
philosopher to have "grasped the essence of music." Wagner played sev-
eral passages from the Die Meistersinger on the piano. Nietzsche was
enchanted. When the party ended, the maestro shook his hand warmly
and invited Nietzsche to visit his home in Tribschen, near Lucerne, "to
make music and discuss philosophy" (B 2,340; Nov. 9,1868).
Nietzsche's move to Basel put him in the vicinity of Tribschen, pro-
viding the opportunity for a visit to Wagner. He was received with great
cordiality, especially since Wagner gratefully welcomed any proselyte.
After this first visit on Whit Monday of 1869, Nietzsche wrote to
Richard Wagner: "My esteemed Sir, I have been intending to express to
you for some time now the degree of gratitude I feel for you, in forth-
right terms, since I connect the best and loftiest moments of my life
with your name, and I know of only one other man, your great spiritual
brother Arthur Schopenhauer, whom I hold in the same degree of rev-
erence, even retigone quadari" (B 3,8).
There are many anecdotal descriptions of the series of blithe
sojourns at Tribschen that followed this first visit. Nietzsche happily
recalled the walks they took together at the lake, Cosima Wagner
strolling arm in arm with Nietzsche. There was a cozy family evening in
which the whole group read E. T. A. Hoffmann's story 'The Golden
Pot" Wagner dubbed Cosima the enchanting Serpentina of Hoffmann's
story, himself the demonic Archivarius Lindhorst, and Nietzsche the
dreamy and clumsy student Anselmus. For his Christmas visit, Nietzsche
went to great lengths to supply just the right wine glasses, tulle stream-
ers with gold stars and polka dots, a carved Christ Child, and a set of